Lent for Dummies

Regular readers of the blog might be aware of my longstanding and fruitful collaboration with my friend Dr Justine Toh, who is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity or “CPX”.

This goes back to 2019, when I was interviewed by Justine on giving up netflix for that lent as part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Soul Search” program.

This was followed later that year by another interview, this time for CPX’s “Life and Faith” podcast series, concerning my research on pornography as a theological phenomenon.

This year, Justine kindly invited me again for another episode of “Life and Faith”, this time on the subject of “Lent for Dummies”. Among other things, we looked at the negative and positive dimensions of Lent (ie the sacrifices and the almsgiving), the liturgy of the hours, as well as the significance of liturgical seasons and liturgical calendars in daily life, marked as it is by “clock time”.

As will become evident as the episode progresses, these topics are more connected than might first appear, because ultimately, Lent is about a deeper engagement with reality. It was a wide spanning interview, and as is usually the case when you are interviewed by friends, the discussion flowed easily.

I am grateful to Justine for her invitation to be part of this interview, which you can listen to in full by clicking here.

If you enjoyed reading this and would like to see more, check out Matthew Tan’s other works on LinkTree.