Let the State test the reckoning, and it will be found that the reckoning is radically wrong
The test is quite simple: let the State (and this is the one and only Christian demand, and also the only
reasonable thing), let the State make all preaching of Christianity a private practice
— and it will soon be evident whether there are in this land one and a half million Christians, and
likewise whether there is in this land employment for 1000 priests with families.
The truth will prove to be that perhaps there is not really employment for 100 priests, and the truth will also prove to be that perhaps there is not a single one of all these bishops, deans and priests who is capable of undertaking a private practice.
Just as when the mother tongue was introduced in examinations14 it was a sharpening of the test because the examinee had then no pretext that it was the language which hindered from betraying how much he knew, so is a private practice in the religious field very much more serious than this silly business of having royal functionaries, which does not so much as require one to have a religion for oneself, but merely to lecture qua royal functionary, paid by the State, protected by the State, insured of respect...qua royal functionary.
What keeps up the illusion about a Christian nation is partly the universal human indolence and love of ease which prefers to remain in the old ruts — but principally it is these 1000 self-interested men, among whom there is not a single one who is not pecuniarily interested in maintaining the illusion. If the illusion were removed, it is likely that 900 would be entirely without any means of earning their living; and the 100 who are capable of carrying on a private practice understand only too well that this is something entirely different from the present service in gaiters, with steady promotion insured by the State which may amount to a salary of many thousands. That a man needs medical help is something which makes itself physically so understandable that the State does not need in this instance to help people to understand it. But when men are made free religiously, a person may have trouble enough in making clear to them their spiritual need. Here it is that the State helps — but no doubt very unchristianly. "What! You feel no need of Christianity? Perhaps you need to go to the Reformatory!" "What! You feel no need of Christianity? Then perhaps you feel a need of becoming nothing; for unless you become a Christian all paths in society are closed to you!" Ah, that helped the priests' practice; and it is upon this in great part the priest lived, as one of Peder Paar's characters said of himself, "I live Christianly...by bankruptcy."15
That is no use; we must get rid of all disguises, mystifications and pompousness in order to get at the fact — that the stability of the Established Church is a money question, that the solemn silence of the clergy has a perfectly simple explanation, corresponding to what happens in business when a man is dunned for money and perhaps first tries to get out of it by pretending he did not hear. The clergy therefore had far better admit the true situation; things will only become worse for them by the help of this sort of silence. When a man with gravely measured tread walks with great gravity down the street, people are prompted to think, This must be something uncommon; but when one chances to learn the explanation of this gravity, that the man is a little tight, that for this reason (to counteract the tendency to gravitate directly towards the curbstone) he must hold himself with such gravity — he might far better stagger a bit, people would perhaps smile, perhaps not notice his condition at all. On the other hand, by his gravity he prompts an interest, and now cannot escape the banter, which only becomes more unmerciful in proportion as he makes an effort to walk with more and more gravity. So it is with the silence of the clergy. An open, frank, direct word would have been infinitely more serviceable to them than this silence, which solemnly, with high uplifted solemnity, conceals the fact that it is...a money question. For now the sarcasm acquires interest, the situation of the clergy becomes by this solemn and pretentious silence so very interesting.
Translator's Footnote
14The mother tongue gradually replaced Latin for examinations during the first half of the nineteenth century.
15Pedars Paars, 2nd song, verse 48.