Practice in Christianity

Christ met as his contemporaries met him, a humiliated man one might take offence at, not a glorified figure of history.

by Søren Kierkegaard510 passages held

Danish, the original language

Original title: Indøvelse i Christendom
First published: 1850(aged 37)
Original language: Danish

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Overview

When this book appeared in September 1850, the head of the Danish church called it a profane game played with holy things. He was Jakob Peter Mynster, Bishop of Zealand, who had been pastor to Søren Kierkegaard's father and whom Kierkegaard revered. The book's pseudonymous author, Anti-Climacus, takes as his text Christ's invitation to all who labour and are heavily burdened, and insists on asking who is issuing it. It is not, he argues, the glorious figure of eighteen centuries of Christian triumph, but a poor teacher in Roman Palestine, mocked and finally executed, whom no one could meet without the possibility of taking offence. To be a Christian is to become contemporary with that man, as if the intervening history had not happened, and to face the choice his first listeners faced. The church of Kierkegaard's Denmark, which counted everyone a Christian from birth and had made the faith respectable, had in his view removed exactly that choice. That church produced admirers of Christ, who keep a safe distance and applaud, where Christ had asked for followers. Kierkegaard wrote the book in 1848 and early 1849 and published it only in the autumn of 1850. He and Mynster were never reconciled, and the bishop died in January 1854. In 1855, in the middle of Kierkegaard's open attack on the church, a new edition appeared, and he declared in the newspaper Fædrelandet that the book, read without its pseudonym, was an attack on the established order.

Key concepts

What does it mean to become contemporary with Christ?

To stand toward Christ as his first listeners did, as if the intervening eighteen centuries had not happened. For Anti-Climacus the history of Christian success gives no advantage and can hide the choice: a person must meet the lowly teacher, not the glorified figure, and decide whether to believe or take offence.

What is the possibility of offence?

The standing possibility that someone meeting Christ will be scandalised by him, by a lowly, suffering man who claims to be God. Anti-Climacus holds that it cannot be removed without removing Christianity with it: faith is only possible where offence is possible too, which is why a Christianity that offends no one has lost something essential.

Whose invitation does the book take as its text?

Christ's: come to me, all who labour and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Anti-Climacus takes it as his text and insists on asking who issues it, a poor teacher in Roman Palestine, mocked and finally executed, because the invitation means something different once the inviter's lowliness is kept in view.

Who is Anti-Climacus?

The pseudonym under which this book and The Sickness unto Death appeared; they are the pair Kierkegaard signed with it, and he ranked them among the most important things he wrote. Anti-Climacus writes as a Christian in the strictest sense, holding up a standard of following Christ that no comfortable reader can claim to meet.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Contemporary with the One Who Invites

Come to me, all who labour and are heavily burdened. Anti-Climacus insists on asking who issues that invitation, and answers: not the glorious Christ of eighteen centuries of triumph, but a poor, mocked teacher no one could meet without the possibility of offence.

The history that separates a believer from Christ is, on this argument, no help and can be an obstacle. Eighteen centuries of success make it look as though the question has been settled, and it has not. To be a Christian is to become contemporary with the man in Roman Palestine, as if that history had not happened, and to face the choice his first listeners faced: to believe, or to take offence at a lowly man who was finally executed. Kierkegaard judged it the truest of all his books.

offense
religious offense
incarnation
christology
divinity
paradox
faith
humility
suffering
persecution
compassion
salvation
love
sin
truth

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Admirers Where Christ Asked for Followers

A church that counts everyone a Christian from birth has made the faith respectable. Has it also removed the choice that made it faith, and turned followers into admirers who applaud from a safe distance?

The established church of Kierkegaard's Denmark, on Anti-Climacus's account, had quietly removed the possibility of offence by making Christianity everyone's inheritance. It produced admirers, who keep a safe distance and applaud, where Christ had asked for followers, who share his lowliness. Bishop Mynster, whom Kierkegaard revered, called the book a profane game played with holy things when it appeared in September 1850. In 1855, in the middle of his open attack on the church, Kierkegaard declared in Fædrelandet that the book, read without its pseudonym, was an attack on the established order.

discipleship
religious discipleship
imitation
admiration
self-denial
church
religious authority
hypocrisy
preaching
inwardness
christianity
interpretation
communication
irony
religion

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Within this work

passages held: 510
distinct concepts: 540
by passages held, corpus-wide: #146

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “faith” and “offense”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 27 pairings. 78 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
faith	offense	43
faith	incarnation	25
christianity	faith	18
faith	suffering	18
incarnation	offense	18
christology	faith	14
faith	religious authority	13
christianity	suffering	11
offense	suffering	9
christianity	incarnation	7
christianity	offense	7
christology	suffering	7
discipleship	religious authority	7
christianity	discipleship	6
christianity	religious authority	6
christology	incarnation	5
christology	offense	5
discipleship	faith	5
discipleship	suffering	5
incarnation	suffering	5
christology	religious authority	4
discipleship	offense	4
offense	religious authority	3
christianity	christology	1
christology	discipleship	1
incarnation	religious authority	1
religious authority	suffering	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1841 The Concept of Irony (Om Begrebet Ironi)
Defended in September 1841 — after he had returned Regine Olsen's engagement ring, before the final break with her — this academic dissertation is the last book he signed himself before the pseudonymous books began with Either/Or.
DA
1843 Either/Or (Enten – Eller)
The first of the pseudonymous books: an invented editor presenting two invented authors, whose argument Stages on Life's Way would reopen two years later.
DA
1843 Fear and Trembling (Frygt og Bæven)
Twin of Repetition, published the same October day: both books take up a man who must give up what he loves, one through Abraham and Isaac, the other through an engagement broken off.
DA
1843 Repetition (Gjentagelsen)
A short fiction, subtitled a venture in experimenting psychology: one man's account of a journey back to Berlin, and another man's letters about a love he has fled.
DA
1844 Philosophical Fragments (Philosophiske Smuler)
Johannes Climacus signs his first book here and returns in the far longer Postscript; in its author's lifetime this short thought experiment was little read outside Denmark.
DA
1844 The Concept of Anxiety (Begrebet Angest)
Philosophical Fragments had appeared four days earlier under another pseudonym; this is its companion, and it takes a point of church doctrine, inherited sin, and treats it as a problem in psychology.
DA
1845 Stages on Life's Way (Stadier paa Livets Vei)
Characters from Either/Or and Repetition return here, and the argument moves past the ethical into the religious.
DA
1846 Concluding Unscientific Postscript to "Philosophical Fragments" (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift)
He meant it to close his authorship and later called it the authorship's turning point; after it, the openly religious writing takes over.
DA
1846 Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review (En literair Anmeldelse)
After the Postscript's farewell, the first book he published was, in form, a review of a contemporary novel, and he signed it with his own name.
DA
1847 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand)
Begun in the spring of 1846, while the satirical weekly The Corsair was still caricaturing him, it opens the run of signed religious books that fills the years after the Postscript.
DA
1847 Works of Love (Kjerlighedens Gjerninger)
Two series of deliberations, a form he set apart from the discourse because it is meant to unsettle a reader rather than console one, published six months after the Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits.
DA
1848 Christian Discourses (Christelige Taler)
The first book of 1848, the year he later called the richest of his authorship and the year he wrote The Sickness unto Death.
DA
1849 The Sickness unto Death (Sygdommen til Døden)
The first of two books signed by Anti-Climacus, with Practice in Christianity following in 1850; Kierkegaard later ranked the pair among the most important things he wrote.
DA
1849 Two Ethical-Religious Essays (Tvende ethisk-religieuse Smaa-Afhandlinger)
A slim pamphlet, the only book under the initials H.H., salvaged from a planned cycle of ethical-religious essays that he gave up in the spring of 1849.
DA
1850 Practice in Christianity (Indøvelse i Christendom) you are here DA
1851 For Self-Examination (Til Selvprøvelse, Samtiden anbefalet)
The last new title he published before three years of public silence, and the book whose planned second series became Judge for Yourselves!
DA
1855 The Moment (Øieblikket Nr. 1–10)
The open, signed form of the criticism that Practice in Christianity had made under a pseudonym, carried in a periodical of his own through the last months of his life.
DA
1876 Judge for Yourselves! (Dømmer selv! Til Selvprøvelse Samtiden anbefalet)
Of the books on this shelf, the only one he finished and then chose not to publish; it stands between the signed discourses of 1851 and the open attack on the church of 1854–55.
DA

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