Is this Christian worship, or is it treating God as a fool? [A question of conscience (to ease my conscience)]
May 1854. S. Kierkegaard.
When at a given time the state of the case is this, that, being privately aware, one makes as if nothing were the matter, whereas as a matter of fact everything is changed:
when the teacher (the priest) is bound by an oath upon the New Testament, is ordained, whereas as a matter of fact he not only has no portrait-resemblance to a disciple of Jesus Christ, but not even a caricature resemblance; no, is precisely the direct opposite of it, the trivial contrary;
when the doctrine which is preached as God's Word is different from God's Word for the fact that it is not the same, nor the opposite, but neither one thing nor the other, which is precisely what is most contrary to Christianity and to God's Word;
when the situation in which we speak (and the situation is what really defines how we are to understand what is said), when the situation no more resembles that in the New Testament than a bourgeois parlor or the child's playroom resembles the most frightful conflict we are confronted with in the most appalling reality, or resembles it even less, in so far as people spiritlessly pretend that the two situations resemble one another;
when the state of the case is this — and then, privately aware of it, people make as if nothing were the matter: is this then Christian worship, or is it treating God as a fool, treating Him as a fool by such an official worship, perhaps with the notion that, if only we call this Christianity, we can get away with it, by preachifying this at Him every Sunday we can make Him believe that this is Christianity?
By way of explanation
Ascension Day.
i. As to what I have said of the teacher (the priest), that he is the trivial contrary.
The portraitlike description of the priest is this: a half worldly, half Churchly civil servant, a person of rank, who (with the hope of promotion according to seniority, and of becoming in his turn recipient of a knightly order — how thoroughly in the spirit of the New Testament!) makes certain of a living for himself and his family, if necessary by the help of the police (who exact the tithes), (is this, I wonder, in compliance with the word of the Apostle, i Corinthians 9:26, "not to run uncertainly"?*), makes certain of a living, supports himself by the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified, maintaining that this profound earnestness (this imitation of Jesus Christ?) is the Christianity of the New Testament, complaining sadly and with sighs that unfortunately there are so few true Christians — a fact which is sure enough — and for all that he walks in long robes, which Christ, however, does not exactly recommend when both in Mark and Luke He says (Mark 12:38; Luke 20:46), "Beware of those who go about in long robes."
ii. As to what I have said about the "situation."
In the New Testament the situation is this: the speaker, our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself absolutely expressing opposition, stands in a world which in turn absolutely expresses opposition to Him and to His teaching. When of the individual Christ requires faith, then (and with this we have a sharper definition of what He understands by faith), then by reason of the situation this is not feasible without coming into a relationship with the surrounding world which perhaps involves mortal danger; when Christ says, "Confess me before the world," "Follow me," or when He says, "Come unto me," etc., etc., then, by reason of the situation which furnishes the more express understanding, the consequences will always be exposure to danger, perhaps to mortal danger. On the other hand, where all are Christians, the situation is this: to call oneself a Christian is the means whereby one secures oneself against all sorts of inconveniences and discomforts, and the means whereby one secures worldly goods, comforts, profit, etc., etc. But we make as if nothing had happened, we declaim about believing ("He who knows best, that is our priest"14), about confessing Christ before the world, about following Him, etc., etc.; and orthodoxy nourishes in the land, no heresy, no schism, orthodoxy everywhere, the orthodoxy which consists in playing the game of Christianity.
Kierkegaard's Footnote
*The Apostle understands it thus: "I buffet my body" in order not to run uncertainly.
Translator's Footnotes
14Quoted from a jingle which every Danish child knew.