False Christianity

- Soren Kierkegaard -

 

Think of a very long railway train but long ago the locomotive ran away from it. Christendom is like this. Generation after generation has imperturbably continued to link the enormous train of the new generation to the previous one, solemnly saying: We will hold fast to the faith of the fathers. Thus Christendom has become the very opposite of what Christianity is. Christianity is restlessness, the restlessness of the eternal. Any comparison here is flat and tedious to such a degree that the restlessness of the eternal is restless. Christendom is tranquillity. How charming, the tranquillity of literally not moving.

 

When we receive a package we unwrap it to get at the contents. Christianity is a gift from God, but instead of receiving the gift, we have undertaken to wrap it up, and each generation has furnished a new wrapping around the others.

 

In so-called Christianity we have made Christmas into a great festival. This is quite false, and it was not at all so in the Early Church. We mistake childishness for Christianity what with all our sickly sentimentality, our candy canes, and our manger scenes. Instead of remaining conscious of being in conflict that marks a life of true faith, we Christians have made ourselves a home and settled down in a comfortable and cosy existence. No wonder Christmas has become little more than a beautiful holiday.

 

Whenever I think of the insipid, sweet, syrupy concept of the Saviour, the kind of Saviour Christendom adores and offers for sale, reading his own words about himself has a strange effect: "I have come to set afire," come to produce a split which can tear the most holy bonds, the bonds God himself has sanctified, the bonds between father and son, wife and husband, parents and children.

 

Everything has become reversed. There was a time when the world wanted to fight Christianity then Christianity fought back. Now the world is in fraudulent possession of Christianity. Its tactics are, with all its power and at any price, to prevent a showdown. It is as when a swindler has misgivings if the matter goes to court, he has lost and therefore all his tactics are directed toward keeping it from going to court. In the realm of the spirit this happens far more easily than in the actuality of civil life, for the technique consists in the world continually counterfeiting Christ s position so that it is kind of saying the same thing but good God, then the world and Christ are agreed!

 

When Christianity entered the world it presupposed want, distress, the suffering of the anguished conscience, the hunger that cries out only for food and then Christianity was the food.  Nowadays we think that we have to offer appetizers before we can get people to enter into faith. We have changed Christianity from a radical cure into a minor precaution, like something used to prevent colds, toothaches, and the like. And strangely enough, although every inventor of drops, pills, and so on, "which do neither good nor harm," trumpets his medicine as a miracle balm, Christianity is proclaimed in very muted tones.

 

What is Christianity? Simple: to be like Christ.

 

Imitation of Jesus! I do not mean the kind of imitation consisting of fasting and flagellation, and so on. No, imitation means following the example, being willing to witness for the truth and against untruth, and to do so without seeking any support whatsoever from any external power, neither attaching oneself to any power nor forming a party. No wonder we humans are unable to get involved with this imitation.

 

Christianity has been made so much into a consolation that people have completely forgotten that it is first and foremost a demand.

 

We could at least be truthful before God and admit our weakness instead of reducing the requirement.

 

Christ comes to the world as the example, constantly enjoining: Imitate me. We humans prefer to adore him instead.

 

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 drivel, 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 that majesty is completely defrauded of course, only a little bit.

 

The theological world is like the road along the coast on a Sunday afternoon during the races. People storm past one another, shouting and yelling, laugh and make fools of each other, drive their horses to death, upset each other, are run over, and when at last they arrive, covered with dust and out of breath they look at each other and go home.

 

Imagine a kind of medicine that possesses in full dosage a laxative effect but in a half dose a constipating effect. Suppose someone is suffering from constipation. But for some reason or other, perhaps because there is not enough for a full dose or because it is feared that such a large amount might be too much in order to do something, he is given, with the best of intentions, a half dose: "After all, it is at least something." What a tragedy!

So it is with today s Christianity. As with everything qualified by an either/or the half has the very opposite effect from the whole. But we Christians go right on practicing this well-intentioned half-hearted act from generation to generation. We produce Christians by the millions, are proud of it yet have no inkling that we are doing just exactly the opposite of what we intend to do.

It takes a physician to understand that a half dose can have the opposite effect to that of a full dose. Common sense, cool-minded mediocrity never catches on. It undeviatingly continues to say of the half-dosage: "After all, it is something; even if it doesn t work very well, it is still something." But that it should have an opposite effect no, mediocrity does not grasp that.

 

Christianity does not oppose debauchery and uncontrollable passions and the like as much as it is opposes this flat mediocrity, this nauseating atmosphere, this homey, civil togetherness, where admittedly great crimes, wild excesses, and powerful aberrations cannot easily occur but where God s unconditional demand has even greater difficulty in accomplishing what it requires: the majestic obedience of submission. Nothing is further from obeying the either/or than this sweet family drivel.

 

Consider what Christ thinks about mediocrity! When the apostle Peter, for instance, with good intentions wanted to keep Christ from being crucified, Christ answered: "Get behind me, Satan! You are an offence to me"  (Mk. 8:33).   In the world of mediocrity in which we live it is assumed that only crackpots, fanatics, and the like should be deplored as offensive, as inspired by Satan, and that the middle way is the right way, the way that alone is exempted from any such charge.  What nonsense! Christ is of another mind: mediocrity is the worst offence, the most dangerous kind of demon possession, farthest removed from the possibility of being cured.

 

The advantages and benefits of earthly life are bound up in mediocrity. But genuine religion has an inverse relationship to the finite. Its aim is to raise human beings up so as to transcend what is earthly. It is a matter of either/or. Either prime quality, or no quality at all; either with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength, or not at all. Either all of God and all of you, or nothing at all!

 

So-called pious Christians are also unfree. They too lack the authentic certitude of inwardness. That is why they are so pious!  And the world is surely justified in laughing at them.  If, for example, a bowlegged man wants to be a dancing master but is not able to execute a single step, he is comical. So it is also with  the multitudes who are so religious. Often you can hear the pious beating time, as it were, exactly like one who cannot dance but nevertheless knows enough to beat time, yet who are never fortunate enough to get in step. In order to reassure themselves, the pious seize upon grandiose ideas that the world hates. They battle ideas, but not with their lives. Such is the life of those who lack inwardness.

Eternity is a very radical thought, and thus a matter of inwardness. Whenever the reality of the eternal is affirmed, the present becomes something entirely different from what it was apart from it. This is precisely why human beings fear it (under the guise of fearing death). You often hear about particular governments that fear the restless elements of society. I prefer to say that the entire Age is a tyrant that lives in fear of the one restless element: the thought of eternity. It does not dare to think it. Why? Because it crumbles under and avoids like anything the weight of inwardness.

 

What is decisive in Christian suffering? It lies in the fact that it is voluntary "on account of the Word" and "for righteousness sake." The disciples left everything to follow Christ. Their sacrifice was voluntary. Someone may be unfortunate to lose everything he owns and has; but he has not given up the least thing. Not like the Apostles! Herein lies the confusion.

In today s Christianity we take ordinary human suffering and turn it into a Christian example. "Everyone has a cross to bear." We preach unavoidable human trials into being Christian suffering. How this happens is beyond me! To lose everything and give up everything are not synonymous. To the contrary, the difference between them is infinite. If I happen to lose everything, this is one thing. But if I voluntarily give up everything, choose danger and difficulties, this is something entirely different.  When this happens it is impossible to avoid the trial that comes with carrying Jesus cross. This is what Christian suffering means, and it is a whole scale deeper than ordinary human adversity.

 

Nowadays we can become or live as Christians in the most pleasant way and without ever risking the slightest possibility of offence. All we have to do is start with the status quo and observe good virtues (good-better-best). We can continue to make ourselves comfortable by scraping together the world s goods, as long as we stir into the pot what is Christian as a seasoning, an ingredient that almost serves to refine our enjoyment of life. This kind of Christianity is but a religious variation of the world s unbelief, a movement without budging from the spot. That is to say, it is a simulated motion.

 

Imagine someone who aspired to be a millionaire but as yet had managed to earn only three dollars. Were he to call himself a millionaire because he was trying, would we be foolish enough to go along with his use of language? Would it not be better for him simply to keep him awake and alert for the exertion to say to himself, "I am not a millionaire." By saying it to himself in this way, would he not guard against becoming a fool?

The point is this: if there is to be any meaning to it, if it is at all permissible to take the name of something simply because you are striving toward it, then you must at least resemble what you are striving toward. In order to hide the fact that Christianity simply does not exist we say, "I confess that in the strictest sense, in the New Testament sense, I am not a Christian, but I am trying." Having said that, or taking care to say it every Sunday year after year, or hearing it said, one concludes that one needs to do nothing. We are, after all, Christian.

Let me use an illustration. There is much talk these days about an expedition to the North Pole, an undertaking involving extreme exertion and danger. Now suppose that we had gotten the idea into our heads that taking part in such an expedition had significance for our eternal salvation. And let us assume that the clergy have also gotten into the affair and now are going to help us (out of love!). It is perfectly clear that in order to take part in such a North Pole expedition a person must first of all (if he lives in Europe) leave Europe, his home. Then he must travel a long way north before there can be any question of a North Pole expedition, which can be assumed to begin only with dangers and the initial exertion.

The clergy would make use of this. They know, of course, that those who would actually make the strenuous and dangerous journey will be few, an insufficient number to supply a living for the many pastors with their families. Consequently they change the terms. It now becomes a matter of changing "North Pole expedition" to "an effort in the direction of such a North Pole expedition" and then to babble on about it to those who pay money to listen. Managing to delude everyone into thinking that they, too, are striving in the direction of the North Pole, they manage to make everyone very happy and, in the process, to secure a living for themselves.

How this delusion is accomplished is clear enough. There is, for example, a man in Copenhagen. He travels by ship to London and back in the greatest comfort and ease, "and," says the pastor, "this was his North Pole expedition. No, he did not reach the North Pole, but he tried." "It is perfectly clear," expounds the preacher, "that if you are going to make an expedition to the North Pole and live in Copenhagen, you must first of all leave Copenhagen. This man did that. On the other hand, no one has  yet reached the North Pole anyway. Even those who have gone the farthest have only made an effort. But so has this man. To travel to London is also an effort." Wonderful, tremendously popular! And to take a ride to the city park on Sunday afternoon, leaving one s home, is also an effort aimed at discovering the North Pole: ergo, we are all striving! This is the way all of us have become Christians, and paying Christians to boot!

 

We now have, unlike original Christianity, a complete cast of bishops, deans, and pastors; educated clergy, degree and all, talented, gifted, humanly well-meaning. They all preach with tremendous confidence doing it well, very well, stupendously well, tolerably well, or badly but not one of them lives in character with the Christianity of the New Testament. This grand cast of characters accomplishes one thing: it gives rise to a false impression that because we have such a complete cast we must of course have Christianity, too.

We also have what one might call a complete inventory of church buildings, bells, organs, pews, altars, pulpits, offering plates, and so on. But when Christianity does not exist, this inventory, so far from being an advantage, is a peril, because it is so very likely to give rise to the false impression that we must have Christianity, too.

The illusion of a Christian nation, a Christian "people," masses of Christians, is no doubt due to the power that numbers exercise over the imagination. And yet how many are able to say of their Christian acquaintances that they are truly Christians in the New Testament sense, or that their lives are even close to resembling those of the first disciples. But when there are thousands upon thousands who confess to being Christian, one becomes easily confused. Perhaps we are all Christians after all. Why be so harsh?

This brings to mind a ridiculous story about an innkeeper. It is said that this innkeeper sold his beer by the bottle for a cent less than it cost him. When a certain man said to him, "How does that balance the account? You re losing money," he replied, "No, my friend, it s the big number that counts." When you have finished laughing at this story, you would do well to take its lesson to heart, which warns against the power that numbers exercise over the imagination. No doubt this innkeeper knew very well that one bottle of beer at 3 cents meant a loss of 1 cent since it cost him 4 cents. And, no doubt, he realized that selling 10 bottles also meant a loss. But 100,000 bottles!

Here the big number stirs the imagination. The innkeeper becomes dazed. It s a profit, he says, for the big number does it. So also with every calculation that arrives at a Christian nation, and dare I also say at a church, by adding up units which are not Christian, getting impressed with the results by means of the notion that it is the big number that counts!

Numbers are the most dangerous of all illusions. Inasmuch as Christianity is spirit, the honesty of eternity, there is nothing its detective eye is so suspicious of as of Christian states, Christian lands, Christian endeavors, Christian movements, a Christian people, and (how marvellous!) a Christian world. Even if there were something true in this talk about Christian peoples and cultures, everything this world has up to this point seen in the way of criminal affairs is a mere nursery rhyme in comparison with this crime.

Christ requires followers and defines precisely what he means by this. They are to be salt, willing to be sacrificed. But to be salt and to be sacrificed is not something that the thousands naturally go for, still less millions, or (still less!) countries, kingdoms, states, and (absolutely not!) the whole world. On the other hand, if it is a question of size, mediocrity, and of lots of  talk, then the possibility of the thing begins; then bring on the thousands, increase them to the millions no, go forth and make the world Christian.

The New Testament alone, not numbers, settles what Christianity is, leaving it to eternity to pass judgment upon us. It is simply impossible to define faith on the basis of what people in general like best and prefer to call Christianity. As soon as we do this, Christianity is automatically done away with.

There are, in the end, only two ways open to us: to honestly and honourably make an admission of how far we are from the Christianity of the New Testament, or to perform skilful tricks to conceal the true situation, tricks to conjure up a forgery whereby Christianity is the prevailing religion in the land.

Honestly, New Testament Christianity simply does not exist. f the human race would rise in rebellion against God and cast Christianity away from it, it would not be nearly so dangerous as this clever way of making Christians of everybody and giving this activity the appearance of zeal for the truth. This is nothing but a scoffing at God by offering him thanks for bestowing his blessing upon the progress that Christianity was making.

 

The law for God s nearness and remoteness is as follows: The more the outward externals, the appearances, indicate that God cannot possibly be present here, the closer he is.   The opposite is also true: the more the outward externals, the appearances, indicate that God is very near, the farther away he is.

Consider the first case, and think especially of Christ. Whenever it appeared that this man could not possibly be the God-man, then people even refused to recognize him as a man. But it was then that God s actuality was most present.

Now consider the law for God s remoteness (and the history of this is the history of Christendom). It is as follows: Everything that strengthens the appearance of God being present (in the worldly sense) distances God.  At the time when there were no churches and the Christians gathered together in catacombs as refugees and lawbreakers, God was close. Then came the churches, so many churches, such great, splendid churches and to the same degree God was distanced. For God s nearness is inversely related to externals, and this ascending scale (churches, many churches, splendid churches) is an increase in the sphere of appearance.

Before Christianity became a doctrine, when it was only one or two affirmations expressed in one s life, God was closer. And with every increase and embellishment of doctrine, with every increase of "success," God was distanced. When there were no clergy and the Christians were all brothers, God was closer than when clergymen, many clergymen, a powerful ecclesiastical order, came into being. For clergymen are an increase in appearance, and God always relates inversely to outward show.

This is how Christendom has step by step become so distant from God. Christianity s history is one of alienation from God through the gradual strengthening of appearance. Or it might be said Christianity s history is one of the progressive removal of God tactfully and politely by building churches and monumental buildings, by a monstrous doctrinal system, with an incalculable host of preachers and professors. Established Christianity is about as far away from God as one can possibly get.

Now if I say this to anyone, I will be surely be told, "True, something must be done, but the problem is that there are too few pastors in proportion to the population. Let s get a thousand more (Excellent in order to get farther away from God!), a good many more churches (Excellent, in order to get farther away from God!), and a permanent alliance of pastors and professors to make the doctrine more strictly accurate (Excellent, in order to get farther away from God!)."

No, no, no! If you are really serious about getting God closer, then consign the whole system of established Christianity with its lying gang of preachers and professors, these Christian experts who en masse provide an excellent commentary on every Bible passage, to death and the devil. Seek first God s kingdom.  The Christian rule for action is simple: Venture to act in accordance with the truth and at the same moment through this action you will collide with the environing world. Your action will be such that you will discover the collisions of the essentially Christian. In no other way can one enter into the situation where faith can come into existence. Venture right into the middle of actuality. Risk and then God will truly come.

But now God sits and watches to see if there is one single person who will venture. Every single human being is able to venture, and God is willing to become involved with absolutely every human being who ventures. He is infinite love, but he is also majesty. And he is a connoisseur; with his dreadful sharp-sightedness he is able to see whether a person wants to exploit him or is venturing.

 

The Christianity that is usually recited to a child is actually not Christianity but idyllic mythology. It is the idea of childlikeness raised to the second power. And, sadly, the child s lovable misunderstanding of what is essentially Christian often transmutes parental love into a piety that is nevertheless not actually Christianity.

A Christianity based on a child s piety is not the spirituality of a disciple. This gets everything mixed up as if the mother should try to get nourished by the milk that nature provides the child. If this is the parents entire religiousness, then they lack  authentic faith. This "childlike" piety, which we so often laud, and this blessedness are lovely and lovable, but it is not really Christianity. It is Christianity in the medium of idyllic fantasy.  It is a Christianity from which the cross has been removed. It is a sentimental view of faith which forgets that Christ s call provokes the consciousness of sin.

Let us look more carefully at what Christ actually says with regard to children: "Let the little children come and do not forbid them to come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 19:14). The whole chapter speaks of the difficulty of entering the kingdom of heaven, and the expressions are as strong as possible: "There are eunuchs who have castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." It is no wonder that the disciples become so terrified that they exclaim: "Who then can be saved?"

After Christ answers the disciples, he goes on to speak of the reward awaiting those who have left houses and brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for the sake of his name. All of these teachings are salty expressions depicting the collisions in which a Christian can and will be tested. Consequently, Christ makes entering into God s kingdom as difficult as possible. But if entering this kingdom is supposed to be about the loveliness and innocence of being a little child, a proper little angel, then what could this possibly mean in the presence of the apostles who were called to pick up their cross and follow?

A childish view of Christianity is ludicrous. If the assertion about being a child must be understood literally, then it is nonsense to preach the cross of Christ to adults. Yet this is the way Christianity is defended by orthodox fencers. Childlike Christianity, which in a little child is lovable, in an adult is childish.  Faith such as that confuses everything. If a little child (literally understood) is to provide the definition of what Christianity is, then there is no terror; it ceases to be an offence, as the apostle Paul says, to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.  

When a child is told about Christ it naturally appropriates everything that is gentle, endearing, and heavenly. He lives together with the little Jesus-child, with the angels, and with the three kings. He sees the star in the dark night, journeys the long road, and now is in the stable, wonder upon wonder, and always sees the heavens open. With all the inwardness of the imagination he longs for these pictures. And now let us not forget the candy canes and all the other magnificent things that come along with such religiousness! Christ becomes the little divine child, or for the somewhat older child, the friendly figure with the kindly face. The child-conception of Christ is essentially a fantasy-perception.

With regard to being Christian, then, childhood is not the true age. On the contrary, adulthood in the truest sense is the time when it is to be decided whether a person will be a Christian or not. To become a Christian is a decision that belongs to a later age. The child s receptivity is so entirely without decision that it is no wonder people say: A child can be made to believe anything. This is because they do. This does not mean we should rigorously coerce a child into decisively Christian qualifications. By no means! If this happens, such a child will suffer a great deal. Such an upbringing will either plunge him immediately into despondency and anxiety or later into the anxiety of lust on a scale unknown even in paganism. Even still, we must do everything we can to guard against changing Christianity into a beautiful, innocent recollection, instead of being what is most decisive in a person s becoming.

Genuine Christianity is an offense to the religious and foolishness to the wise. It is not some complacent something that offends no one, where people smile at it instead, and where defense of it only incites them.   It is beautiful and lovable that Christian parents, just as they otherwise take care of the child, should also nourish the child with childlike ideas of the religious. But a stupid, sentimental, and clumsy misunderstanding of childhood is reprehensible. It is immense stupidity to say that childhood itself is the time for really deciding to become a Christian. And insofar as this urge and inclination to push becoming a Christian back into childhood becomes common, this in itself is proof that the decisiveness of Christian faith is on its way to dying out.

 

One best becomes a Christian without "Christianity."

 

A Christian cannot be born. No, the individual becomes a Christian.

 

It is a dubious thing to bring up a child in Christianity. The child has no actual consciousness of sin. What then? Take an analogy. Describe the family physician to a child as a very rare and lovable man. What happens? The child thinks it is very possible that there is such a rare man. I would gladly believe it, but I would also rather stay clear of him. The fact that I might became the object of his special love means that I am sick, and to be sick is no fun. Therefore, I am far from being happy at the thought that he has been called.

When one is actually sick and the sickness is serious, then one is very happy that there is a physician, but when one is not sick, or has no idea at all of what it is to be sick, then "the physician" is really a disagreeable thought. In the Child s relation to Christianity, therefore, either what is really Christian must be left out, and then what does upbringing in Christianity mean? or it must be taught the truth, and then the child is prompted more to be afraid of Christianity than to be happy for it.

 If the whole matter of bringing up children in Christianity is not to be humbug, people need to be aware of this. Scholars want to make Christianity into mythology. We do not notice, however, that what generally passes as Christian education of children is also mythology.

 

Not until a person has become so wretched that his only wish, his only consolation, is to die not until then does Christianity truly begin.

 

No one can make a direct transition into being a Christian. No, born in sin, every person lives in a sinful world. So-called natural human goodness is actually just as bad as defiance. As soon as authentic Christianity is brought into contact with this natural human goodness, this goodness becomes infuriated. Beware of human goodness!

 

Only a person of will can become a Christian; for only a person of will has a will that can be broken. But a person of will whose will is broken by God is a Christian. The stronger the natural will, the deeper the break can be and the better the Christian. This is what has been described by the expressive phrase: the new obedience. A Christian is a person of will who no longer wills his own will but with the passion of his crushed will radically changed wills another s will.

 

The existence of the Established Church is a money question, and the solemn silence of the clergy has a perfectly simple explanation, corresponding to what happens in business when a debtor is asked for money and perhaps first tries to get out of it by pretending he did not hear.

 

Christendom is a society of people who call themselves Christians because they occupy themselves with obtaining information about those who a long time ago submitted themselves to Christ s examination spiritlessly forgetting that they themselves are up for examination.

 

One would think that the omnipotence of money would run aground on the rock of Christianity, which proclaimed that a rich man would have difficulty entering the kingdom of God. Yes, so it was originally, but then the ordained hired-servants, the money changers of Christianity, got hold of things, and Christianity was improved practically and it triumphantly spread over kingdoms and countries.

 

The established Church is far more dangerous to Christianity than any heresy or schism. We play at Christianity. We use all the orthodox Christian terminology but everything, everything without character. Yes, we are simply not fit to shape a heresy or a schism. There is something frightful in the fact that the most dangerous thing of all, playing at Christianity, is never included in the list of heresies and schisms.

 

Christianity has been abolished somewhat as follows: life is made easier.

 

Once upon a time learning to read was a rigorous matter; it took a lot of hard work. But eventually the theory was devised that everything ought to be enjoyable. So the practice of having a little party after each hour of reading was introduced, and the A B C s were decked out with pictures, etc. Ultimately that hour was also dropped, and the A B C s became simply a picture book. But still people went on talking about learning to read, even though the children did not learn to read at all. Learning to read was now understood to mean eating cookies and looking at pictures, which became an even more pleasant experience just because it was called "learning to read." So also with the transformation of Christianity in Christendom, except that here (which is not the case in the illustration) "the teacher" (i.e. preacher) is also interested in this transformation, it suits him best of all.

 

We could at least be truthful before God and admit our weakness instead of reducing the requirement.

 

Genuine faith is never satisfied with the religious way of doing things Sabbath worship or an hour or a half-hour of each day. Christianity is nothing else but faith right in the middle of actual life and weekdays. But we have reduced it to quiet hours, thereby indirectly admitting that we are not really being Christians. That we should have quiet times to think about God this seems so elevated and beautiful, so solemn. It is so hypocritical, because in this way we exempt daily life from the authentic worship of God.

 

When we see someone holding an axe wrong and chopping in such a way that he hits everything but the block of firewood, we do not say, "What a wrong way for the woodcutter to go about it," but we say, "That man is not a woodcutter."

Now for the application. When we see thousands and thousands and millions of Christians whose lives do not resemble in the remotest way what and this is decisive the New Testament calls a Christian, is it not tampering with the meaning to talk as one does in no other situation and say: "what a mediocre way, what a thoroughly inexpressive way these Christians have."   In any other situation would one not say, "These people are not Christians."  

 

First the infinite conception of God s infinite majesty, and then the childlike openness to become involved with him earnestly and in truth. Unfortunately Christianity has made God so sublime that in the long run we really have spirited him away and smuggled him out of life.

 

Christianity does not join people together. No, it separates them in order to unite every single individual with God. And when a person has become such that he can belong to God and to God alone, he has died away from that which usually joins people together.

 

The spiritual differs from the religious in being able to endure isolation. The rank of a spiritual person is proportionate to his strength for enduring isolation, whereas we religious people are constantly in need of "the others," the herd. We religious folks die, or despair, if we are not reassured by being in the assembly, of the same opinion as the congregation, and so on. But the Christianity of the New Testament is precisely related to the isolation of the spiritual man.

 

It is a very simple matter. Pick up the New Testament; read it. Can you deny, do you dare deny, that what you read there about forsaking everything, about giving up the world, being mocked and spit upon as your Lord and master was can you deny, do you dare deny, that this is very easy to understand, indescribably easy, that you do not need a commentary or a single other person in order to understand it?

But you say, "Before I do this, however, before I risk such a decisive step, I must first consult with others." Insolent, disobedient one, you are cheeky! You cheat; all you are looking for is a way out, an excuse.

 

To leave out the strenuous passages in the New Testament is now the method. We hush them up and then we arrange things on easier and cheaper terms. I think it is better to take them along, to acknowledge that these demands are found in the New Testament and then make confession of our own weakness.

 

Of every word Christ spoke pointing toward the cost and suffering of being a Christian, we say this: This does not apply to us; this was spoken expressly to the disciples. We make good, however, of every word of consolation, of every promise; whether Christ spoke to the apostles or not makes no difference.

 

Think of a hospital. The patients are dying like flies. Every method is tried to make things better. It s no use. Where does the sickness come from? It comes from the building, the whole building is full of poison. So it is in the religious sphere. One person thinks that it would help if we got a new hymnal, another a new altar-book, another a musical service, and so on. It s no use. It comes from the building. This whole pile of lumber of an established Church, which from time immemorial has not been ventilated, spiritually speaking the air confined in this lumber room has developed poison. And for this reason the religious life is sick or has died out.

 

In talking with a pupil, a teacher sometimes expresses himself in lower terms while meaning something higher, but he does so in such a way that the pupil understands it. He says, for example, "Tomorrow will be a fun day" and means by this that it will be a rigorous day with much to do, which in a certain higher sense can also be fun. But suppose that a pupil takes the liberty of pretending he did not understand and loafs all day long. When the teacher rebukes him he answers, "Didn t you say that tomorrow should be a fun day?" Would the teacher put up with this?

So it is with Christianity. In his majestic language God has proclaimed a great joy to us a great joy. Yes, God cannot speak in any other way about the high goal he has for us. And what is Christendom? Christendom is a tricky boy who pretends he does not understand what God meant but thinks that since it is a great joy the task must be to enjoy life thoroughly. Does God put up with this?

 

How fearfully true are Christianity s metaphors. To cast fire upon the earth. Yes, for what is a Christian? A Christian is a person who is caught on fire. Spirit is fire, Christianity is fire-setting. And by nature we shrink more from this fire than from any other. The fire Christianity wants to light is not intended to burn up a few houses but to burn up the human zest for life burn it out into spirit.

 

It is incendiarism, this is how Christ himself describes his commission, setting fire to individuals by introducing a passion that makes them at odds with what is naturally understood, an incendiarism that must necessarily cause discord between father and son, daughter and mother, an incendiarism that tears apart "the generations" in order to reach "the individual."

 

Authentic religion has to do with passion, with having passion. Sadly, there are thousands who take a little something out of religion, and then dispassionately "have religion."

 

The first Christians were willing to renounce everything, willing to suffer everything, willing to be sacrificed. Therefore every minute was infinitely important, and the believer called himself to account for his every deed, for every word he spoke, every thought in his mind, and every look on his countenance. He dared not become guilty of missing the highest passion.

 

To be made well with the aid of Christianity is not the difficulty; the difficulty is in becoming sick to some purpose.

 

It is spirit, it is of passion to ask: Is what is being said possible? Am I able to do it? But it is lack of spirit to ask: Did it actually happen? Has my neighbour actually done it?"

 

The person who is neither cold nor hot is an abomination to God. God is no more served by dud individualities than a marksman is served by a rifle that, in the moment of decision, clicks instead of firing.

 

Imagine this. Suppose that a coachman sees an absolutely remarkable and utterly faultless five-year-old horse, an ideal horse, snorting and as full of vigour as any he has seen, and he says: "Well, I cannot bid on this horse, nor can I afford it, and even if I could it is quite unsuitable for my use." But after a dozen years, when that remarkable horse is spavined and spoiled etc., the coachman says, "Now I can bid on it, now I can pay for it, and now I can make enough use of it, from what is left in it, so that I can properly see my way to spending a little for its upkeep."

It is the same with the state and Christianity. Of the radical Christianity which entered into the world, every state is obliged to say, "I cannot buy this religion; not only that, but I will say: God and Father, save us from buying this religion. It would surely be to our ruin." But when after a few centuries Christianity had become spavined and decrepit and on its last legs, spoiled and muddle-headed, then the State said, "See, now I can bid on it; and smart as I am I can see very well that I can use it and profit from it enough so that I can properly see my way to spending a little to polish it up."

 

As soon as the thought of human assistance arises, of not refusing the help of the world, all is essentially lost. The faith in martyrdom as having value in and by itself is thereby abandoned, and Christianity runs downhill until, just as the Rhine ends in mud, it ends in the mud of politics.

 

On their part the clergy think it very prudent to accept the protection of the state. They understand, all right, that it is considerably more pleasant to be a hired servant of the state than to serve Christianity according to New Testament. But this prudence is not only short-sighted, it is blasphemy.

 

Christianity came into the world through its desire to suffer to the death for the faith; precisely for this reason it was victorious over the world. Its urge to martyrdom was partially marked by its "suffering" intolerance. Now it has lost the desire and the need to suffer, lost martyrdom s acceptance of intolerance, and is well satisfied with being a religion just like any other religion.

Christianity detests the intolerance that wants to put others to death because of their faith. But to be personally willing to be put to death for one s faith well, let us not overlook this it, too, is intolerance, it is suffering s acceptance of intolerance. Modern religion is indifferentism and thus does not so much express that Christianity has abandoned the world as that Christianity has abandoned itself, or, more correctly, that Christendom has abandoned Christianity.

 

The earthly minded person thinks and imagines that when he prays, the important thing, the thing he must concentrate upon, is that God should hear what he is praying for. And yet in the true, eternal sense it is just the reverse: the true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God is asking for.

 

To pray is a task for the whole soul.

 

If it is assumed that speaking is sufficient for the proclamation of Christianity, then we have transformed the church into a theatre. We can then have an actor learn a sermon and splendidly, masterfully deliver it with facial expressions, gesticulations, modulation, tears, and everything a theatre-going public might flock to.

 

The reason why preachers are so eager to preach in a chock-full church is that if they were to say what they have to say in an empty room they would become anxious and afraid, for they would notice that it pertains to themselves.

 

The person who is going to preach ought to live his Christian ideas in daily life. Then he, too, will have eloquence enough. He will have what is needed to speak extemporaneously without specific preparation. However, it is a fallacious eloquence if someone, without living his thoughts, once in a while sits down and laboriously collects such thoughts, and then works them into a well-composed sermon, which is then committed to memory and delivered superbly, with respect both to voice and diction and to gestures.

No, just as in well-equipped houses one need not go downstairs to fetch water but has it up there on tap, under pressure one merely turns on the faucet so also is the authentic Christian speaker who, because the essentially Christian is his life, at every moment has eloquence present, immediately available, precisely the true eloquence.

 

As soon as I take Christianity as a doctrine and then apply my acumen or my profundity or my eloquence or my imagination to presenting it, people think it is fine and I am regarded as an earnest Christian, I am esteemed. As soon as I live out what I say, make it a reality then it is exactly as if I had blown up the world. People are immediately scandalized.

Take the rich young man let me preach about his not being perfect, that he could not bring himself to giving everything to the poor, but that the true Christian is always willing to give everything. Let me preach this way, and people are deeply moved and I am esteemed. But if I were a rich young man and went and gave all my possessions to the poor then people would be scandalized. They would find it a ridiculous exaggeration.

 

If Christianity is to be preached in truth to those who are happy, to those who enjoy life, then Christianity is a kind of cruelty. This is why it is far easier to proclaim the consolation of Christianity to cripples.

 

I have never heard a single preacher speak about prayer nor have I ever read a sermon by him about prayer without promising myself to demonstrate, as 2 plus 2 equals 4, that the preacher himself hardly ever makes the practice of praying. The preachers are like gymnastics coaches who cannot swim themselves and then instruct people in swimming, even standing on the dock and shouting: Just strike out briskly with your arms as if one could not strike out all too briskly with his arms, something every swimmer knows.

 

The punishment I should like the clergy to have is a tenfold increase in salary. I am afraid that neither the world nor the clergy would understand this punishment.

 

In the magnificent cathedral the honourable and Right Reverend Geheime-General-Ober-Hof-Pradikant, the elect favourite of the fashionable world, appears before an elect company and preaches with emotion upon the text he himself elected: "God has chosen the base things of this world, and the things that are despised" and nobody laughs.

 

The most fatal thing of all is to satisfy a want which is not yet felt, so that without waiting till the want is present, one anticipates it, likely also using stimulants to bring about something which is supposed to be a want, and then satisfies it. And this is shocking! And yet this is what so many clergy do, whereby they really are cheating people out of what constitutes the significance of life, and instead helping them to waste it.

 

As in the farmhouses at the slaughtering season provision for the winter is salted away, so the "minister" keeps in brine tubs the martyrs who suffered for the truth.

 

Christianity has been made so completely devoid of character that there is really nothing to persecute. The chief trouble with Christians, therefore, is that no one wants to kill them any more!

 

Take a purely human relationship. If the lover is not able to speak the beloved s language, he or she must learn it, however difficult it may seem to them otherwise, if they cannot talk together, there cannot be a happy relationship. It is the same with dying to the world in order to be able to love God. God is spirit only one who has died to the world can speak this language at all. If you do not wish to die to the world, then you cannot love God either. You are talking about entirely different matters than he is.

 

Of all the brilliant sins, affected virtues are the worst.

 

Distinction between good and evil is purity. Confused unity is duplicity.

 

Immortality is the Judgment. Immortality is not a life indefinitely prolonged, but the eternal separation between the just and the unjust. Immortality is not a continuation that follows as a matter of course, but a separation that follows as a consequence of the past.

 

We delude ourselves into thinking that to refrain from venturing is modesty, and that it must please God as humility. No, no! Not to venture means to make a fool of God because all he is waiting for is that you go forth.

 

We all know what it is to play warfare in mock battle. It means to mimic everything, just as it is in war. The troops are drawn up, they march into the field, seriousness is evident in every eye, but also courage and enthusiasm, the orderlies rush back and forth intrepidly, the commander s voice is heard, the signals, the battle cry, the volley of shooting, the thunder of cannon everything exactly as in war, lacking only one thing: the danger.

So it is with playing Christianity, that is, imitating by way of Christian preaching in such a way that everything, absolutely everything is included in as alluring a form as possible. Only one thing is lacking the danger.

 

Imagine a mighty spirit who promised to a certain people his protection, but upon the condition that they should make their appearance at a definite place where it was dangerous to go. Suppose that these folks waited to make their appearance, and instead went home to their living rooms and talked to one another in enthusiastic terms about how this spirit had promised them his potent protection. No one would be able to harm them. Is not this ridiculous?

So it is with today s Christianity. Christ taught something perfectly definite by believing; to believe is to venture out as decisively as it is possible, breaking with everything one naturally loves. But to him who believes, assistance against all danger is also promised.

But today we play at believing, play at being Christians. We remain at home in the old grooves of finitude and then we go and twaddle with one another, or let the preachers twaddle to us, about all the promises that are found in Christ. Is this not ridiculous?

 

Instead of all this preaching about lofty virtues, about faith, hope, and love, about loving God, and so forth, someone ought rather to say: Never get involved with God, and above all never in any really intimate way. Get involved with men and imagine that together with them you are involving yourselves with God, because you name the name of God just as meaninglessly as the physicians scribble embellishments on prescriptions. Never let yourself be alone with God lest you venture too far out, but see to it that your relationship with God is like everybody else s so that you can get someone to assist you right away if God should leave you in the lurch. If you were to talk this way you would talk far more accurately than if you used all those high-flying religious phrases, which over the generations we have so nicely perfected.

 

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