Kierkegaard - Attack upon "Christendom"

I few weeks ago I stumbled upon http://archive.org/details/kierkegaardsatta00kier .  I could not believe that such an important work had been allowed to go into the public domain, but a search of the US copyright records shows that it was, indeed, not renewed, which it had to be under the law of that time.  And so I created a Personal Book for us. 

Kierkegaard is a famous enough figure that he probably doesn't need an introduction.  He has had quite an influence on 20th Century theology.  It is quite hard to imagine figures like Tillich or Barth or Bonhoeffer without Kierkegaard.  While it is too early to say what influence he will have on the 21st Century, it seems to me that the issues he brings up are still with us.

On one level, this is a dispute within the mid 19th century Church of Denmark.  It started with an attack on a few bishops - one that just died, and the new Primate - Hans Martensen.  Martensen was a representative of Christianity through the eyes of Hegel, and Kierkegaard is quite the critic of this idealism.

But to me, it seems like more is going on here.  Kierkegaard is a full throated spokesman for the Law - the scary voice in the night - the prophetic voice saying that we are NOT what we should be.

And you know what?  That voice is correct.  Judgement begins with the house of God, and we come up mighty short.  The Law rightly kills us.

Admittedly, there have been reforms about some of his points.  Most of us live in places where the Church is not a branch of Government like it was there and then.  But don't think that Kierkegaard would not have problems with us as well.  In fact, if we were to make excuses based on this, we would be just like many of the figures he ridicules.  And as people make excuses, he gets more extreme.

This is a distressingly common spiritual state - we become so captivated by the Good and Holy Law that we can no longer see the Gospel.

I know that when I am there I don't want people to tell me that it isn't so bad.  I hear that as either they think I am nuts or that I actually AM nuts for seeing what is plain as day.  What I need, instead, is someone to take the wind out of my sails, so to speak, by both accepting this (ugly) judgement and showing me that it is precisely for these real sins that Jesus died -- That Jesus knows all we have done and wants us anyway (Jn 4).

Unfortunately I hear little of this in this work.  That said, it IS still God's Law that he is prophetically holding up to us.  We need this shock to make us see our sin.  This is the "tentatio" or "anfechtung" that Luther says is exactly where true confession of the Gospel happens.

And so I strongly commend this work to all of you out there.

SDG

Ken McGuire