No, Lent and Ramadan are not the same thing

This year, Lent and Ramadan start on the same day.

Naturally, politicians and pundits are pointing to the superficial similarities—two religions fasting for a month or so. Even Catholic leaders have made similar connections between the two traditions. They want to make an ecumenical gesture in the name of evangelizing the Muslims

But that is a trap.

The world wants us to see Lent and Ramadan (and Christianity and Islam) as basically the same thing.

They want to replace the Church with the State as the ultimate unifier of mankind.

The “Cult” in Culture

Most English politicians, sports teams, and even the royal family wished Muslims a happy Ramadan. Many of them left out Ash Wednesday altogether.

Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London, expressed disappointment in Christians who dared to notice the omission. He was appalled Christians would, in his words, “focus on our differences” rather than what we have in common.

But what do we have in common?

What a group of people has in common is typically called a “culture.” And we tend to think of “culture” as the food we eat, the language we speak, or the holidays we celebrate.

But the word culture comes from the word “cult” meaning “worship.”

At the heart of every culture is what it worships. That is the binding agent that holds people together.

So to Kahn’s point. The religious differences are precisely the differences worth focusing on. Those religious practices should define our culture. But clearly, Kahn and others like him don’t think so.

Their society is united by a different cult: secular liberalism.

Secular liberalism is the water we all swim in. It is the belief that the highest good is a man’s ability to self-determination. Make no mistake: that is a religious claim. That is why men like Kahn want to equate Ramadan and Lent. They see religion as a private hobby, a dietary preference, or a quaint tradition like pierogis or tacos.

If they can convince you that fasting for Lent and fasting for Ramadan are just two versions of the same cultural quirk, they have successfully stripped the meaning out of your tradition.

The State as the New God

Secular liberalism has a problem. If its highest good is individual self-determination, it’s hard to create a society. So, it needs a unifying principle above the individual. If social unity does not come from a shared worship of the Triune God, then the vacuum must be filled by something else.

In the modern West, that “something else” is the State.

If you and I don’t worship the same God, the only thing we have in common is that we are tax-paying citizens of the same country (or increasingly “citizens of the world”). When politicians like Khan scold us for focusing on theological differences, they are really saying: Your loyalty to your specific dogmas is getting in the way of your loyalty to the civic order.

This is why this “Coexist” bumper sticker theology is so insidious.

It pretends to be about peace and unity. But unity to what? Unity to the State above and even against God. It demands that we be members of the Body Politic before the Body of Christ.

Authentic Unity vs. Superficial Niceness

We need to be clear that Christians do not have much in common with religions that deny the Trinity.

There are superficial similarities. As the Catechism says, Muslims claim to worship the God of Abraham. We both fast. We both pray. But if we pretend those similarities make us “the same,” we are insulting them and neutering our traditions.

If you were to tell a devout Muslim, “Hey, your Ramadan is just like my Lent,” You are effectively telling him that his specific theological claims about Allah don’t matter. You are patronizing him. If he takes his faith seriously, he shouldn’t see common ground with a Trinitarian Christian. He should think us heretics.

And we ought to love him enough to disagree with him, not paper over our differences for fake peace.

As Christians in Christian nations, our principle of unity is our Baptism. We are members of the Body of Christ, then members of our nations. That is a tangible reality that cannot be replicated by the State.

This reality should be upheld by lay people and our leaders, not only for political reasons but evangelical ones as well. If we see nothing wrong with the differences, there is no reason to evangelize.

Catholics need to recognize the push for religious pluralism for what it is: an attack on the Body of Christ.

True respect for other religions recognizes our differences and responds by preaching the Gospel.

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