The Scandal of Lent in an Era of Self-Justification

Lent is an annual period of a little more than a month that precedes Easter on the Christian calendar. Easter, of course, is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Lent represents a spiritual preparation for that celebration: it is a period of personal repentance. The fact that these details must be clarified for some readers is one more indicator of the rapid secularization of American society. There was a time only a few decades ago when the average citizen could be assumed to know these things. Today, one can't be too sure. Not only has the number of Americans who identify as Christians decreased dramatically in recent years -- many of those who still profess the faith no longer participate in any personal observance of Lent. Instead, they wait for Easter, when they might pop up at church for the Easter egg hunt after the kids have found their baskets at home. The fading of Lent as a feature of public life in America is regrettable. But it is not a surprise: no other Christian tradition is so diametrically opposed to the dominant values and assumptions of contemporary American zeitgeist.