Søren Kierkegaard

		In the Lutheran tradition and the Anglican Communion, Kierkegaard is remembered as a teacher, philosopher, and theologian.
		Søren Kierkegaard, is remembered and honored within the Lutheran Church calendar on November 11 or 12. He died at age 42 in Copenhagen on November 11, 1855. In modern time, Veterans Day is marked on November 11 in most of Europe and North America, thus the day to give thanks for Kierkegaard is transfered to the 12th. [In the Anglican communion, Kierkegaard is reemembered on September 8. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on May 5, 1813, became more influential after his lifetime than he was during it. His father was Michael Pederson Kierkegaard (d. 1838), an erstwhile farmer who had moved to the capital city and became a prosperous wool merchant. Michael was also a melancholy, puritanical figure who passed his disposition down to his guild-ridden son. Søren, initially planning to become a minister in the state Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, studied theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1830 to 1840. Although our saint never lost his faith in God, he became hostile to the state church, so he never pursued ordination. He, living off inherited wealth, focused on writing books and articles (often under pseudonyms) in the fields of theology, psychology, ethics, and philosophy. Our saint never married, for reasons biographers have interpreted in different ways. He, engaged to Regine Olsen (1822-1904), in 1840-1841, broke off the engagement and never told her his reasons. As I explained in the post about Bishop Grundtvig, the dominant strain in Danish Lutheranism at the time was Rationalism, which reduced ministers to teachers of morality and Christianity to an idea–a reasonable one, of course. Grundtvig challenged Rationalism from within the state church, which he transformed. Kierkegaard, however, condemned the state church as a mockery of Christianity. In the thought of Kierkegaard proof negated faith. If one could prove the Incarnation, the existence of God, and the truth of Christianity, one would negate faith and replace it with evidence. A leap of faith was necessary. Absolute knowledge was neither rational nor possible, our saint insisted, contradicting Georg Hegel. Kierkegaard also contradicted a raft of Greek philosophers who taught that people have the truth inside them and need merely to become conscious of that fact. No, our saint wrote, both the truth and the ability to understand it come from outside–from God, to be precise. Kierkegaard had another objection to the Danish state church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark: It made being a Christian too easy. Challenges were inherent in the Christian pilgrimage of faith, our saint understood. Did not Jesus command each person to take up his or her cross and follow Him? The union of church and state in Denmark robbed the Danish state church of its authenticity and power, Kierkegaard argued. Kierkegaard, aged 42 years, died in Copenhagen on November 11, 1855. He had been paralyzed since he had collapsed in a street on October 2. To the end our saint refused offers of ministrations by ministers of the state church. He said, "Royal functionaries are not related to Christianity." The late Rev. Dr. Arthur Freeman, PhD., a bishop in the Moravian Church and former professor at Moravian Seminary in Bethlehem, PA, with whom I studied Kierkegaard, would often refer to him as the introverted and melancholy theologian. His spirituality captures and underscored the inner processes of knowing God and self. His writings bear much to say about life as an introvert and as one who knows depression and anxiety. As A Brief Bibliography The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition For Upbuilding And Awakening Either/Or: A Fragment of Life Stages on Life's Way: Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol 11 Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing The Prayers of Kierkegaard Website of Prayers—http://www.thewords.com/articles/soren1.htm Quotes From Kierkegaard's Writings Hope is passion for what is possible. I'm so misunderstood that people misunderstand me even when I tell them I'm misunderstood. Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion - and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority. The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers. At last it will stir up all those dregs of humanity which no state or government can control. Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth. The more people who believe something, the more apt it is to be wrong. The person who's right often has to stand alone. And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. (The one) who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, (one) will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. A (person) prayed, and at first (they) thought that prayer was talking. But (they) became more and more quiet until in the end (they) realized prayer is listening. For without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith. Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards. A (person) may perform astonishing feats and comprehend a vast amount of knowledge, and yet have no understanding of himself. But suffering directs a (person) to look within. If it succeeds, then there, within him, is the beginning of his learning. The spiritual differs from the religious in being able to endure isolation. The rank of a spiritual person is proportionate to his strength for enduring isolation, whereas we religious people are constantly in need of 'the others,' the herd. We religious folks die, or despair, if we are not reassured by being in the assembly, of the same opinion as the congregation, and so on. But the Christianity of the New Testament is precisely related to the isolation of the spiritual (person). If I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence. Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it - and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you - for only the truth that builds up is truth for you. A Prayer From Kierkegaard Great Companion, You have loved us first. May we never forget that You are love, So that this sure conviction might triumph in our hearts Over the whirling of the world, Over the inquietude of the soul, Over the anxiety for the future, Over the fright of the past, Over the distress of the moment. May this conviction discipline our So that our hearts might remain faithful and sincere In the love which we bear to all those we love as ourselves. Amen.