Regarding clergy and the kind of gospel preached two centuries ago, Søren Kierkegaard noted:
A nimble, adroit, lively man, who in pretty language, with the utmost ease, with graceful manners … knows how to introduce a little Christianity, but easily, as easily as possible. In the New Testament, Christianity is the profoundest wound that can be inflicted upon a man, calculated on the most dreadful scale to collide with everything- and now the clergyman has perfected himself in introducing Christianity in such a way as it signifies nothing, and when he is able to do this to perfection he is regarded as a paragon. But this is nauseating! Oh, if a barber has perfected himself in removing the beard so easily that one hardly notices it, that’s well enough; but in realtion to that which is precisely calculated to wound, to perfect oneself so as to introduce it in such a way that if possible it is not noticed at all- that is nauseating. -Søren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon “Christendom”, 258.
I have read this 4-5 times and don’t have a clue what it means. I am such a literary idiot. Come stay at the Bed & Dinner and enlighten me.
The wound of knowledge. Always such a deep metaphor. Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has a great piece entitled “The Would of Knowledge,” as well.
May we all bleed a flow that is staunchable only in the eschatological presence of Christ.
Keith, sure, we can chat regarding Kiekegaard’s cause for being nauseated.