On September 28, 1855, Søren Kierkegaard collapsed in the street. His legs suddenly became paralyzed. A few days later, he was urgently admitted to the local hospital in Copenhagen. His condition worsened as the malady spread to the rest of his body. The forty-two-year-old philosopher lay crippled for weeks while the doctors tried in vain to find a remedy. He somberly noted, “I have come here to die.”1

Kierkegaard restricted access to his bedside to a favored few. Despite being on the precipice of death, he demonstrated remarkable serenity and kindness – to most. Yet one family member never made an appearance and was repeatedly denied access: his brother and only surviving sibling, Peter Kierkegaard.

Peter, at this time, was a young Danish theologian and a rising bishop in the national church. As a priest, he would be obliged to offer last rites when visiting a deathbed, including Communion. This is something the dying Kierkegaard knew. Thus, when asked about his decision to bar his brother, Kierkegaard revealed his choice to decline receiving Communion from the church. When asked if he did not want Communion, Kierkegaard responded, “Yes, but not from a parson.”2

Even in his final days, Kierkegaard made clear his uncompromising defiance against the state church of Denmark. He opposed what he considered an establishment system that removed the very spirit of Christianity through its appropriation of political power, and its subsequent lapse into hypocrisy and trivialities. To partake in Communion from one of its officials, he reasoned, would be to engage in a bureaucratic ritual completely sterilized of any life. Kierkegaard stuck to his decision, saying, “I will not dispute about it. I have made my choice. The parsons are royal functionaries, and royal functionaries are not related to Christianity.”3

“I do not call myself a Christian.”

Death prevented Kierkegaard from finalizing his last polemic, The Instant. This collection of essays and newspaper op-eds violently attacked the state church and its legionaries. The files included an unpublished article that began starkly: “I do not call myself a Christian, do not say myself that I am a Christian.”4 Coming from someone who wrote as a self-proclaimed Christian and who at one time in his life even considered the priesthood, these words would have been jarring and disconcerting.  

Nothing filtered Kierkegaard’s ire against institutional Christianity as he neared the end of his life. He compared its defenders to a deceptive guild of swindlers and counterfeiters, surpassing even Judas in their betrayal; after all, Judas “did not have himself honored and praised, almost worshiped and adored, as a true adherent of Christ.”5 He compared its leaders to an evil cabal worse than cannibals: “The cannibal eats his enemies. Quite differently the ‘priest.’ He makes a show of being devoted to the highest degree to the man whom he eats.”6 Such savage imagery extends mercilessly for hundreds of pages. This is Kierkegaard at his most provocative, and most convicting.

Kierkegaard lived in a country where the official state church integrated itself with civil society and legislative norms. The political system reinforced this institutionalized religion through measures such as compulsory baptisms and church taxes, resulting in a default religious citizenry.

Kierkegaard believed this kind of “Christendom” contradicted the role faith should occupy in the world. A state or society assumes the responsibility of making life as safe and comfortable as possible, regulating such things as “public security, water, illuminations, roads, bridge-building, etc.”7 The aim is to ensure a high standard of living for its citizens. Kierkegaard feared that this necessarily becomes the goal of a state religion as well. This, he warned, transforms what it meant to be Christian into its antithesis.

Faith as Renunciation

Kierkegaard says faith requires “a break, the most profound, the most incurable break with this world.”8 It is a recognition that the love of God, being infinite and ultimate, cannot be measured by the standards of this world. Instead, it must be the measure by which all of life is understood. According to Kierkegaard, such a renunciation of all that is temporal for the sake of what is eternal is the essence of New Testament Christianity. For Kierkegaard, Christ stands as the human “prototype” or “pattern” of the kind of renunciation that is “essentially Christian.”9 Christ himself endured the unraveling of every earthly good in his obedience to God. Here we find a life that worldly criteria could not evaluate, and for this, he suffered.

Yet Christ also reveals the other side of the equation. He reveals a happiness that nothing, not even suffering, can touch. His resurrection represents the first fruit of an imperishable joy, a promise that through him, we too can partake in a life beyond the reach of death. Temporal life is fragile and can be taken away. But in Christ, we are offered a life that cannot be lost.

From an earthly standpoint, though, Christ’s promise demands the absurd. His teachings require renouncing anything earthly for the sake of the ultimate. Christ himself states the matter bluntly: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24–25). This is not mere detachment, or simply stepping away from worldly desires; it is a total reorientation of life, wagering everything on God’s revelation. Yet here lies the paradox: the same Christ who demands such a surrender also promises, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

“This, in my opinion,” Kierkegaard says, “is the falsification of which official Christianity is guilty: it does not frankly and unreservedly make known the Christian requirement.”10 Instead, establishment Christianity fosters a kind of play-acting, a “means to counterfeit” like children pretending with toy soldiers – going through motions while eliminating all genuine risk.11

The result is a Christianity portrayed as appealing, understandable, and useful. “The Christianity of ‘Christendom’ takes this into account,” Kierkegaard argues, and “takes away from Christianity the offense, the paradox, etc., and instead of that introduces probability, the plainly comprehensible.”12

Cultural Christianity

The issue extends far beyond the validity of “public religion.” In Kierkegaard’s time, as in our own, elites championed “cultural Christianity” for its moral values, aesthetic appeal, and civilizing influence – in short, its practical utility. For Kierkegaard, this is clearly not the Christian’s task.

As Kierkegaard puts it, “The thing you are required to do is to walk; it is no use at all to make the most astonishing inventions in the way of the easiest carriages and to want to convey yourself in these when the task prescribed to you was … walking.”13 To think otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of the task.

The question is not whether religiosity is an effective strategy to achieve success (however we define it) in our lives. For his part, Kierkegaard does not dismiss these earthly advantages of religion. “I say nothing disparaging of the priest from a civil or human point of view,” he once remarked, “any more than I deny that a chest of drawers may be an exceedingly useful and serviceable piece of furniture.” Yet he quickly added, “I only say that it has no relation to dancing.”14

Kierkegaard reserved his harshest criticism for the cultural elites who were content to admire Christianity for its psychological benefits, political vigor, moral guidance, or other cultural advantages. “What a dreadful falsehood it is to admire the truth, instead of following it.”15 But for Kierkegaard, the church’s entanglement with the state was not merely a political issue. It was a symptom of a more fundamental problem: reducing one’s relationship with God to a means to an end.

Some might view Kierkegaard’s critique of Christendom as too harsh, even reckless. At his most fervent, he appears to overlook the stable social norms resulting from the entrenched influence of Christianity, even in a diluted or cultural form. One could reasonably argue that even a society of people play-acting as Christians is preferable to one reverting to pagan values. It is easy to acknowledge some merit to “cultural Christianity.” But this would be to miss the point.

What is at stake here is not a matter of social benefits or even moral norms. It is eternal happiness – something that cannot be measured by any selection of temporal ends or advantages. It cannot be limited to parts of our lives or evaluated by a lesser criterion. It must involve the whole self. And so Kierkegaard confronts us with an uncomfortable question: Do you relate to God “to a certain degree”?

Holding the Fringe of His Robe

Unsurprisingly, Kierkegaard places great emphasis on the individual’s faith – our striving for “eternal happiness.” But any relationship is a two-way street. If God is not an object to be used or a technique to be applied, but a person, then we must consider how God relates to the individual.

One minister who addressed this question, and applied Kierkegaard’s insights with profound relevance, was Helmut Thielicke. A German Lutheran pastor who ministered in the aftermath of World War II, Thielicke served in a time when German society – and its state church – lay in ruins. Amid this desolation, Thielicke boldly preached to despairing countrymen “for whom ‘God’ is an open question.”16 In many ways, he brought Kierkegaard’s message to bear on a post-Christian society.

In one of his sermons, Thielicke uses as his text the story in the Gospel of Mark regarding the woman with an emission of blood who sought to touch the fringe of Jesus’ robe for healing. Thielicke observes that the woman possesses a wrong impression of Jesus – she views him not as the Savior, but as a miracle-worker, someone to be approached in desperation for personal benefit. To her, Jesus is useful. Thielicke discerns a similar attitude in his post-Christendom society. As he puts it:

If we coolly start from the assumption that Christianity is the foundation of our Western morality and value system, and if this banality is the only thing we know to say about Jesus, then this minimum Christianity is somehow still the equivalent to that momentary contact which the hemorrhaging woman tried to make with Jesus’ robe. To hold such a view means that we have really not yet heard the word of the Savior, nor have we yet faced up to him personally in any way. We only have a hold on the very fringe of his robe.17

This sermon communicates a theme implicit in Kierkegaard’s attack on Christendom. Kierkegaard had set himself as the opponent of those who understood the sum and substance of Christianity as something appealing or advantageous – just like the woman in the story. This, he would say, is the essence of “Christendom” whether it happens to enjoy earthly power or not.

Thielicke would agree with Kierkegaard in this respect, and yet offers an important glimmer of hope: “He who is honest in his grasping for that outer fringe and holds tightly to the Savior, at least to that extreme edge, has the promise that Jesus will turn and ask the question, ‘Who has touched my clothing?’”18 Jesus, in other words, may turn around to address us personally.

The point must not be overlooked. Even those who approach Jesus with misguided intentions are still sought by him. “I have made the first move in the wager. Now it is God’s turn,” Thielicke explains. “In the next moment I will see if he is and who he is.”19 This is the greatness of Jesus – he will let himself be found. He can kindle even these faint embers into faith.

Who Will You Become?

Kierkegaard often spoke of the “infinite qualitative difference” between God and man – akin to the difference between a novel’s character and its author. Yet he also acknowledges that “no teaching on earth has ever really brought God and man so close together as Christianity … for only God himself can do that.”20 For there to be any real relation between God and man, God must initiate it. This is Christianity: that God has written himself into the story. He has bridged the chasm. He came for us.

In the end, when we imagine ourselves seeking God, we will discover that it is, in fact, God who has been seeking us all along. At any moment, it is he who will turn and look at us face to face. To speak of “man’s search for God,” C. S. Lewis once said, we “might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.”21 He will hunt us down using whatever methods he pleases – he can even employ our own misconceptions to draw us closer to himself. Perhaps, even Christendom itself.

As Thielicke’s era illustrates, Kierkegaard’s warnings are not tied to the current status of Christendom, whether it holds political power and cultural dominance or trends toward irrelevance. His words are addressed to you. One commentator, Howard A. Johnson, sums this up well when he reflects on Kierkegaard’s critiques: “In the light of his attacks upon Christendom, people often ask, ‘What would Kierkegaard have become had he lived longer? … [But] the question posed by Kierkegaard is not what he would have become. The rude, actual question is: what are you to become?”22

“What Else?”

Kierkegaard never finished his series of polemics. He passed away after two weeks in the hospital, leaving unfinished drafts strewn across his desk. Alongside his belongings were an abundance of scattered essays, journals, and miscellaneous writings. An editor later discovered an undated note outlining Kierkegaard’s designs for his family burial plot. Kierkegaard had requested that a stanza from Hans Adolph Brorson’s hymn be engraved on his tombstone, in small letters.23

In a little while,
I shall have won,
Then the entire battle
Will disappear at once.
Then I may rest
In halls of roses
And unceasingly,
And unceasingly
Speak with my Jesus.24

Those privileged few who were with Kierkegaard in his last moments noted his calm and lighthearted disposition. His niece, Henriette Lund, recalled, “Never in such a way have I seen the spirit break through the earthly husk and impart to it a glory as of the transfigured body on the resurrection morning.”25

In the moments leading up to his death, a concerned observer asked whether Kierkegaard could still trust in the unmerited grace of Christ, despite his recent critiques of Christendom. “Why, of course.” He remarked, “What else?”26

Footnotes

1. Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard (Princeton University Press, 1942), 253.
2. Walter Lowrie, Short Life, 254.
3. Walter Lowrie, Short Life, 254.
4. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton University Press, 1968), 282.
5. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 36.
6. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 269.
7. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 99.
8. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 17.
9. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 168.
10. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 38.
11. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 121.
12. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 162.
13. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 100.
14. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christendom, 42.
15. Søren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity and the Edifying Discourse which ‘Accompanied’ It, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton University Press, 1944), 239.
16. Helmut Thielicke, How to Believe Again, trans. George Anderson (Fortress Press, 1972), 7.
17. Helmut Thielicke, How to Believe Again, 57.
18. Helmut Thielicke, How to Believe Again, 57.
19. Helmut Thielicke, How to Believe Again, 19.
20. Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1980), 117.
21. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (HarperOne, 2017), 278.
22. Introduction in Søren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon Christendom, xxxiii.
23. See Christopher B. Barnett, “Hans Adolph Brorson: Danish Pietism’s Greatest Hymn Writer and His Relation to Kierkegaard,” in Volume 5, Tome II: Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions - Theology, ed. Jon Steward, vol. 5 (Routledge, 2009), 63–80.
24. Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life (Zondervan, 2016), 192.
25. Walter Lowrie, Short Life, 253–254.
26. Walter Lowrie, Short Life, 255.