The Profoundest Wound

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.