Religious Crisis, Ethical Life, and Kierkegaard's Critique of Christendom
Résumé
Kierkegaard is habitually identified with fideism, yet a significant aspect of his primarily ethical criticism of established Christendom is its confusion of what is appropriately religious and what is appropriately secular. Kierkegaard's critical assessment of modern secularization is well-known. Less appreciated is his critique of the politicizing Christendom that fails to recognize its difference from the secular, thereby conflating redemptive faith with worldly power. Contrary to overly simplifying fideistic interpretations that excessively subordinate the secular to the religious, I argue that the religious and the secular both have their own ethical significance for Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard interpreted Christianity as the ethical renunciation rather than the intensification of worldly authority and power, including making war and controlling marriage, calling on Christendom to become more genuinely Christian by turning away from coercion and calculations of power, status, and wealth. Kierkegaard consequently radically differentiates the secular and the religious for the sake of Christianity itself by turning it toward individual and self-reflexive issues of freedom, responsibility, and redemption.