Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - July 1/62

Contributor - T. Hogerwaard

Title - Soeren Aabye Kierkegaard- Part 2

Topic - Church History

The great clash between Kierkegaard and the Danish Church occurred because the Church which should preach the Gospel and live exclusively the new life of grace, seeking His Kingdom and its righteousness first, actually lived in the religious sphere only leaving out the heart of Christianity: consciousness of sin and guilt, reconciliation and redemption, living by grace through faith and following a Lord Who was crucified.

In the days of the apostles to be a Christian witness meant: to be a martyr, a man willing to be tortured and killed for Jesus' sake. But in our days the Christian witness is the man who speaks about the Christian religion and makes promotion in the Church, with a big salary and all sorts of honours coming his way. Hardly anyone sees the contrast between what is claimed and what is done.

A short and biting story from Kierkegaard's works illustrates this point.

"In the splendid cathedral, the well beloved, highly paid big city church minister, D.D. LL.D. etc. etc., conducts the service for a select group of very prominent citizens. His sermon, delivered with feeling is based upon a text, which he has chosen himself. It reads: "God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are". Kierkegaard adds: "And there is no one who laughs!" The literary production of Kierkegaard which started when he was 30 and which ended by his death 12 years later, shows what a many-sided genius he was. Among his books are works, world famous in the realm of psychology ("The conception of anguish"); books, dedicated to the war against Hegel ("Philosophical crumbs") gave him a seat among the greatest philosophers of all ages; his devotional books belong to the best and deepest ever written.

But every line he wrote was meant to serve one purpose only: --- to make people understand what it really meant to be a Christian. He feared one thing more than anything else: that is, that people would read his philosophical and psychological books - enjoying and admiring them without discovering what his intention was. He feared that "those miserable professors would come and make me another paragraph in their books", as had happened to Hamann and Jacobi. For Kierkegaard psychology and philosophy were only means to unmask the deceit in Christianity, to help people discover what Christian religion is. That the meaning and intention of the printed word can easily be distorted is a danger ever present. We remember Plato's words, voicing his complaint that the written word is always in need of its father to come to its rescue.

During five years (1843-1848) Kierkegaard published two series of books: devotional books carrying his name as author, leading the reader from the periphery of Christianity to its centre and literary books in which by means of portraying living persons the various stages of life (easthetic, moralistic and religious) were demonstrated. The books of this category were printed under various pseudonyms. From 1848 till his death he limited himself to books of the theological and devotional class, applying however the same method f gradually approaching the heart of the matter. One of his most famous books is "Deeds of love" which, however, is extremely polemic against the current conception of "love" in Christendom. Even more iron-clad is his work: "Excercise in Christianity".

Several times Kierkegaard spoke with the leading bishop of the Danish Lutheran Church, Mynster, whose Christianity and whose presentation of the Gospel he considered to be treason to the Gospel. The bishop did not need him; he read his books but did not like them at all. Therefore he did not grant Kierkegaard permission to apply for a pastorate, neither did he want to appoint him an assistant-professor at the theological college, although no one in Denmark could be compared with Kierkegaard in theological insight and depth of thinking. His whole life Kierkegaard had to live on the inheritance his father left him. When he died, the little money that was left could just cover the funeral expenses.

In one of his last works Kierkegaard gives a little sketch in which he contrasts present day Christianity with that of the New Testament. He claims that according to the New Testament that man is the true Christian who follows Christ; in our days, however, it is the minister and the professor who speak about the men who followed Christ and gave their lives for Him. In,Christendom, he says, it went as in a class of 100 pupils; on a certain day those thirty who had the lowest marks asked permission to form a class by themselves; this way No. 71 became No. 1: that too is a way of being promoted!

"See, therefore Christianity has deteriorated, because the imitation of Christ has been put aside; it is not even mentioned to let people feel how far their "Christian" life is removed from what the N.T. understand by it. Let us imagine a Christian town. The yardstick of being a Christian is the disciple, the follower of Christ. Well, there is no one in that town who qualifies. But instead of the true follower of Christ there is the Reverend Jensen. He is a gifted, an intelligent man; many good things can be said about him. Well, let us make him No. 1 then and shape our conduct after his; that makes sense, then a person can advance in this world. Yes, but according to the Christian yardstick Reve rend Jensen is not No. 1 but No. 71- in the Christian class. But what does the Reverend Jensen say to that? He says: "Nonsense! I have no use for ideals, for if we have to reckon with them, no one can have any fun in his life anymore." What does our pastor mean? He means - and now you can see at once that he is not even No. 71 in the Christian class - that ne can serve as yardstick and example of Christianity, that it is only fantasy to think of the lofty ideals of Christianity. And now the play "Christianity" is staged in that town; the pastor Jensen, a society man, fit for social life as if he were created for it, is honoured as a true Christian, even as an apostle; all pleasant things of life are heaped upon him in his quality of apostle, which he knows to appreciate fully. Also in his quality as an apostle perhaps?"

After bishop Mynster had die professor Martensen, who shortly afterwards was nominated bishop in Mynster's place, conducted a memorial service in the biggest church in Copenhagen. In his sermon he presented bishop Mynster as a true witness of the Truth, a link in the chain of true witnesses from the days of the apostles ill now and we can fully understand how the man, who had written the piece about the pastor Jensen and heard this speech must explode. He waited several months till the money for a monument for bishop Mynster had been fully collected and Martensen had been nominated as Mynster's successor in the meantime.

But then he published an article in one of the leading Danish newspapers under the heading: "Was bishop Mynster a witness of the Truth?" Kierkegaard claimed that he was not; he left out completely and systematically what is essential in being a Christian; bishop Mynster might have been a good many other things, but a true witness (the same N.T. word that is used for martyr) he most definitely was not. That article started a fierce controversy and Kierkegaard did not limit himself to that one point: now he attacked along the whole front showing what an enormous contrast there exists between what the N.T. calls Christianity and what nowadays is understood by that word.

Prof. Dr. E. Geismar in his standard work about KierkeFaard *) says: "Considering this, it is without any importance who bishop Mynster or Martensen was, whether it happened yesterday or one hundred years ago, whether in Denmark, in Germany or in the United States. An eternal judgment has been pronounced upon a worldly Christendom, which is only a cheap imitation of what it was meant to be and the man who pronounced the judgment was absolutely convinced that God had commanded him to do so; yet, he shrank back every time he had to be so stern."

5th October 1855 Kierkegaard collapsed on the street in Copenhagen and was taken to the hospital where a few weeks later he died. Only some relatives and one friend were allowed to see him. All of them testify about the peace and joy that emanated from his presence: he knew now that it had pleased Almighty God to use him and that his struggles and sufferings were over. In his lonely and hard way through life God had taught him what it meant to loose one's life for Christ's sake in order to win it. He had amply provided Kierkegaard with the means to teach this lesson to a secularized Christendom too.

A few days later he was laid to rest, but it took succeeding generations several decades to discover the importance of Kierkegaard, the man who had seen so many years ahead what would happen to Europe that had falsified Christianity. Even now Grundtvig, the man who combined Christianity with Danish feelings of patriotism and the storyteller Hans Andersen are far more esteemed in Denmark than Kierkegaard. This prophet too was not honoured in his native land.

Kierkegaard never gave a system of Christian thought; matter of fact he claimed that any and every system is necessarily pantheistic. About many points of Christian doctrine he never spoke; again and again he pointed out that he only wanted to correct some abuses which had crept into Christendom, especially in Lutheranism, especially in Denmark.

Many of Kierkegaard's works are hard to understand; after all he was a first class theologian, a great philosophical thinker and a top flight psychologist as well. His devotional books are easy to understand: a great help to everyone who wants to deepen his life with God.

"Many things in the Gospel," Kierkegaard once wrote, "would be simple and easy to understand for anyone, if it were not for the professors who turn everything into a problem in order to escape the necessity of putting their Christianity into practice instead of only preaching and teaching it."

Two sentences, found in his works, form the key to an understanding of what was the heart of the matter for him: "Only that which transforms a person's life can be called religion" and "The only true expression of faith is life; all passion in matters of faith in the superlatives of feelings and words are only an aesthetic falsification".

The issue for every one of us, he claims, is: "to become a Christian in Christendom".

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