Friday, February 24, 2023

 

Provocations: Lenten Encounters with Kierkegaard

 


Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was a Danish philosopher and theologian who lived and wrote during the nineteenth century. Kierkegaard's writings focused on death, purpose, and the human condition. The philosophers Plato, Kant, and Schelling influenced Kierkegaard’s work. Often considered the father of existentialism, Kierkegaard influenced existentialist philosophers throughout the nineteenth century and twentieth century, including Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.

[Source: Master Class: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/soren-kierkegaard-life-and-philosophy#6jDB4vLVlByb0POmBHXV3H]

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Ash Wednesday - Provocation I – “The Half Dose”

Kierkegaard loved to use analogies in this quote Soren asks us to imagine a kind of medicine in which the person receives a half-dose for fear that a full dose might be too much.  So the person receives a half-dose:

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“After all, at least it is something.” What a tragedy!

So it is with today’s Christianity. As with everything qualified by and either/or - the half has the very opposite effect from the whole. But we as Christians go on practicing this well-intentioned half-hearted act from generation to generation.  We produce Christians by the millions, are proud of it – yet have not inkling that we are doing just exactly the opposite of what we intend to do. …

The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial, mediocrity served up sweet.  There is nothing that so insidiously displaces the majestic as cordiality.  Perpetually polite, so small. So nice, tampering and meddling and tampering some more—the result is majesty is completely defrauded – of course, only a little bit.

And right there is the danger, for the infinite is more disposed to a violent attack than becoming a little bit degraded – amid smiling, Christians politeness.  And yet this politeness is what our Christianity amount to.  But the very essence of Christianity is utterly opposed to this mediocrity, in which it does not so much die as dwindle away.

[Source: Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard complied by Charles E. Moore and published by The Plough Publication House] 

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On this Ash Wednesday we begin our walk through Lent: “we are dust and to dust we will return” -  will we take the full dose or will Christian politeness see our faith slowly dwindle away?


Rev. Kenn Storck

Ash Wednesday

02/22/2023

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