More and more Protestants are beginning to see Lent as less and less of a "papist" barnacle on the barque of the Christian Church and instead something to which they feel called to observe.
"So, how did Catholic Lenten traditions spread across the border [to Protestantism]? For one thing, the boundaries between traditions are not what they used to be. Crossing them is a steady traffic of believers and seekers. Want to meet someone who was raised Catholic? Try an evangelical megachurch, or the local United Church of Christ. About one-third of believers change churches at least once, according to commonly cited studies. Inevitably, all this changing of churches ends up changing the churches, as people bring bits of their worship traditions with them. Catholic liturgy has appropriated pop music and hand-holding in evangelical style. So, maybe it’s not that surprising that more Protestants are now dipping into the well of Catholic ritual and devotions. In that sense, Lent may be part of a trend: Check out the Ecumenical Miracle Rosary, which recasts Catholic devotional beads for Protestant use by eliminating those troublesome Hail Marys.
"Observing Lent is also part of a Protestant move in the last generation toward more classical forms of spiritual discipline. The hugely influential 1978 book Celebration of Discipline, by Quaker theologian Richard J. Foster, encouraged churchgoers to rediscover fasting and meditation in ‘answer to a hollow world’ and as a way to turn toward God. Some questing Protestants started making like monks, practicing silence and solitude. All this was made more palatable by the improved relations between Catholics and Protestants that followed the Second Vatican Council reforms of the 1960s.
"Perhaps it’s the things that made Lent hard to take as a Catholic kid — the solemnity, the self-denial, the disappearance of hot dogs from the lunchroom — that account most for the season’s broadening appeal. I was schooled to see Lent as a time apart, a respite from the daily pursuit of self-gratification. That apartness seems not unlike the ‘inward and spiritual reality’ that Foster suggested could be found in the ancient disciplines. Catholics have for so long thought of themselves as the defenders of ritual — the masters of incense, genuflection, and splendor — that it still seems strange to be sharing ash-wearing with Presbyterians and Methodists. But our shared affection of late for some of the old ways of worship represents a small victory for mystery, ritual, and awe. Now if we could just come to ecumenical agreement about the evils of frozen fish sticks."
Perhaps the main reason why Lent is migrating again is because the human heart sees in it a helpful spiritual discipline in which the Christian believer may draw near to Christ. That human longing for asceticism as a spiritual discipline may be stifled but cannot be smothered. The renewal of Lent in Protestant circles goes to show that when a wheel is useful enough, it will be reinvented.
