Taking Kierkegaard Back To Church

Soren Kierkegaard's vociferous attacks upon Christendom have hardly endeared him to the ecclesial establishment, yet the church continues to dismiss his paradoxical voice at its peril. This book moves beyond the ill-conceived postmodern interpretations of Kierkegaard's thought by illuminating his ecclesiological value through a distinctly kerygmatic lens. Kierkegaard's authorship demonstrated this mission in creative and arresting ways. His sharp critiques of academic theologians and duplicitous pastors remain starkly relevant today. Furthermore, his fascinating reflections on inconsequential sermons, biblical defamiliarity, indirect communication, pastoral correctivity, street preaching, revivalism, and even church furniture, further illustrate the ways he sought to reimply the gospel to a Christendom-poisoned church. Hearing Kierkegaard's ecclesiological voice afresh, we also see its surprising applicability to the post-Christendom situation, which may like to think it has moved on without him. This book will intrigue anyone interested in the fundamental questions of what it means to hear (or not to hear) the gospel today, if we dare to allow our ears to do so.

Søren Kierkegaard’s vociferous attacks upon Christendom have hardly endeared him to the ecclesial establishment, yet the church continues to dismiss his paradoxical voice at its peril. This book moves beyond the ill-conceived postmodern interpretations of Kierkegaard’s thought by illuminating his ecclesiological value through a distinctly kerygmatic lens. Kierkegaard’s authorship demonstrated this mission in creative and arresting ways. His sharp critiques of academic theologians and duplicitous pastors remain starkly relevant today. Furthermore, his fascinating reflections on inconsequential sermons, biblical defamiliarity, indirect communication, pastoral correctivity, street preaching, revivalism, and even church furniture, further illustrate the ways he sought to reimply the gospel to a Christendom-poisoned church. Hearing Kierkegaard’s ecclesiological voice afresh, we also see its surprising applicability to the post-Christendom situation, which may like to think it has moved on without him. This book will intrigue anyone interested in the fundamental questions of what it means to hear (or not to hear) the gospel today, if we dare to allow our ears to do so.

Most of what is written on Kierkegaard today is for the college classroom and academic conferences. The guiding question of this book is that if Kierkegaard's words about Christianity are true, how do they change the way we learn and practice the Christian faith today? This book is an answer to that question. It does not enter into an extended critical discussion over the truth of Kierkegaard's ideas. Instead it just believes what Kierkegaard said and runs with it. It does that by showing how his ideas change our understanding of Christian identity, suffering and illness, worship and preaching, the Bible, baptism, prayer, marriage and divorce, criticism, and the Christian minister. Interspersed are many quotations from Martin Luther, whose thought significantly shaped Kierkegaard's. At the end of the book is a hefty collection of sermons to show how all of this can be preached in the church. What Kierkegaard for the Church adds to our understanding of Kierkegaard is the place of the church in his thought. Because of his criticisms of the Danish state church and his stress on the need for the single individual to appropriate Christian teachings, it could be imagined that he rejected the church. But that would be to throw the baby out with the bath. The fact is that Kierkegaard remained a loyal son of the church even while he attacked it. And he did this only so he could strengthen what he loved.

On 18 December 1854 Kierkegaard began to publish a series of newspaper articles critical of the Danish state church. This book views these writings not only in the context of the theological, philosophical, and social events of that time but also the 2005-2006 Danish cartoon controversy.

This companion explores Søren Kierkegaard's theological importance, offering a comprehensive reading of his work through a distinctly theological lens, including interpretative concerns, his approach to specific doctrines, and theological trajectories for thinking beyond his work. Beginning with essays on key interpretative factors involved in approaching Kierkegaard's complex corpus, there are also historical accounts of his theological development, followed by – for the first time in a single volume – focused expositions of Kierkegaard's approach to particular doctrinal themes, from those oft-discussed in his work (e.g. Christology) to those more understated (e.g. Pneumatology). The book concludes with theological trajectories for Kierkegaard's thought in the twenty-first century. This volume helps not only to situate Kierkegaard's theology more firmly on the map, but to situate Kierkegaard more firmly on the theological map, as one who has much to offer both the form and content of the theological task.

A masterful new translation of one of Kierkegaard's most engaging works In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his followers to let go of earthly concerns by considering the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Søren Kierkegaard's short masterpiece on this famous gospel passage draws out its vital lessons for readers in a rapidly modernizing and secularizing world. Trenchant, brilliant, and written in stunningly lucid prose, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air (1849) is one of Kierkegaard's most important books. Presented here in a fresh new translation with an informative introduction, this profound yet accessible work serves as an ideal entrée to an essential modern thinker. The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air reveals a less familiar but deeply appealing side of the father of existentialism—unshorn of his complexity and subtlety, yet supremely approachable. As Kierkegaard later wrote of the book, "Without fighting with anybody and without speaking about myself, I said much of what needs to be said, but movingly, mildly, upliftingly." This masterful edition introduces one of Kierkegaard's most engaging and inspiring works to a new generation of readers.

Kierkegaard, a poet of ideals and practitioner of the indirect method, also had a direct and polemical side. He revealed this in several writings throughout his career, culminating in The Moment, his attack against the established ecclesiastical order. Kierkegaard was moved to criticize the church by his differences with Bishop Mynster, Primate of the Church of Denmark. Although Mynster saw in Kierkegaard a complement to himself and his outlook, Kierkegaard challenged Mynster to acknowledge the emptying and estheticizing of Christianity that had occurred in modern Christendom. For three years Kierkegaard was silent, waiting. When Mynster died, he was memorialized as "an authentic truth-witness" in the "holy chain of truth-witnesses that stretches through the ages from the days of the apostles." This struck Kierkegaard as blasphemous and inspired him to write a series of articles in Fædrelandet, which he followed with ten numbers of the pamphlet The Moment. This volume includes the articles from Fædrelandet, all numbers of The Moment, and several other late pieces of Kierkegaard's writing.

An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of nineteenth century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse, who clearly presents the man's mind as well as the acute sensitivity behind Kierkegaard's books. Drawing on biographical material that has newly come to light, Kierkegaard: A Single Life introduces his many guises—the thinker, the lover, the recluse, the writer, the controversialist—in prose as compelling and fluid as a novel and pursues clarity to long-standing questions about him: What made this Danish theologian so controversial and influential? Why were so many people drawn to his books, even if they didn't understand what they were reading? Can his complicated relationship with the Church and religion be untangled? Or, for that matter, what about his complicated—at times almost paradoxical—relationship with every sphere of life from politics to poetry? To be considered everything from a great intellect to a dandy, from a martyr to a "false messiah" is no mean feat, and this biography sheds light on Søren Kierkegaard as he was with empathy and humor. Included is an appendix presenting an overview of each of Kierkegaard's works, for the scholar and lay reader alike.