- While you wait for the Intrvw w/ @ScotMcKnight Our revws of his 2 most recent bks BLUE PARAKEET http://tr.im/o1er /FASTING http://tr.im/o1fa
- Welcome to the Englewood Review twinterview with Scot McKnight ( @ScotMcKnight ), professor, blogger, and author of many books…
- We are talking today with Scot about his newest book FASTING ( @ThomasNelson 2009 ) Welcome Scot!
- @scotmcknight I know from experience that fasting is difficult for most people. So, why should we even pick up your book?
- @ERBks I’m hoping this book will shed some light on the abuses of fasting and the misunderstandings that have slipped in.
- Fasting, I believe, is natural and inevitable. When it becomes a chore or difficult something’s gone wrong.
- @scotmcknight E.g., most Christians are familiar with fasting (and praying) for a specific end. Why is this view of fasting misguided?
- Fasting “in order to get” is an instrumental view of fasting. Fasting becomes something we “use” to get what we want.
- The emphasis in the Bible is not on “use this instrument and you will get what you want.” Instead, the emphasis in the Bible is different.>
- There are three elements of every event of fasting: A is the situation. B is fasting itself. C is the result.>
- Our tendency is to start with B and hope we get to C. In fact, some say you will get C if you fast (B).>
- The overwhelming emphasis in the Bible is not a B to C movement. This was my most exciting discovering in writing this book on Fasting>
- The emphasis is on A (the situation) that prompts or even drives the person to B (fasting).
- So, the way I put it is like this: when the ancient Israelite encountered a grievous, sacred moment — like death, like a famine>
- like the prospect of war, that person’s natural response was to fast (B). So, A leads to B — and that’s the Bible’s emphasis.>
- @scotmcknight Yes, this seems to me like a necessary corrective to how we view fasting.
- There’s a huge implication: we need to avoid motivating folks to fast so they can get something.>
- We need, instead, to focus on situations for which the normal and natural response is to fast. >
- The primal example is when someone you love dies. What do we do? We don’t eat. We go into “fasting” mode naturally. That’s the secret >
- to grasping what fasting in the Bible is all about.
- @scotmcknight Your view of fasting is built on the unity of a person – body, soul, mind. How do we begin to recognize/embrace such a unity?
- @ERBks Good question. Let me turn this around a bit: Westerners are by and large Platonists. They draw big thick lines between body and …>
- @ERBks Am I doing this right?
- @scotmcknight Yes, you’re doing great… it will be easier to read though if all posts begin with @ERBks
- @ERBks between body and soul. Or between body and spirit. The body is of less value. Soul and spirit are preeminent.
- Platonists have little reason to fast or to inflict the body. Why? The body doesn’t matter.
- What happened for Platonists was that they fasted in order to suppress — mightily at times — the body of its desires.
- But this cuts in half the person.
- The person in the Bible has dimensions not parts. We are body-ish and soul-ish and spirit-ish. Fasting is transformed>
- from spirit disciplining body when we see ourselves as a unity and organic.
- Fasting becomes whole body response to a grievous sacred moment.
- @ERBks In the 2d and 3d centuries, fasting got tied up with the Platonic developments.>
- @ERBks Then fasting became too much spirit punishing body — Jerome is one of the big offenders.
- @scotmcknight If fasting is a natural response to grief, how do we even begin, in a culture of amusement/diversion, to recognize our grief?
- @ERBks Wow, that’s an interesting question.
- @ERBks First, we do grieve over death and over losses and over tragedies. So, we’ve got a firm footing in these sorts of events in life.
- @ERBks Let’s then, second, learn to see other events as grief-inducing — like sin and family strife and bad relations …
- @ERBks Then I’m suggesting that we can learn to see fasting as a “response” instead of an “instrument.”
- @ERBks My concern is to recover the “responsive” nature of fasting and to get us back on track in that regard.
- @ERBks It seems whenever I talk about fasting I get hung up in the discussion of whether the Bible teaches an instrumental view.>
- @ERBks I’m not convinced the Bible does teach an instrumental theory of fasting. I’m convinced the Church has made that its emphasis.>
- @ERBks If we can recover the Bible’s emphasis on fasting as (1) response and (2) whole body spirituality, we will be in better shape.
- @ERBks One more: living in a culture of amusement and diversion ought not to make humans non-responsive to grievous moments.
- @scotmcknight Yes, let’s hope and pray that we can recover this perspective on fasting! Next question…
- @scotmcknight What is the most pertinent caution that you can offer churches about the practice of fasting?
- @ERBks First, no one should fast beyond 12 hours without talking to his or her doctor. Fasting more than 12 hours is not good for the body.
- @ERBks Second, two MDs said this to me: Never teach teenagers, especially teenage girls, to fast. Anorexia nervosa was the issue for both MD
- @ERBks Third, I’d urge us to recover the responsive nature of fasting and subdue the instrumental view.
- @ERBks One more: Let’s try to recover “seasonal” fasting (Lent, etc) as a “response” to something. During Lent, of course, to sin.
- @scotmcknight Yes, I appreciated the sensibility of the medical wisdom that you brought into the conversation about fasting.
- @ERBks Thanks. My wife is a psychologist and I’ve lost a student to anorexia nervosa.
- @scotmcknight Maybe you just answered this with your point about Lent, but … >
- @scotmcknight Many forms of fasting you describe are corporate but how can a church with no sense of fasting begin to develp such practices?
- @ERBks That’s another good one. Thanks.>
- @ERBks Let me suggest that we get the leaders to fast intentionally and to discuss it — so get the leaders into the experienced mode.
- @ERBks Then gather round the leaders those in the church who are experienced fasters for more discussion.>
- @ERBks Out of that experiential and theological basis — and have them read my book! — do some teaching on fasting.
- @ERBks Then the folks can fasting together in an informed manner.
- @scotmcknight (BTW, I have my church in mind here, and I bet others are in a similar place!) 🙂
- @ERBks I’d avoid like the plague making folks feel guilty about fasting. This isn’t a high priority command in the New Testament.
- @scotmcknight This bk is in the Ancient Practices series. Is there 1 figure/era of church history that is particularly significant for you?
- @scotmcknight WRT fasting, that is… sorry hit up against my 140 character limit…
- @ERBks From my emphasis, you can see I’ve focused on recovering the Biblical stuff. But…>
- @ERBks John Wesley was very good on fasting, even if he had one event that caused great consternation.>
- @ERBks And, as I say in the book, Adalbert de Vogue — however you spell it — is very good too. I like John Piper’s book, too.
- @scotmcknight Thanks! Did researching and writing this book change your own practices of fasting? And if so, how?
- @ERBks Yes, though I had seen how important the “responsive” element was, this book sealed that for me.>
- @ERBks I began to fast on mornings I was writing as a response to my need for God’s grace and wisdom as I wrote.>
- @ERBks And the notion of heroic fasts — where the emphasis is on how long — lost all attraction for me.
- @scotmcknight If I may, which one of the forms of fasting (body contact,hope,etc) that you describe in this bk is most challenging for you?
- @ERBks I don’t do the “body contact” mode of fasting because, for me, it is far too instrumental in approach.
- @ERBks And I should say that I don’t have a routine fasting rhythm: what I call Body Discipline in the book.>
- @ERBks Which means I don’t have one day a week where I fast, or even one day a month. I tend to rely on responding to something…>
- @ERBks as that which triggers fasting for me.
- @scotmcknight Thx so much for talking with us today! 1 last question that I can’t resist as one interested in bks and missional reading:
- @scotmcknight If you could recommend one other essential book on fasting, what would that be?
- @ERBks One other essential book? I think the book by de Vogue, though too much into a monk’s lifestyel, is the best.
- @ERBks But the best — most complete — is by Kent Berghuis. Rigorous and theologcally sound.
- Tweetie told me I’m tweeting too much!
- @scotmcknight LOL! Any last thoughts?
- @ERBks Nope, this was fun. I hope it helps some who follow Twitter.
- Thanks again @ScotMcKnight and thanks to all who have been following our conversation! Be sure to check out Scot’s book! http://tr.im/o3dj
- And if you haven’t seen it, my review of Scot’s book is here: https://englewoodreview.org/…
- @ERBks Thanks brother.
- Our next twinterview will be with @DavidDark on his book THE SACREDNESS OF QSTNG EVERYTHING Next Monday 6/15 Time: TBD
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
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