Lent, Protestant Evangelicals, and Time

Here is a quotation from D.H. Williams, an ordained Baptist pastor who taught for many years at The University of Chicago (Catholic), regarding Tradition/Church history and the Holy Spirit:

"It is time for Protestant evangelicals to reconsider much more seriously the work of the Holy Spirit in the whole history of the church. This will mean that we will understand the ministry of the Spirit not as a privately emerging force in individuals as much as the primary Actor in the church's actus tradendi, the living transmission and acceptance of the apostolic message in the body of Christ. It is through this corporate and 'horizontal' process that our individual ('vertical') encounter with the Holy Spirit is shaped and nurtured. Following the way of discipleship cannot function as Christian discipleship in isolation from the guidance which the Spirit has provided through Spirit-led men and women in the church's past. A dizzying array of options are available for anyone who seeks privatized or small group spirituality, and some of these closely mimic Christianity. But only through Scripture and the consensual Tradition will the believer be enabled to find spiritual living that is within the shelter of the orthodox faith of the church" (from Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, pp. 69-70, boldtype mine).

I am including this quotation in today's post because, of course, today is the beginning of the Lenten season. And historically, Protestants, being those who tend toward suspicion when it comes to tradition, often make little of seasons like Lent--seeing them as vestiges of a Catholic-dominated past from which we wish to escape. But we were created in time (see Gen. 1--"seasons" come before the creation of man) and seasons are helpful to us. We, however, live in a culture that attempts (largely due to consumeristic agendas, etc.) to smear the distinctions between times and seasons (24hr. businesses, and so on). Nevertheless, we cannot escape our creaturehood, and it seems to me that the more we attempt to live apart from creation and reject the undulation of time and the necessity of seasons, the worse off we are.

Here's a link to a helpful guide for Lent from Christ Church (Episcopal) in Plano, TX.