p. 8 (184) | CHRISTIANITY AND LENT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 12.

CHRISTIANITY AND LENT.

The Scriptures speak of the religion, the Gospel, the life, the power of Jesus Christ, but not of Lent. The converted soul is begotten from above, within. It finds more joy in communion with God than in all outward show—all elaborate, ornate, vain display. In fact, it is well known that elaborate, outward display has always increased as spirituality has decreased. When the church departed from the power and simplicity of the early apostolic church, outward pomp and ceremony, elaboration and ornamentation increased till the costly architecture, the elaborate ritual, the ornate ceremonies bore silent witness to a decadent faith, a church dead in trespasses and sins.

The tendency of the Protestant churches to-day to ape the ritualistic bodies is a sad confession of their fallen condition. But they are doing it. The Indianapolis News, of February 25, has the following true but striking editorial, headed “Lent”:—

Never before, since the days prior to the Reformation, have so many Christian people, relative to the whole number of Christians, observed Lent as will observe it this year. Some of the most prominent representatives of the non-liturgical churches have sent out an address urging the holding of more frequent services, the keeping of church open, and special effort in the development of the religious life.

In this city the Methodists have resolved to keep Lent. At the meeting of Methodist ministers held the other day, at which the decision was made, the Rev. Worth M. Tippy said that he wanted “to get in touch with historic Christianity,” while Dr. Stansfield said that the Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians had given to Lent such an atmosphere as to adapt it admirably to the work that it was proposed to do.

One of the papers representing a church which has not hitherto made much of times and seasons commends all this unreservedly. It insists that all Christians need the church year, and that Lent is a part of it that has been too long neglected. It argues that in keeping Christmas and Easter all Christians have in principle recognized the Christian year, and that Lent is quite as much worthy of observance as Easter—which is, of course, true. But even more important than this is the encouragement that a combined observance of Christian feasts and fasts gives to church or Christian unity. This must be clear to all. Every common practise or common act participated in by Christians tends to bring them closer together and to give them a better understanding of one another. That Sunday has had this effect can not be doubted. We all read the same book, think the same thoughts, hold, in essence, much the same beliefs—in a word, we are all Christians. It is so with the great sacraments of the church. They, too, were intended to be, and are, unifiers.

And now we come to this widespread observance of Lent, and it should have the same effect. But those who observe Lent should do so honestly and with a sincere purpose to profit by it. To mean anything to a man, he must keep in mind the great event which the season commemorates. If he really does that he can hardly trifle with so solemn an institution.

Yet let all Biblical readers understand that all the sacredness that attaches to Lent is wholly imaginary. Concerning it the Lord, as of old, may truly ask, “Who hath required this at your hands?” All the good that a Christian can get out of Lent he can and should get at all other times as well. Getting “in touch with historic Christianity” is utterly to ignore the work of God in the Reformation and going back to Roman Catholicism.