Can Kierkegaard Preach?
Abstract
I will look at the work of Søren Kierkegaard as a preliminary case study. Accordingly, the specific question that will occupy us here is: “Can Kierkegaard Preach?” I mean for this question to be heard in two ways. On the one hand, this question asks if the ideas of Kierkegaard can be translated into the mode of discourse that would make for productive (perhaps “moving”) sermons in the setting of contemporary church services. On the other hand, this question asks if Kierkegaard, himself, could deliver such sermons. The first formulation concerns primarily the subjectivity of Christian life and the second formulation concerns primarily the authority of Christian witness. In this all too brief essay, I will suggest that Kierkegaard’s though can indeed “preach,” but whether Kierkegaard himself can “preach it” depends on how we understand the role and task of preaching itself
References
Davenport, John J. 2008. “What Kierkegaardian Faith Adds to Alterity Ethics: How Levinas and Derrida Miss the Eschatological Dimension.” In J. Aaron Simmons and David Wood, eds. Kierkegaard and Levinas: Ethics, Politics, and Religion. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 169-96.
Kierkegaard, Soren. 1983. Fear and Trembling and Repetition. Ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Soren. 1990. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Soren. 1991. Practice in Christianity. Ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Soren. 1992. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Vol. I. Ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Soren. 1995. Works of Love. Ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Soren. 1997. Without Authority. Ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Soren. 1998. The Moment and Late Writings. Ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Westphal, Merold. 1991. Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
I would like to thank Mary Catherine Gleason for helping me to think about the stakes of these issues. Her own struggle with the relationship between Kierkegaardian philosophy and contemporary Christian practice is what directly inspired this essay.
See Backhouse (2011) for an excellent consideration of Kierkegaard’s relationship with Christian nationalism.
Kierkegaard will articulate this same idea when he argues that the “expectancy of faith” is “victory” (1990, 7-30).
