Andrew Dragos at Seedbed offers some great observations in Lent is Not Counter-Cultural.
We live in a popular culture that currently takes pride, however ironic, in describing itself as counter-cultural. . . . Yet the followers of Jesus, those who take up their cross, who follow Jesus around, should not be defined by the culture. At its root, to be counter-cultural is to be determined by the culture. It’s to be counter to something, and therefore at a basic level to defined by it. Some church splits are like this. Groups emerge as the antithesis of the other group, defined by that which they supposedly dislike. . . .
Lent is the Church’s refusal to be defined by anything except the story of Jesus.
Mitchell Lewis 