kiekegaard does it again

How about this for a powerful quote:

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

Homeless

As has been kindly pointed out in a recent comment the problem is that I'm Not An Anglican.

Which is fine and no real surprise. I wonder a) what I am and b) what I am supposed to do with that knowledge given that I don't fit anywhere else either.

I know it is a very cheesy thing to say, but I wonder if Jesus, John the Baptist or Francis of Assisi would have fitted within any of our modern expressions of Church either. I wonder how people like Chesterton, CS Lewis and Dostoevsky managed when they were free-thinkers and seemed to stand against Church for The Sake of It.

I wonder what we'd do if someone like Kirekegaard turned up. Anyway, maybe it doesn't really matter and maybe I don't really care.

I might turn up at church and stay for coffee, but don't expect me to get involved in any way.

Kierkegaard on trying hard

"There is, for example, a man in Copenhagen. He travels by ship to London and back in the greatest comfort and ease, “and,” says the pastor, “this was his North Pole expedition. No, he did not reach the North Pole, but he tried.” “It is perfectly clear,” expounds the preacher, “that if you are going to make an expedition to the North Pole and live in Copenhagen, you must first of all leave Copenhagen. This man did that. On the other hand, no one has yet reached the North Pole anyway. Even those who have gone the farthest have only made an effort. But so has this man. To travel to London is also an effort.” Wonderful, tremendously popular! And to take a ride to the city park on Sunday afternoon, leaving one’s home, is also an effort aimed at discovering the North Pole: ergo, we are all striving! This is the way all of us have become Christians, and paying Christians to boot!"

Kierkegaard

I have just discovered Kierkegaarde, having previously thought he was only for theologians and philosophers.

I really like what I read. Here is a bit that made me laugh out loud:

In the magnificent cathedral the honorable and Right Reverend Geheime-General-Ober-Hof-Pradikant, the elect favorite of the fashionable world, appears before an elect company and preaches with emotion upon the text he himself elected: “God has chosen the base things of this world, and the things that are despised” – and nobody laughs.

And how true is this?

As a career man and job holder the pastor proclaims Christianity. He says: My job is to proclaim Christianity – I am hired simply to preach. And so it is with the pastor’s proclamation. The congregation on the other hand excuses itself from doing what the sermon says by declaring: We have so many other things to take care of; such a stringent Christianity can be re-quired only of the pastor, the man of God. And thus we arrive at the result: Christianity – but no Christians.