Wesley was one of the most balanced leaders in the history of the church when it came to the necessity of personal conversion and evangelism along with a powerful commitment to social justice and help for the poor. He was one of the few in the history of the church who was both an evangelist and was really committed to social justice -- very admirable.
Yet, we've fallen so far away from such calls to truly demanding spiritual living. How did we drift so far away in many branches of Christianity from true fasting?
I believe that fasting has fallen away not because we're not reading the Bible but because we've become so disembodied in our spirituality that when we see these scenes of David or Paul or Moses or Daniel fasting, our response is along the lines of: Hey, that's really cool! That's the way they did things in those days!
I'm saying that we should try to enter into their experiences. We should fast. But we're so disembodied in our spirituality now. We're not careless in reading the Bible. We just don't see what it's really saying.
But if we look -- it's right there.
This article was originally published at Read The Spirit and is reprinted with permission.
David Crumm is an author, journalist, and filmmaker with more than twenty years experience as a Religion Writer for the Detroit Free Press, Knight-Ridder newspapers, and Gannett. Crumm is now the Editor of ReadTheSpirit -- a new online home for important voices in religion and spirituality.
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