So Sunday July 5 was supposed to be (that is, was decreed by LDS leadership to be) a fast for religious freedom. As far as I can tell, it turned out to be a big nothingburger, which might signal that the membership is now just tuning out additional messaging on the subject. What if you throw a party and no one comes? What if you decree a fast and … everyone decides to just eat, drink, and be merry in celebration of the Fourth of July?
I was prepared to write a longer post on religious freedom, but I’ve sort of covered that in prior posts:
The crux of this planned post was going to be: What exactly does LDS leadership think it is advocating under the vague banner “religious freedom”? They talk about it like it is under threat, as if there is some looming danger hanging over the LDS Church and its beliefs/practices. Except for a few looney MAGA Mormons, pretty much none of the membership feels that way. So the whole recent initiative to once again push “religious freedom” just seems misguided. I’ve got pretty much all the religious freedom I need, and I think the vast majority of LDS — in the US at least — feel the same way.
So instead of that post, let’s do a simpler exercise. Let’s come up with some other things the Church as a whole or you individually might fast for next month and in future months instead of religious freedom. I’ll offer a few. Y’all can chime in with a few more suggestions. And don’t be shy about it. Next month you should go up to the podium microphone and boldly proclaim your fasting target. Such as:
- “I am fasting for world peace.” Like who can object to this?
- “Today I am fasting for taller temple steeples around the world. With bigger Moronis on top that glow at night.” This will signal to your local leaders that you are taking the religious freedom ball and running with it. Expect a calling upgrade in the near future.
- “I am fasting for more reverence in our future sacrament meetings.” Met with puzzled looks. Because reverence is a good thing, but actually telling people to shut up and be more reverent is generally frowned upon.
- “I didn’t fast at all, but I’ll still kick in a few extra bucks to the fasting fund the next time I pay tithing.” This probably makes the stake financial clerk happy, but I imagine the bishop will tell you: “That’s nice, but we’re happier about your financial contribution if you also don’t eat.”
- “I am fasting to lose a pound or two. That’s it.” Oops, expect a calling downgrade for pointing out the natural physiological effect of skipping a couple of meals and all the intervening snacks. This kind of cause-and-effect thinking governs most of our choices, of course. You lift weights to get in shape, not for greater LDS missionary success. You balance your checkbook so you don’t bounce your next check, not for increased religious freedom. But somehow fasting must connect to some greater goal, not to just losing a pound or two. “Fasting is more than just not eating,” they say (and you’re supposed to say, too).
So what do you think of this monthly LDS fasting thing? Do you like it, or not? Have you ever felt edified or blessed from participating in LDS religious fasting (a sincere question)? How often does your local leadership decree a specific fasting target, as opposed to the “do your own fasting thing” that is the default approach? If you disagree with the target leadership announces, would 24 hours of gluttony be a reasonable exercise of your free agency in opposition? Do you engage in non-religious fasting and why?
And, of course, add your suggestion for alternative LDS fasting targets.
.
Wheat & Tares 
In Church parlance, “religious freedom” is code for “the freedom to crap on gay people without consequence.”
I’ve never liked fasting, and it was never because of the not eating. My earliest theological issues with fasting developed on my mission, which is really the first time I’d fasted seriously. Mormonism has a strange relationship with the “vending machine God” who doles out blessings if you just pray hard enough, and fasting just turns that up another notch. Somehow if I don’t eat or drink, but still walk around all day on a hot summer day God will make sure someone says ‘yes’ when I knock on their door. Or God will direct me to the right door. (As if in the next life God will tell someone that they could have joined the church decades earlier, but Elder DaveW didn’t fast for the full 24 hours so He just couldn’t send me to the right door.) But still, I fasted for decades.
I recently quit fasting, for two primary reasons. The first is that I don’t have a single edifying experience from fasting in my entire life. I’ve fasted nearly every month for decades, with varying levels of sincerity. And after literally hundreds of fasts, I look back and don’t see any value. Either I’m doing it wrong, or it doesn’t work, but I finally reached the point that I decided to pull the plug on this particular experiment on the word. (I will say that the fast offering program is one of my favorite in the church, and something I still support. I know money is fungible and I don’t really trust the church to not use whatever funds are donated for whatever purpose they choose, but I like the idea of my contribution helping people locally with immediate needs.)
My second reason to quit fasting was to replace it with something better. My son is no longer invited to fully participate in church, and, shockingly, doesn’t have any interest in participating as a third-class citizen. Rather than fasting, we have Sunday brunch each week. My son does most of the cooking and is learning cooking skills and confidence that will hopefully keep him from starving when he moves out for college in a few weeks. We eat as a family and talk. This is our family activity each Sunday now that we don’t all do church. The positive results from family brunch are far more apparent than from fasting. And it tastes better, too.