Asceticism, That Christian Virtue

“Asceticism is for the monks,” you say? Fine, I suggest we need some Anabaptist monks so they can give us a report from the outside.

“It’s like beating your head against the wall,” I've been told.

Beating your head against a wall does burn calories, and it does feel good when you quit. However, I propose we misunderstand what asceticism is and can do for us. Equating asceticism with self-abuse is accepting imitations and extremes as the rule.

Perhaps our knee-jerk rejection of this useful practice has come from supposing that denying ourselves material things will lead to a works-based salvation. This is a danger, but it is one potential problem compared to the many inflictions that excessive indulgence is sure to bring.

Asceticism is a close cousin to discipline, but it is discipline with a purpose: to discover values to undergird our lives. We have largely adopted the Greek philosophy of dividing our lives into body, soul, and spirit, and so we hire a physician for the body, a preacher for the soul, and a psychiatrist for the spirit, the implication being that there is no carryover from one to the other. We indulge the body and starve the spirit, feed the soul and neglect the body. However, these three distinct parts are all connected to the single life that we live; to change something in the body can affect the soul, or any combination of these three.

Asceticism is the means to prepare the body for a useful spiritual life, a kind of cross-training. In the end, it is the man who has the greatest capacity for delayed gratification that lives with the most authenticity and ecstasy.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Asceticism as a goal is abominable, but as a means is honorable.” To indiscriminately beat back our bodies will only result in spiritual anorexia—or worse—but to subordinate our bodies to better serve as temples of the Holy Ghost is the constructive discipline that can make productive unknown areas of our life. To relinquish an object or privilege that is economically and rightfully yours for no other purpose than to build a greater spiritual life—that is healthy asceticism.

Asceticism—a way to increase pleasure. There is an entire marketing campaign built around the consumerist idea that if only we could have more of what we love, we could be happier—and this is a promise that consistently fails to deliver. Asceticism knows that to hit the pleasure button again and again only makes us blasé to the things we love, so it curbs these rampant urges and develops a hunger so that we can truly enjoy our appetites in moderation. There is as much flavor in a spoonful of cake as in an acre of it—it is only a difference of desire that makes it no longer appealing. Asceticism seeks to manage this desire.

There is an American idea abroad that if you want it, you may as well have it, embodied in icons such as former-President Trump and made possible by institutions such as payday loans. The American thing to do, then, is to buy everything you can afford (and some things you can’t), do everything you can (even if it means doing many things poorly), and go everywhere and you can (even if it means seeing only the tourist traps).

Asceticism can help us slow down to work within our own limitations, to leave us with authentic lives, lives fit, supple, and aware, lives that have substance and not merely a veneer over hollow shells.

Asceticism—increasing healthy self-awareness. How can we tell how a certain object factors into our lives (e.g., coffee, business, books, social life, entertainment, work) until we hold it at arm’s length? If we never stop to reevaluate or take a fast, our life will continue as one long, unbroken flow of adaptation and adoption, a life that is desensitized to the incremental factors that change our destiny. Do with it. Do without it. Document the difference and clarify what role trivial things play in our lives. Decide what brings the most God-honoring pleasure, the most fulfillment, the most spiritual joy.

Asceticism—preparing our bodies for use. Appetites indulged to excess can make animals of us; consequently, they generally war against the soul. This does not have to be: If God created the appetites like we say He did, then there must be a godly use for them. Asceticism can help discipline and channel these impulses, cultivating a heart that can hear the whisper of truth by silencing the yells of the belly, awakening hunger in a spiritual man. Did you know that most people enjoy unparalleled clarity of mind after twenty-four hours of fasting? If you happen to need clarity of mind more than protein, which would you choose? Do we have the capacity to know when we need clarity of mind more than a full stomach? Then, with the ability to place the need of the physical below the spiritual, we may prepare the seedbed and show our Master, Who is not blind to such dedication, what we are serious about.

Asceticism—cultivating a sense of beauty. It seems a paradox that simplicity and austerity could afford a greater appreciation of beauty, but the more we bring our bodies into subjection and trim away excess, the more we become aware of how each thing in our lives affects us, what we never miss, and what we wish for. Every rich thing needs contrast: A good food needs contrast between salty and sweet; soil needs both heat and cold; good writing needs both happy and sad. It is not the inundation of beauty that allows us to fully appreciate it, but the contrast it offers to the squalid.

Asceticism—the end of imitations. Like anything else that can become an end in itself, asceticism can go askew and wreak havoc. Nevertheless, I see a glimmer of hope in it for the 21^st century Christian, he who must identify the reason for his work amidst the illusory lullabies and trappings of comfort. Asceticism goes against everything an affluent society stands for. As we navigate this culture of entitlement to ease, one of our greatest defenses will be a mind and heart that can step back from it all, living simply and objectively, abandoning what does not matter so that we might concentrate our energies on things that do.