This week is the beginning of Lent, a forty day fast in preparation for the Lord’s resurrection, a season also characterized, at least online, by forty days of parody, pointed criticism, and conflict between believers who observe Lent and Reformed Christians who reject it. Lent is an ancient practice, already well-established by the Council of Nicea in AD 325. But it grew increasingly corrupt during the medieval period, and the Reformers criticized it as one part of a larger system of tradition and superstition that was without biblical warrant. Many of the Puritans rejected it altogether, along with the rest of the Church’s traditional calendar. Reformed believers today are divided on the propriety and usefulness of the tradition, and that division is sometimes sharp and even personal.
I have never observed Lent, and I am not recommending the practice here. I would vigorously oppose its establishment as a required service in our congregation, regarding that as an unbiblical intrusion upon liberty of conscience. I can tell my congregation it is God’s revealed will for them to gather for worship on the Lord’s Day. I cannot make the same claim for Ash Wednesday or any special Lenten service. The religious calendar in the New Covenant is much simpler than the Old Testament Church or the medieval Roman system. The New Covenant calendar has one holy day on it, and it comes around fifty-two times each year.
At the same time, I do not interpret the Regulative Principle in such a way as to forbid the Church or individuals setting aside special days and seasons of lamentation, repentance, prayer, and worship. The OPC Book of Church Order rightly affirms:
Under the gospel, we are commanded to keep no other particular day holy, except the Lord's Day. Nevertheless, God's people may observe special occasions as the dispensations of God's providence administer cause and opportunity. Such observance is both consonant with Scripture and pastorally appropriate. (DPW V)
Prayer and fasting may be observed by private individuals and families at their discretion or by the Church at the discretion of the appropriate judicatory. (DPW V.A.5)
It is especially appropriate on days of prayer and fasting called by the Church that the people of God gather for a time of prayer, the singing of psalms and hymns, and the reading and preaching of the Word of God. Let them lament their distress or unworthiness before the Lord, confess their sins, humbly implore the Lord for deliverance from the judgment present or imminent or for the blessing sought, and commit themselves anew to the faithful service of the Lord their God. It is fitting on such days that God's people abstain from food and from such activities as may distract from their solemn engagement in prayer. (DPW V.A.4)
My heartfelt desire and ambition is to be biblical, orthodox, catholic, and reformed. I grew up in and eventually left a tradition that prided itself on being unlike every other Christian tradition through most of the last two thousand years. I have no desire to ever be part of such a tradition again. The Scots Presbyterian Church is not the only Reformed tradition, and its antipathy toward the evangelical feast days is an unnecessary, and arguably unhelpful, custom. We can be unapologetically Reformed and unwaveringly committed to sola Scriptura while admitting our relation to the broader, historic Church and marking significant days in redemptive history. We can and should critique and reject practices that are contrary to the revealed religion of Christ, even while making careful distinctions lest we mistake a sermon on Christ’s resurrection in April as akin to addressing the pastoral prayer to the Virgin Mary.
Scripture is our ultimate and final authority, but we receive, read, and respond to Scripture within the community, history, and tradition of the Church. If our interpretation of the Bible is unprecedented or contrary to the majority report across multiple traditions throughout most of the Church’s history, we need to carefully re-examine our conclusions. At the end of the day, nothing is right because it is old or adopted by most. Scripture is the test of orthodoxy. But Christ promised to build and preserve his Church (Matt. 16:18), and we can trust that his Church, though imperfect, has endured in faith and worship throughout time.
Lent is certainly an ancient and widely attested tradition. It is not a biblically commanded one. It may be lawful for a believer to observe Lent in humbling himself before Christ, but it should not be practiced at the expense or to the neglect of the reading of the Law and confession of sin on the Lord’s Day and the daily examination and repentance in which the Psalms lead us. Piety begins with and continues in obedience. Whatever else may be helpful as an aid to a life of worship, that life must always be grounded in what the Lord commanded. --JME
Resources
Michael Horton offered a few thoughts on the subject in 2010. His comments are balanced and helpful.
Jonathan Landry Cruse asked appropriate questions in Modern Reformation in 2020.
James Merrick’s response to Carl Trueman and the latter’s rejoinder in 2015 is an informative exchange. You can find those pieces HERE and HERE (and the original essay by Trueman, which I think is less helpful, HERE).
