RICHARD J. FOSTER: Celebration of Discipline

Foster explains how to make the word of God practical and turn the impossible into the possible— all from the comfort of your own home!

the glacier at Banff, Alberta, Canada

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Celebration of Discipline, subtitled “The Path to Spiritual Growth”, is one of the better-known books on how a Christian can enhance their journey. It is a comprehensive work. Foster explores meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. The book was first published in 1978, has been released in expanded and revised versions, and has spawned a number of other books by Foster. The 1988 version contains nine pages of testimonials from such people as Mark Hatfield, David McKenna, and Ron Sider.

the Christian walk

Foster treats the Christian walk as something done on a treadmill. He is convinced we need exercise, but he is not concerned we actually get anywhere. A treadmill allows a person to exercise without leaving home. It’s a way of walking that gets us nowhere.

When Paul used running the race as a metaphor for the Christian life he certainly never envisioned people moving their legs but not their bodies. The expectation placed upon all Christians is that they follow Christ. It’s called a “walk” because we follow in his footsteps, live as he lived, identify with him, and make progress toward the goal laid out for us. At no point in Scripture’s description of the “walk” does it discuss the aerobic value. The walk is for God’s benefit, not ours. God’s expectation is never that the Christian's walk is to keep us fit.

Foster has made denial and deprivation something we are to do in a safe place, in a controlled, metered way, so we get the most benefit. The “no pain, no gain” slogan has been taken to the absurd level of saying that if we hurt ourselves we gain ground in our Christian walk. He tells us that if we do the things a runner does then we are runners. A runner eats a special diet so we must eat a special diet. A runner drinks a certain amount of water so we must drink a certain amount of water. Foster says we must do the things runners do, but he doesn't say we actually need to get into the race.

Meditation

Foster says “Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God’s voice and obey his word.” He says that in meditation “we create the emotional and spiritual space which allows Christ to construct an inner sanctuary in our heart.” Possibly a good thought, but not to be found in any Scripture he uses to make his point.

Foster says that meditation allows us to learn “to live on the basis of hearing God’s voice and obeying his word.” We can agree wholeheartedly that it's necessary to hear God's voice and obey, but there is no proof meditation is the way to do that. It seems, in fact, that meditation is not the way to do that.

Scripture tells us what is expected of us. If we have not obeyed the words of Christ in Scripture, what purpose is there in opening a channel to God so we can get a different word? We phone God and say, “Hello, do you have something for me to do?” Jesus answers and says, “yes: sell your possessions and follow me.” We hang up. Hmm, that was strange.

He has already told you what to do. Meditation isn’t going to change or add to the word of God. There’s no point meditating. God is not going to change his word just so you can do it without leaving home.

Simplicity

Foster takes the flat demand of Christ to sell all our possessions and softens it into a lifestyle of simplicity and generosity. He warns that asceticism is incompatible with simplicity (we agree with that) but then says that asceticism is unchristian and legalistic. Really! If Christ had nowhere to lay his head, doesn’t that sound a lot more like asceticism than simplicity? If Christ’s example is not asceticism, then what is?

Foster says what simplicity rejoices in the gracious provision from the hand of God and asceticism finds contentment only when it is abased. He says that simplicity is the only thing that sufficiently reorients our lives so that possessions can be truly enjoyed without destroying us.

Foster orients his religion inward instead of outward. He wants an inner warmth, a spiritual-only connection with God, reassurance that everything is right between him and his Lord. But Christ never had any such thing in mind when he told us to sell our possessions. He told us to sell everything and gave no reason other than he was the boss and had the right to set the rules. Foster says we must sell only until we reach simplicity, that going further is idolatry.

Who’s right? Foster or Christ?

It is noteworthy that Foster spends more time in the OT than the NT here. He never touches Paul’s statement in Phil 3:10, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,” possibly because it doesn’t sound like Foster’s idea of simplicity.

Paul focuses on Christ. Foster focuses on himself, mentioning time and again his concept of “inward reality”. Nowhere in the words of Christ is there any concern about an inward reality. There is no evidence God has the slightest concern about your inward reality? Jesus says you must hate your own life. Foster doesn’t hate his own life: he’s obsessed with it. Every demand of Christ is turned around so that it benefits him instead of God.

Fasting

There is a tendency to want to find practical reasons for our religion. We want to show that the OT laws on clean and unclean food were dietary laws that were thousands of years ahead of their time. We want to match the giving of our wealth with a worthy recipient—that the reason for selling our possessions is to better balance those with wealth with those in need.

Foster wants to show that fasting has more than just a spiritual benefit. We’d like to believe him. If fasting has the dual benefit of clearing our system of toxins and of opening up new avenues of communication with God, then there’s a good reason to fast—and a good reason for everyone to fast because those who don’t are missing out on an important aspect of their faith.

There are problems with this. Jesus fasted, but is there any reason to think it was to drive toxins from his body? Did Jesus have toxins? Did he care? If you had only three years to live would you care about impurities in the air or water?

The ultimate act of human faith is found in Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham is the father of all who believe. The sacrifice of Isaac stands as the example of faith from the father of faith. We have to ask: what side benefit was there to this sacrifice? The answer is: none. In fact, if there is a side benefit then the sacrifice is not a sacrifice because some good is being returned to the person making the sacrifice.

Foster is doing fasting a great disservice by trying to prove it is good for us. There should be no payback on anything we do for God. If we give it must be because God gives and tells his people to act like he does: without expectation of repayment or reward. If we sacrifice it should be because God owns us and no sacrifice demands his notice. If we worship it should be because God is worthy of our devotion. If we sing it should be because God deserves our deepest adoration.

Fasting that is done to remove toxins is not fasting. Fasting that is done for the purpose of opening up a new line of communication with God is not fasting. Fasting is denial. Fasting is sacrifice. It is not denial if we receive benefit. It is not sacrifice if we get something back.

Above all, fasting cannot be practical because nothing in the economy of God is practical. It is not practical to sacrifice. It is not practical to sell your possessions. It was not practical for Jesus to die. In the final analysis, even faith that is practical.

Foster has taken a completely impractical thing and invented a good reason for doing it. But God put it there like that so we would have a good reason to not do it! He wanted it to be outrageous. Foster, being practical, turns the impossible into the possible: a religious observance.

The fasting that God requires is not a religious observance. Fasting happens as we try to please God by acting like him and working for him. Because of the demands of the job we have to give up something we wanted to have or do. We have to give it up because it doesn’t fit in, not because it’s a “discipline”. Isaiah 58.6-7 says:

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Fasting that is part of a religious observance is not fasting. No one claims that the Lord’s Supper is in any way intended to provide nutrition or to open up new channels of communication with God. We do it because our Savior has granted us the inestimable privilege of sitting at his table and because he wants us to be continually reminded of how great a cost was paid for that privilege. To claim we receive benefit from it is offensive.

Fasting means giving, not getting. It has no payback. Fasting is going without dinner because you are busy helping someone and have no time to eat. Or you want to enjoy a quiet evening and instead open the door to a man from the neighborhood who continually bothers people with his craving for attention. You’re fasting when you give up something you want because you can’t have it if you do what God wants. You can’t turn away from that person who needs you or shut the door on your neighbor and then schedule a fast as a way of removing toxins from your body and getting closer to God. God put that person in your path as the way to get closer to him by depriving yourself in order to help others. You can’t say no to God’s terms and then expect him to say yes when you approach him on your terms.

If you go without something in order to help someone, when you finally get a chance to relax and have a meal, why not enjoy it knowing that you have acted as God wanted? Why deprive yourself of food as a supposed act of spirituality? Paul gave the principle in the argument over meat sacrificed to idols: Those who eat, eat as to the Lord; those who don’t, abstain as to the Lord. It may be an act of worship to abstain, but it is also an act of worship to eat, and Paul says it certainly is not more spiritual to abstain.

If you want to fast, fast. But don’t claim any spiritual benefit—and especially don’t claim that you have some spiritual benefit that others forfeit by not fasting. God is not impressed that you give up something on Monday and then give it back to yourself on Tuesday.

Foster is careless with his proofs. He uses the KJV of 2 Cor 11.27 to show that Paul was engaged in “fastings often.” To use the KJV to prove a point when no other translation says such a thing is suspicious: Foster doesn’t care what the passage says so long as it contains the word “fast”. In fact, 2 Cor 11 says the opposite of what Foster wants to prove. From verse 23 to 28 Paul lists things he suffered for Christ: imprisonment, beatings, hunger, thirst... The clear insinuation is that Paul would have liked to have not been hungry, or beaten, or imprisoned, or shipwrecked, or anything else he describes. Foster includes fasting in Paul's list of spiritual disciplines; Paul includes it in his list of things he would have rather avoided.

Foster fasts in the safe confines of his own home, according to a schedule he decides upon. He wants to be spiritual in his own way, when he feels like it. Paul fasted because he stepped into the work of God with no regard of the cost. He didn’t plan his shipwrecks, he didn’t schedule his beatings. Foster avoids the cost and substitutes it with controlled, measured religious observance.

When the rich young ruler came to Jesus asking what more he needed to become perfect Jesus told him to sell his possessions and follow him. Jesus said nothing about praying, fasting, studying, simplifying, serving, confessing, or anything else in Foster’s list. The modern church is the rich young ruler. We take the one impossible demand of Christ and replace it with a hundred things we can do. We don’t like Christ’s demand to sell, so we invent reasons why we don’t have to sell, and then do things Christ never required as recompense, because they are doable.

Christ says in Luke 12 to first do the thing he requires. If we don’t do the first thing, then the second thing is of no consequence because we have disregarded Christ’s priorities, telling him we’ll just skip on down the list, doing things that we want rather than the things he wants. Try that with your boss at work. See how long you keep your job.

We come to God and ask how we can please him. He tells us and then we say, “OK, and what’s in it for me?” “What’s in it for you?! You ask me what I want and then expect to get something for yourself? You were in a Soviet gulag, sentenced to life at hard labor, with no chance of escape or release. I rescued you—the price being the brutal murder of my Son—gave you your life back, and now you ask ‘what’s in it for me?’! Nothing’s in it for you! Absolutely nothing. You asked, I told you. If you don’t want to know, don’t ask!”

We are the most miserable, heartless, thoughtless people when Christ tells us how to please him and we expect a kickback. “But all we want is to be closer to you” we say. Try that with your children. Tell them to do their chores. See what your response is when they tell you they will do it if it makes them healthier and brings you closer together as a family.

God tells us what he wants because he is God and he has the right to tell his people what to do. Not doing them because they are too difficult—and especially replacing them with things we’d rather do and then expecting him to open new lines of communication—must be very annoying to him.

First do the thing he told you to do, with no expectation of reward or repayment. Then do the next thing he told you to do, with no expectation of reward or repayment. And then the next thing, and the next thing. After you’ve done everything he wants you to do, in the way he wants you to do it, then look around: you’ll have have made yourself useful to God and unable to do anything else.

Don’t bargain. Don’t give God requirements and expectations. Don’t scorn the hard things. Don’t replace his demands with thin versions of your own.

Just do it. The way he said. Because he said it. Subtracting nothing. Adding nothing.

Service

One would think that teaching on service would include the concept of work, but Foster defines service as washing one another’s feet. Five minutes once a month. Really?

There’s nothing here we need to waste time on.