Lent and the Myth of the ‘Normal’ Christian Life

As we enter the Lenten period, Helena Cundill reflects on our understanding of spiritual disciplines.

As Lent approaches, the familiar question returns: What will you give up this year? Or perhaps, What will you take up? Chocolate, social media, alcohol. Morning prayer, daily Bible reading, a new spiritual discipline. However we answer, we quickly find ourselves engaging in the practice of making rules for our Christian lives.

Rules are not, in themselves, a bad thing. From the earliest centuries of the Church, Christians have adopted patterns of fasting, prayer and self-denial as a way of shaping desire and attention. Historically, Lenten practices were intended to remove distractions and earthly pleasures so that one’s focus might be redirected toward God. The purpose was not self-improvement, but spiritual attentiveness: a deeper prayer life, a clearer sense of dependence, a renewed awareness of grace.

Yet in contemporary culture, Lent often sits uneasily alongside powerful narratives of productivity, optimization and self-actualization. Giving up chocolate is rarely just about prayer; it is difficult to do so without at least a quiet hope that it might also result in weight loss, better skin or a sense of moral achievement. Even when spiritual intentions remain sincere, they are frequently entangled with modern ideals of control, discipline and improvement.

A similar tension appears in discussions of a ‘rule of life’. In churches today, this phrase is often used to describe a structured set of spiritual practices: regular prayer times, daily Scripture reading, silence, retreat. Such rules can be life-giving and sustaining. But they can also, subtly and unintentionally, become social markers. They signal what a ‘good’, ‘serious’ or even ‘normal’ Christian life is supposed to look like.

But for some Christians – particularly autistic and other neurodivergent people – many commonly assumed rules are simply unattainable. Praying at the same time every day, sustaining consistent routines, or engaging in particular forms of prayer may clash with how their minds and bodies work. In the course of my participatory research project with a group of autistic Christians, it emerged that many live with a chronic sense of shame and anxiety, feeling that they are somehow failing at Christianity because they cannot do what other Christians appear to do with ease.

This experience is intensified by the fact that non-autistic Christians often overstate their own consistency. We are not always as disciplined as we suggest. Yet our rules, spoken or otherwise, remain powerful, because they function as ideals. They shape what is celebrated, what is taught and whose stories are centred. Over time, this can create a narrow picture of Christian faithfulness – one that reflects the experiences of a small number of highly visible individuals while pushing others to the margins.

When the notion of ‘having a rule of life’ operates in this way, there is a risk that it becomes less about drawing people toward God and more about policing belonging. Instead of forming us in love, rules can generate shame: the quiet conviction that you are never quite enough, never quite doing it right.

Lent, then, offers an opportunity – not only to ask what we will give up or take up, but why. Are our practices designed to deepen our trust in God’s grace, or to reassure us of our own adequacy? Do they create space for diverse ways of being faithful, or do they quietly reinforce a single, idealized model of Christian life?

My forthcoming book, Praying by the Rules, explores these questions in depth, bringing Christian theology into dialogue with autistic experience and examining the relationship between shame, anxiety and ideas of normalcy in the Church. As Lent approaches, perhaps the most faithful practice for some of us is not adopting a new rule at all but loosening our grip on the ones that have come to weigh so heavily. In this we can learn again that God’s love is not earned by discipline but given freely.

Dr Helena Cundill is a postdoctoral researcher with the University of Aberdeen. Working with the Centre for Autism and Theology as Public Engagement and Impact Co-Ordinator, her research interests include autism and ADHD. 

Her book, Praying by the Rules: What Autistic People Teach the Church about Prayer, is published at the end of March, and available to pre-order now, with 20% during March.

Image credit: @annikamaria on Unsplash.com