For forgiveness and restoration

Americans have a public holiday for giving thanks. Since 1863, we have set aside (nearly) every fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. The holiday has precursors going back to our founding and before. Those days contained a fundamentally religious element, since our ultimate thanks must rise in praise to God as the ultimate source of our blessings. In the past, and among some today, Thanksgiving continues to include public worship by Christ’s Church as well.

While we have kept a day of thanks, we largely have lost practice of its sorrowful sisters: days of public fasting and humiliation. On such days, people also have the opportunity to rest from their normal work. They also can engage in public worship together. But they do so for a very different reason. Rather than feast, they fast. Instead of gratefulness, people acknowledge the possibility of Divine displeasure for their sins, communal and individual. Not focusing on blessings, people consider God’s chastisements for wickedness. Often these days are called by public authority in response to calamity or danger wherein we might see such Divine judgment.

As with days of thanksgiving, Americans have observed days of public fast and humiliation since colonial times. We see them as early as Plymouth in 1622 after months of drought. They continued during events such as King Phillips War (1675-1676). Thomas Jefferson wrote the proclamation for such a day in response to the 1774 blockade of Boston Harbor.

After independence, this practice continued on the national and state levels. Gov. Samuel Adams called for a day of fasting and humiliation in 1795 for the state of Massachusetts. His cousin, President John Adams, proclaimed one on May 9, 1798, in reaction to ongoing tensions and potential war with France. In the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln set several days of public fasting and humiliation. Though rare, the practice even continued into the 20th and even 21st centuries. Congress proclaimed a day for April 30, 1974. Gov. Rick Perry did so for Texas on August 6, 2011 in response to “our Nation’s challenges” and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee proclaimed a day for fasting and prayer as recently as September of last year.

We would do well to recover this tradition. Doing so would not violate the First Amendment as some might ridiculously claim. The government’s role would be encouraging voluntary participation, not coercing religious practice. And the Supreme Court has consistently held that longstanding traditions of public displays of religious belief do not establish a religion.

Instead, we would retrieve important moral goods. Through their observation, we would acknowledge God’s kingship over history, over man, over the world. The Psalms repeat the claim of God’s eternal rule over all the earth (10:16; 22:8; 45:6; 47:2,7). He has not left His creation to moral chaos. Instead, He is preserving that creation and ultimately recreating it toward the New Heavens and New Earth. In so doing, He continues to execute justice and righteousness, punishing evil, rewarding the good, and preserving the innocent (Psalm 89:14). In our own republic, we can talk of rulers in godlike fashion, especially when we speak of the “sovereign people.” Days of fasting and humiliation remind us of the true King whose justice defines our own and whose rule is the ground for all human government (Romans 13:1-7).

Moreover, doing so would declare that God deals with political communities, not just the church or individuals. President Lincoln emphasized this point in his 1863 proclamation of a fast day, writing “we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world.” So believing does not entail thinking America stands in some unique covenantal relationship to God—a status that only the Hebrews had as a political community. It recognizes that God created us as social beings meant to live and thus to act in community. Thus, we have communal, not just individual, responsibilities to God and each other that we can perform faithfully or turn toward evil and oppression.

Finally, renewing the practice of public fasts would give us a picture of how the church can act as a public witness to the gospel to and for the political community. Important to these days in the past were calls, consistent with preserving religious liberty, for churches to gather together to pray and ministers to preach. Those prayers display how we can call on God for the good of our neighbors in the customs and laws of the land. Also, we have a rich history of fast day sermons on which to draw. At their best, they weave the gospel of Christ’s salvation by grace with His lordship consequently calling us to obedience. They provide excellent moments to teach, to exhort, to be a means of grace through which the Holy Spirit can work in the hearts of hearers. To this rich history, ministers today should add.

Now would be an appropriate time for public officials and churches to restore this practice. We live in hard times. Deaths by drug addiction, especially opioids, continue to rise. The scourge of abortion seems far from ended despite recent victories. People are struggling financially to make ends meet as inflation continues to rise. A spiritual devastation fed by hypocrisy and heresy preys on weak and weary souls. Sin gains many public victories, especially in the realm of sexual ethics. Now is the time to pray. Now is the time to fast. Now is the time to call, together, for forgiveness and restoration from Almighty God.