Scot's Book

We begin a series of posts on Scot McKnight’s book titled Fasting (Thomas Nelson: 2009) with Foreword by Phyllis Tickle in “The Ancient Practices Series.”

Frankly, I was a little skeptical about another book on fasting. As part of the renewal of the church (spearheaded by the so-called ‘third wave’ in the 1980s), I had read a lot of books on fasting. As part of my D. Min. studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in the history and practice of the spiritual disciplines, I read a lot about fasting. What could Scot McKnight offer?

I was stunned from the beginning. Why? Dr. McKnight in clear, gentle observations simply informed me that almost all the books I had read on fasting were misguided from the start. He doesn’t say they were wrong or unprofitable or dangerous; simply misguided. How so?

Most books on fasting concern results. If I do the “Daniel fast” or a juice fast or an absolute fast, most writers will inform me of what I’ll get out of those fasts: closer communion with God, sharper insight into my own soul, discernment in life, etc. All this is well and good until you search the Scriptures. Scot McKnight searched the Scriptures. Here’s what he learned: the biblical data do not focus on, emphasize, or catalogue fasting’s results. The laser-light focus of the Scriptures is on the cause for fasting. To paraphrase Scot: Fasting is the natural human response to sacred, momentous grief or weighty reality. With his skillful teacher’s way (e.g., his A-B-C summary), Scot has a way of messing up traditional categories.

Fasting is natural?! Almost all reading I’ve done has made fasting out to be an imposition on human nature. I never contemplated that fasting is a “natural” human response.

Grief? I want to fast for fun, for insight, for intensified spiritual power, for that feel-good-feeling that I am really, really practicing a spiritual discipline. Grief?? What’s up with that? So, Scot leads me through the Scriptures helping me reframe most of what the “experts” have written on fasting.

By the way: Scot defines fasting as not ingesting food and water. It’s not about abstaining from media (TV, computer, movies, iPods, reading novels, etc). Phooey! Another trendy definition of fasting bites the dust. Thanks, Scot.

As many other biblical thinkers point out, Scot makes us aware of a controlling dualism in Western spirituality. An old heresy called gnosticism still lurks in our finest ‘Christian’ spiritualities. It’s a heresy that splits what God has united. The heart of the error is this: the body (matter) is bad/evil and the spirit/soul is good. With this latent error Western evangelicalism has been afraid of the body because it will lead us to sin or to all manner of bodily misconduct. (A view still controlling a lot of youth ministry.) Western Christians don’t have a valid role for the human body in spirituality. Is your body a monster to be tamed, a celebrity to be pampered, a cornucopia to be filled, or a wallflower to be ignored? We imagine that we have this carnal lump of clay hampering our purer, higher spirit’s desires. How different is the Bible’s description of the body’s role in response to God and to the vicissitudes of life.

From Scot’s opening chapters, I come away with this: traditional views of fasting with their focus on results make us turn inward. Toward ourselves. What can I get, can we get out of the discipline of fasting? Scot suggests that question gets us off on the wrong foot. We need to be attentive to life, to God, to weighty seasons of grief. We need to be asking “How does God feel about this sacred moment of grief or trauma or serious experience?” How can we join with God? Fasting is not about us. It is about God.

What do you think? Are you fixed on fasting’s results?

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