To Eat or Not To Eat (Overview of Fasting by Scot McKnight)

In seminary I worked for a professor who has published many popular-level books on fasting. By his own accounting, the books he wrote on fasting sold more than any of his other books combined. The approach this man presented, however, was similar to what McKnight brands "the Traditional Christian understanding of fasting."

This approach, according to McKnight, assumes three predictable phases:

Phase 1: Something sacred occurs (sacred meaning set apart from the normal). This could be a death or illness in the family, a change in job and so on.
Phase 2: You stop eating (start fasting).
Phase 3: You get results.

The gist of McKnight's thought is that the biblical story has no phase three when it comes to fasting. In fact, when it's rightly practiced the discipline of fasting is organically connected to the holistic condition of our humanness. McKnight writes, "[A] unified perception of body, soul, spirit, and mind creates a spirituality that includes the body. For this kind of body image, fasting is natural. Fasting is the body talking what the spirit yearns, what the soul longs for, and what the mind knows to be true. It is body talk – not the body simply talking for the spirit, for the mind or for the soul in some symbolic way, but for the person, the whole person, to express himself or herself completely" (p. 11).


So rather than the traditional view, McKnight insists the phases are more like this:
Phase 1: Something sacred happens
Phase 2: You stop eating as response to the sacred moment.
There is no phase three.

In summary:
This is a good book - not too deep, too shallow, or impractical. Your body reacts to the sacred moment. All of who you are (your "self") participates in the moment. By abstaining from food, you actually forge a space to respond with God to the sacredness of that moment.



disclaimer: In exchange for this review, I was given a complimentary copy of this book by Thomas Nelson Publishers. All opinions, however, are my own.