Is deleting your apps for Lent genuine spiritual fasting — or just secular self-help dressed in a Bible verse?

• T9

  Theo 921w ago

  I've done a full food fast and I've done a social media fast and they are not even close to the same thing. Hunger physically reminds you every hour why you're seeking God. Deleting Instagram just means you read more news articles and call it holiness.

  187Reply
• F2

  Feli 211w ago

  My biggest problem with the annual Lenten social media fast isn't theological, it's that people ANNOUNCE it on social media before deactivating. Matthew 6:16-18 exists. 'Do not look somber as the hypocrites do.' The irony is breathtaking.

  164Reply
• MS

  Marco S.1w ago

  Genuine question — does ANY Protestant church have a serious, catechized theology of fasting? Because my experience across four different evangelical churches is that fasting gets one sermon a year and then everyone kind of does whatever they want. The problem isn't social media fasting, it's that we never taught the real thing.

  156Reply
• M

  Marco1w ago

  Bottom line for me: the church needs to teach BOTH. Recover real, intentional food fasting as a biblical discipline — and also address our collective idolatry of screens, attention, and approval. These aren't competing issues. We've abandoned one ancient practice and developed one modern idol and we're doing a mediocre job with both.

  148Reply
• D

  Drew1w ago

  Honestly this debate kind of bothers me. The whole point of fasting is to lay down something you're dependent on so you can redirect your attention to God. If someone is genuinely addicted to their phone — and most Americans are — then laying it down IS costly. Don't gatekeep suffering.

  142Reply
• PB

  Priya B.1w ago

  I tried to lead a food fast at my church last year and had three people drop out by day one for medical reasons and two more who said they'd just 'modify' it and do a juice cleanse. I think the deeper issue is that American evangelicalism has lost any real theology of suffering and self-denial, and social media fasting is just a symptom of that avoidance.

  137Reply
• R

  Riley1w ago

  Personal story: I was doing a food fast for the first time in my life last spring — like actual no food for three days — and by day two I was so spiritually raw and dependent on God that I was weeping through prayer. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. A social media break has never done that to me. There's something specifically about physical hunger that strips you down. I think that's why God designed it that way.

  131Reply
• D

  Diego1w ago

  The real question for me is: what are you doing with the time you freed up? If you deleted TikTok and now watch more TV, you didn't fast from anything. If you deleted TikTok and filled those hours with prayer and Scripture, you did something spiritually real regardless of what you call it.

  124Reply
• L_

  Liam _x1w ago

  I think part of the problem is that we've made Lent into a self-improvement season instead of a season of genuine repentance and identification with Christ's suffering. Whether you're giving up chocolate, Netflix, or Instagram, if the goal is 'I want to be healthier' and not 'I want to draw near to God in my weakness,' it's just a diet.

  119Reply
• C

  Casey1w ago

  as someone in youth ministry — if encouraging teenagers to fast from TikTok for 6 weeks creates even one habit of turning to God instead of a screen when they're anxious, I'll take it. I am not going to tell a 16-year-old their fasting is theologically impure. meet people where they are.

  114Reply
• Z

  Zara1w ago

  I think there's a conflation happening in this discussion between a 'fast' in the biblical sense and a 'sabbath rest' from technology. Both are valid! But they're different things with different purposes. A digital sabbath is good. Calling it a fast might be imprecise. Words have meanings.

  109Reply
• T

  Taylor1w ago

  I'm Eastern Orthodox and in our tradition fasting is extremely specific — certain foods, certain days, certain times. The precision isn't legalism, it's the church's accumulated wisdom about what actually works to discipline the body and form the soul over centuries. 'Make up your own fast' is very American and I'm genuinely skeptical it produces the same fruit.

  107Reply
• JM

  Jamie M.1w ago

  I gave up social media for Lent three years ago and it was one of the most transformative spiritual experiences of my adult life. Six weeks of silence instead of noise. I read through the Psalms twice. I had actual conversations. I don't care what you call it — God met me there.

  104Reply
• R

  Ravi1w ago

  The word 'fast' in Scripture is almost always tied specifically to food. Matthew 6, Isaiah 58, Daniel, Joel, Acts — it's food. I'm not saying a screen break is bad, I'm saying calling it a fast is eisegesis. We should be honest about what we're doing.

  98Reply
• RS

  Ravi S.1w ago

  The word in the Greek for fasting (nēsteia) literally means 'not eating.' This isn't a debatable translation issue. The biblical authors had a very specific practice in mind. That doesn't mean a screen fast is bad — it means we should call it something accurate like a 'digital sabbath' or 'media abstinence' instead of appropriating the word 'fast' and slowly draining it of meaning.

  95Reply
• OK

  Omar K.1w ago

  Can we stop acting like 'giving up social media' is even a real sacrifice? Most people check their phones 150 times a day. The first 3 days are annoying and then you just... live your life. That's not fasting. That's a weekend camping trip.

  93Reply
• MM

  Maya M.1w ago

  I want to push back on the 'motive is all that matters' crowd. Motive matters, but form matters too. The church has always maintained that HOW we worship shapes WHAT we believe over time — that's the whole lex orandi lex credendi principle. If we keep redefining spiritual disciplines to whatever feels manageable, we'll eventually hollow them out entirely.

  91Reply
• L

  Liam1w ago

  Isaiah 58 is the most clarifying passage on this whole debate. God literally tells Israel their fasting means nothing without justice and mercy. So the question isn't whether you're giving up food vs. apps, it's whether your fast is changing how you treat people. Most social media fasts I've seen make people MORE self-focused, not less.

  88Reply
• R

  Reese1w ago

  Respectfully, I think people who say food fasting is the only 'real' fasting have probably never struggled with a genuine social media addiction. I had to get treatment for compulsive phone use two years ago. My therapist and my spiritual director both called it an addiction. Addicts know what it costs to fast from their substance.

  86Reply
• F

  Feli1w ago

  There's actually a solid argument that social media fasting MORE directly addresses the sins Jesus warned about in the Sermon on the Mount — comparison, pride, approval-seeking, vainglory — than skipping lunch does. At least be willing to engage that argument.

  83Reply
• QT

  Quinn T.1w ago

  My pastor did a 21-day food fast last year and posted about it every single day on Facebook. I'll take the person quietly deleting their apps and not broadcasting it over that any day. The medium matters less than the motive.

  77Reply
• K

  Kofi1w ago

  Every year by week 2 of Lent half the people who gave up social media have made exceptions for 'work stuff' and 'important family communication' and now they're basically just on their phones the same amount. The lack of structure and accountability in how most Protestants practice fasting is the real problem.

  72Reply
• K

  Kofi1w ago

  The Bible never specifically mentions giving up food for Lent either so this whole 'it has to be food' argument is a little selective. Lent itself is a post-apostolic development. We're all making judgment calls here.

  71Reply
• MK

  Morgan K.1w ago

  nobody talks about it but fasting from food while STILL doomscrolling for 6 hours a day seems way less spiritually serious than someone who genuinely, prayerfully disconnects from the noise of the internet. form matters, but so does what's actually capturing your heart

  66Reply
• DR

  Diego R.1w ago

  ok but have you met people who literally cannot go 20 minutes without checking their phone? telling those people a social media fast is spiritually meaningless is a little out of touch imo

  63Reply
• DL

  Drew L.1w ago

  honestly the whole 'is it really a fast' debate feels like the exact kind of arguing over religious rules that Jesus got tired of. if someone is genuinely seeking God more intentionally for 40 days by putting their phone down, Jesus is not mad about it

  59Reply
• RR

  Riley R.1w ago

  The prosperity gospel crowd never fasts at all so honestly any fasting in the American church is better than none. We can debate semantics after we've actually recovered the practice.

  55Reply
• M

  Marco1w ago

  what about fasting from TV or music? nobody questions those. why does social media specifically get interrogated? feels like we're just older people policing what younger people's fasting looks like

  48Reply

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