There are quite a few things Scandinavian which have shaped the world we live in – IKEA, Lego, Santa Claus but maybe not so many that have shaped how people in the west think. One man, a Dane, stands out above all other contenders – Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855).

The influence of Kierkegaard can be traced as much in Friedrich Nietzche as it can in the early works of Karl Barth. Post-modernism finds an ally in Kierkegaard when he says things like ‘all truth is subjective’.

Today Kierkegaard is as likely to make an appearance in Brain Pickings as Think Theology and probably the only other person you could say that about would be CS Lewis. Like Lewis & Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard has been claimed, somewhat, by evangelicals, although it’s not always a comfortable fit.

Kierkegaard was a nuisance to the church industry and we need more nuisances like him today. There is one area in particular that we could learn from today and that is Kierkegaard’s attack on Christendom.

People who perhaps never once enter a church, never think about God, never mention his name except in oaths! People upon whom it has never dawned that they might have any obligation to God, people who either regard it as a maximum to be guiltless of transgressing criminal law, or do not count even this quite necessary! Yet all these people, even those who assert that no God exists, are all of them Christians, call themselves Christians, are recognized as Christians by the State, are buried as Christians by the Church, are certified as Christians for eternity.

(quoted in Protestant Thought in the 19th Century by Claude Welch p.294)

Kierkegaard’s complaint is quite ‘evangelical’ and fits with the task say, we face here in Sweden. He had become convinced that in order for someone to actually become a true Christian the mask of Christendom needed peeling away.

Christendom has done away with Christianity, without being quite aware of it. The consequence is that, if anything is to be done, one must try again to introduce Christianity into Christendom.

ibid p.295

In that sense Kierkegaard would not at all be worried about the declining figures of Christian allegiance in the West. Only those who realise that they’re not in fact Christians can become Christians.

The basis for Kierkegaard’s attack on Christendom was Christ as revealed in the Gospels and that following this Christ always leads you into opposition against the prevailing culture and as a result the inevitability of suffering & persecution. Welch says that for Kierkegaard, ‘to become a Christian is to take Christ as the model and to accept the requirement of unconditional obedience’.

Yet he knew, both within himself, and in Christendom that obedience does not come easy even to those that read the Bible.

The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. ― Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard

Taken from Relevant Magazine

Imagine that quote being read before the Bible reading each and every Sunday, which is one reason why evangelicals should beware the friendly nuisance that was Soren Kierkegaard.

Photo by Mikkel Rask