First, fasting No practice of Jesus is more alien or neglected in the modern Western church than fasting. In the post-Enlightenment intellectual landscape, where human beings are viewed as res cogitans,17 or “thinking things,” the idea of drawing on the Spirit’s power not through your mind but through your stomach sounds absurd. Few followers of Jesus regularly fast anymore. And yet, until recent history, fasting was one of the core practices of the Way of Jesus. For hundreds of years, the church would fast twice a week: Wednesdays and Fridays. That was just what you did if you were a
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