The Preacher’s Wife Starves to Death for Jesus

I never cease to be amazed at the antics of the Hard Over Christians. Earlier today while surfing the web I was shocked by the story of, by all accounts, a good and decent woman who starved herself to death for Jesus. This goes beyond the pale. It is akin to self-flagellation except without the whips and the blood. There is no other description, nor is there a word more appropriate than “fanatic.” Curiously “fasting” has been around for centuries and has its roots in, no surprise here, the Bible, a book responsible in part for the deaths of millions of both people and living creatures the world over.

The “acceptable fast” is discussed in the biblical Book of Isaiah, chapter 58:3-7. In essence, it means afflict the soul through abstaining from fulfilling the needs or wants of the flesh. The opening chapter of the Book of Daniel, vv. 8-16, describes a partial fast and its effects on the health of its observers.

Fasting is a practice in several Christian denominations or other churches. Some denominations do not practice it, considering it an external observance, but many individual believers choose to observe fasts at various times at their own behest. The Lenten fast observed in the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church is a forty-day partial fast to commemorate the fast observed by Christ during his temptation in the desert. This is similar to the partial fasting within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (abstaining from meat and milk) which takes place during certain times of the year and lasts for weeks. The Bible sets aside one whole day a year for fasting, The Day of Atonement. Leviticus 23:27, 32 (CEV) says “Everyone must go without eating from the evening of the ninth to the evening of the tenth on the seventh month which is the Day of Atonement.”