Mark A. Tietjen. Kierkegaard: A Christian Missionary to Christians. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016. See here to buy the book.
Soren
Kierkegaard was a nineteenth century Danish Christian philosopher.
Kierkegaard had problems with the Christendom of his day, for he thought
that it was nominal and cultural rather than vibrant and spiritually
authentic. According to Mark A. Tietjen, Kierkegaard was a Christian
missionary to Christians, and Kierkegaard had insights that can
challenge, instruct, and edify Christians today.
A number of the
insights that Tietjen presents can be encountered in other Christian
writings and sermons, as important as these insights may be: one should
be a doer of God’s word and not just a hearer; one should set one’s
sights above momentary and temporary pleasure but also moralistic
legalism. In addition, while Tietjen discusses how Kierkegaard
diagnosed a number of spiritual and psychological maladies that people
have, there was not much in Tietjen’s book about possible solutions to
these maladies, other than turning to Jesus. How that would help was
not sufficiently explained. (A refreshing exception is Tietjen’s
chapter on Christian love.)
The tension between relying on God’s
grace and rigorously doing good works also appears unresolved in
Tietjen’s book. On the one hand, Kierkegaard was critical of how the
Lutheran emphasis on God’s grace bred spiritual apathy, passivity,
laziness, and complacency. Kierkegaard advocated obedience and
self-denial in the Christian life. Yet, in a beautiful passage,
Kierkegaard encouraged people with a variety of problems (i.e.,
loneliness, being forgotten, being suicidal, etc.) to rest in Christ’s
love, for Christ’s burden is light. Are Christians supposed to strive
for perfection or rest in God’s grace? What is the proper mixture of
these two approaches, or the correct relationship between them? Tietjen
should have addressed this issue.
At the same time, there were
plenty of positive aspects to Tietjen’s book. Tietjen tied his
discussion of Kierkegaard’s thought to Kierkegaard’s historical context
(i.e., historical critical interpretations of the Bible). Tietjen
continually connected his discussion of spirituality to specific
passages in Kierkegaard’s writings, both devotional and non-devotional,
and Tietjen occasionally highlighted distinct features of Kierkegaard’s
thought. Tietjen’s point about how Kierkegaard often wrote from a
non-believing standpoint (under a pseudonym) to get Christians to think
was intriguing. Tietjen effectively responded to conservative Christian
criticisms of Kierkegaard----particularly those by Dave Breese and
Francis Schaeffer----and Tietjen’s response was nuanced and
informative. (For example, while Kierkegaard has been labeled a
Christian existentialist, Tietjen highlights where Kierkegaard differed
from existentialism. Tietjen also addresses Kierkegaard’s discussion of
the akedah in Genesis 22, denying that Kierkegaard was advocating a
thoroughly irrational obedience of God.)
The best chapter in the
book, in my opinion, is the one on Christian love. At first, I did not
enjoy what I was reading in that chapter because Kierkegaard seemed to
be presenting Christian love as extremely difficult, if not impossible:
Who among us, Christian and non-Christian, can love others without at
least some self-interest? Yet, that is God wants from us, according to
Kierkegaard. But the chapter shared helpful insights as it proceeded:
about how we should remember and trust that all people have love within
them because they were created in God’s image, and what hurt, jaded,
burnt-out people should do when they are reluctant or afraid to love
others.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.