When I think of Soren Kierkegaard many words come to mind; frail, sensitive in the worse way, brilliant, self-willed, malicious, obsessive, complex , hard to understand, a gossip, a grudge holder, and wounded. His biographer Joakim Garff quotes a Theologian Peter Christian Zahle, physical described him, " Under the low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat one saw the big head with the coarse, dark-brown hair; the blue, expressive eyes; the pale yellow color of his face and the sunken cheeks, with many deep wrinkles down the cheeks and around the mouth, which spoke even when it was silent. He frequently carried his head tilted a little to one side. His back was a bit curved. He had a cane or an umbrella under his arm. The brown coat was tight an snugly buttoned around his thin body. The weak legs seemed to bear their burden uncertainly, but for a long time they served to carry him from the study out into the open air, where he took his people bath."
Kierkegaard is regarded as some as the most influential philosopher of the 19th Century because they credit him with the invention of existentialism. My take is that he was a prophet, an odd prophet, a iconoclast to be sure, he challenged the Danish Church to practice what it preached. He warred with its leaders, and he fought with other journalists. One thing he didn't do was capitulate. He was a confronter, he would stand toe to toe, he cared deeply for his reputation, but he was willing to sacrifice it for truth. I am sure if Kierkegaard was living in Denmark today, he would be in the streets of Copenhagen standing up to the outraged Muslims who are protesting a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. The cartoon depicts the Prophet with a bomb in his turban. It seems holy war is fine as long as you don't admit its origin or leader. Appeasement doesn't work with those whose mission it is to take over the world. I do not defend the cartoon or those who published it a second time, obviously its publication was meant to provoke. But it is vital that in order to maintain a free society, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, Danes must stand up for freedom of the press and free speech. Otherwise Europe will simply become an even weaker society, and one that as the Archbishop of Canterbury recently suggested, be governed by Muslim Law.
Kierkegaard called upon the Church to stand strong, to live out the gospel. I would suggest that we Christ followers in the USA understand the lesson of what happens to a society that is destroyed by a weak church.
