Borrowing Lent? A Case Against Protestant Participation

 Borrowing Lent?

I’ve noticed in the last several years, an uptick of evangelical Christians embracing the practice of Lent.  

In this article, I will explain why I don't recommend the practice by considering Lent and Christian freedom, Christian history, Christian discipleship, and New Testament Teaching. 

Lent and Christian Freedom 

There is Christian freedom to celebrate holy days and Christian freedom to not celebrate holy days (Rom 14). “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” 

If evangelicals wish to take the 40 days leading up to Easter as time to fast, reflect, and pray, they have freedom to do so.  Christian freedom has another angle: we should not bind the consciences of God’s people with a belief or practice that is not authorized by either the clear statement of Scripture or by good and necessary inference of Scripture. If we are going to command a practice, it is not enough to not have a prohibition against it; we need a warrant for it. 

Which is to say, while an individual Christian is free to take 40 days before Easter to fast from something, no church has the authority to require or command what Scripture does not require or command. 

Christian freedom and Scriptural authority go hand-in-hand. By limiting conscience-binding authority to Scripture, biblical authority protects freedom of conscience, while also restraining the tendency of church authorities and institutions to come up with extra-biblical practices and beliefs.  

Lent and Christian History 

So, in short, if individual evangelicals wish to practice a form of Lent, they have freedom to do so. But as was the case in Romans 14, the optional practice of the Jewish holy days in that context could readily lead back into legalism--something that Paul warns against in places like Galatians 4:9-11. 

In the same way, the practice of Lent, understood within its Roman Catholic context, is part of a larger theological system that is inconsistent with a Protestant Evangelical understanding of the gospel, sanctification, and grace. Lent arose in the early centuries of Christian practice as a time of pre-baptismal penance for new converts in the lead up to Easter. Over time, it grew into a season of abstention, fasting, enmeshed with Roman Catholic sacerdotalism. 

In Roman Catholic theology, Lent is a season of penance,  linked to the notion of temporal punishment of sin. While eternal guilt is removed through absolution, temporal consequences remain and may be remitted through penitential acts. Catholic teaching distinguishes between the eternal guilt of sin—remitted through sacramental absolution—and temporal punishment, which remains and may be addressed through acts of penance, charity, and devotion. Lent functions in Catholic theology as an act of satisfaction for sin. In short, it is cooperative framework for sanctification and temporal satisfaction. 

All these realities run counter to the gospel of the New Testament, in which believers are saved by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone (Rom 4:5; Eph 2:8-10; Titus 3:5). In the New Testament, satisfaction is rooted, not in human penance, but in Christ’s all-sufficient, once-for-all sacrifice on the cross (Hebrews 10:14) to which nothing can be added. While Protestants rightly affirm the once-for-all sufficiency of Christ sacrifice on the cross, Catholics understand fasting, abstinence, and other practices to be our cooperation with God’s grace for maintenance of justification. 

Most evangelicals advocating for the practice of Lent understand the gospel, and simply wish to “borrow Lent,” extracting it from its theological and historical context, redefining it in a way that fits Protestant Evangelical theology, and still call it Lent. 

If you extract the spiritual practice from its theological system, the meaning of it fundamentally changes. Strip away the anti-gospel theology of merit, penance, absolution, and synergistic salvation from the practice of Lent, and it is no longer Lent. These theological beliefs are not barnacles attached to the hull of Catholic spirituality; they are the ship itself. 

Take away the theology from the practice, and it is no longer “Lent.” A Protestant Evangelical celebrating Lent is akin to a British person saying, “I’m going to celebrate the Fourth of July, with fireworks and parades, I’m just not going to go along with icky part about the Colonies rebelling against Great Britain.” It’s not really the 4th of July anymore. Just as you can’t separate the history of July 4th from the celebration of July 4th, I argue that you cannot separate the theology from the practice of Lent. 

Lent and Christian Discipleship

The strongest argument in favor borrowing Lent is that, at its best, Lent is simply a framework for carrying out the biblical commands and pattern for fasting (Matthew 6; Acts 13), repentance (Psalm 51, 32), and taking the opportunity afforded by the annual celebration of Easter to reflect on 40 days of fasting Jesus experienced in the wilderness. All of this commendable. 

However, the question is not, “Can Christians fast before Easter?”  But “Should Christians adopt extra-biblical spiritual practices rooted in unbiblical theological systems?” Tools are not always neutral. As noted above, there is significant theological freight that comes in the railroad cars of Lent. The theology is shaped by the practice, and vice versa. Lent is not merely about fasting; it actively shapes our view of time and spiritual imagination. 

The practice arises from the assumption that some time is more sacred than other times and that external practices necessarily shape the soul. I would not immediately embrace these assumptions, and indeed, there are sound reasons to question them. Texts like Colossians 2:16-17 demonstrates that Christ has fulfilled the calendar, meaning that the Lord’s Day is the only recording covenant marker. 

My point here is simply to note that the very structure of Lent undermines the reality of fulfillment by implementing the kind of structure that Christ’s cross-work fulfilled. It introduces a pattern absent in Scripture rooted in traditions that Scripture itself contradicts. 

Lent and New Testament Teaching 

When we consider the key question, namely, what the New Testament teaches about practices like Lent, we have first to grapple with the fact that there is no command, precedent, or pattern for the practice of Lent anywhere in the New Testament.  While Scripture encourages voluntary personal fasting, prayer, and meditation (Matthew 6:1-18), there is no warrant for calendar-driven approaches to fasting and piety. 

Additionally, the New Testament, forbids elevating human traditions as if they were divine commands (Mark 7:6-8), and it strongly warns a version of the Christian life that adheres to rituals and shadows. In fact, New Testament texts that discuss holy days and seasons, are decidedly against adopting such systems. 

While it is quite true that Old Testament Israel had a system of festivals and fasts, under the New Covenant, all the types and shadows of Israel’s festivals and holy days are fulfilled in Jesus. Weekly worship on the Lord’s day is the only corporate celebration we see in the New Testament. The creation of a liturgical calendar is a mirroring of Israel’s worship under the Old Covenant that Jesus explicitly fulfilled in every regard (Matthew 5:17-20; Hebrews 10:1). 

Consider three texts in particular: 

• Galatians 4:9-11: “But now that you have come to know God… how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world…? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.”  

• Colossians 2:16-17: “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” 

• 1 Timothy 4:1-5: In later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons… who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving…”

All three denounce systems of religious practice that define spirituality in terms of calendar and diet. 

To be clear, Paul’s concern is not voluntary, individual fasting or devotion. Rather, his concern is the reintroduction of a rituals and calendars as spiritually normative for believers under the New Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, the religious calendar pointed forward to Jesus. Under the New Covenant, Christ fulfills the calendar--and no new calendar is introduced in the New Testament. Under the New Covenant, the typology of Israel’s festivals, Sabbaths, and sacred seasons find their fulfillment in Christ and no other system of festivals or sacred seasons is put in its place. As Colossians 2:16–17 affirms, these shadows no longer bind the conscience; the substance belongs to him.”

Reestablishing a set seasons of fasting or abstention for the church risks returning to very structures that Jesus fulfilled and the New Covenant transformed.  When Christians take up the practice of Lent, they risk reenacting the very dynamic that Paul opposes--not because “Lent=Judaism,” but because the underlying structure of a calendar-bound and externally-defined spirituality operates on the same premises, and thus subtly undermines the freedom of the gospel. 

Conclusion: While Christian freedom permits voluntary fasting and the observance of particular days, it forbids binding consciences through corporate imposition of practices Scripture does not require. Evangelicals must carefully evaluate the spiritual rhythms they adopt, recognizing the theological assumptions embedded within them. Well-intentioned imitation of liturgical structures, even for discipleship, can unintentionally reintroduce patterns rooted in the Old Covenant or in extra-biblical systems. We are far better off resting in—and celebrating—the freedom we have in Christ. Our worship is not defined by calendars or abstentions, but by the reality these shadows foreshadowed: the full sufficiency of Christ’s work, freely applied to all who trust him.