Overview

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) had a mission. The church had become weak, flabby and inconsequential. Being a Christian was more a cultural heritage than a spiritual reality. His mission—reintroduce the Christian faith to Christians. How could he break through to people who were members of the church and thought they were Christians already? Like an Old Testament prophet, Kierkegaard used a variety of pointed and dramatic ways to shake people from their slumber. He incisively diagnosed the spiritual ailments of his age and offered a fresh take on classic Christian teaching.Mark Tietjen thinks that Kierkegaard's critique of his contemporaries strikes close to home today. We also need to listen to one of the most insightful yet complex Christian thinkers of any era. Through an examination of core Christian doctrines—the person of Jesus Christ, human nature, Christian witness and love—Tietjen helps us hear Kierkegaard's missionary message to a church that often fails to follow Christ with purity of heart.

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9780830840977

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Reviews

Tietjen effectively reminds us of how Kierkegaard, with what amounts to a doctorate in theology, was deeply concerned about church culture in Denmark at a time when being a Dane and a Christian were commonly equated, and where the church's extraordinary teachings about Jesus (the God-man) seemed too easily accepted by many and too little acted upon. Tietjen show us Kierkegaard's life-long passion, as a committed critic, was to call the Church of Denmark back to discipleship after Christ. . . . Tietjen brings out a key thought of Kierkegaard's: unless we proclaim what must be offensive--that the lofty God became a lowly human for our salvation--we have not proclaimed the gospel. I ask, do we evangelicals take this for granted? Then let's heed the Dane's warnings through Tietjen: don't lose its wonder or be content to admire Jesus, rather than imitate (follow) him. --Terry M. Smith, The Messenger, July-August 2016

Although the works of Kierkegaard are widely studied by scholars in the academy, Kierkegaard himself was much more interested in speaking to 'ordinary' people, whose company he certainly preferred to that of professors who specialized in obscuring the true nature of Jesus' call to discipleship. With this book, Mark Tietjen succeeds in making Kierkegaard accessible to the people whom Kierkegaard cared about most, those who have an interest in Christianity precisely because they really do want to know what being a follower of Christ entails. Tietjen's work is an excellent guide to one of the most challenging and most profound thinkers of the Christian tradition. --Murray Rae, University of Otago

Kierkegaard's reputation as a profound religious, poetic, philosophical and psychological thinker and writer is widely recognized, especially in the academic world, but his devastating critique of Christendom is often lost at the level of the institutional church, for which it was primarily intended and where it was and is most needed. Mark Tietjen's book will go a long way toward redressing that lacuna by introducing Kierkegaard specifically as a Christian missionary to contemporary Christians. In it he not only seeks to allay suspicions, fears and misconceptions about Kierkegaard as a philosopher and Christian thinker but also to explicate the basic elements of his thought in a manner that makes it accessible to fellow believers who want to better understand what it means to be a Christian and to deepen their faith in Christ. --Sylvia Walsh, scholar in residence, department of philosophy, Stetson University

Kierkegaard dismally feared that his writings, which he carefully crafted to affect the individual reader's self-understanding and reorient the reader's heart to Jesus Christ, would fall into the hands of 'the professors' and be turned into some kind of philosophical 'position' that could be debated in seminar rooms and lecture halls to distract its practitioners from attending to the spiritual condition of their souls. 'The professors' have amply fulfilled Kierkegaard's fear, but occasionally a book appears that reflects his original intention for his writings and even helps them to have the intended effect. Tietjen's wise and winsome book is one of them. --Robert C. Roberts, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham, UK

This is the best kind of introduction to Kierkegaard because it shares his goal, that of making us more faithful Christians. Kierkegaard's unique method of doing this was to 'deceive' us into the truth. By giving us sound Christian wisdom for the life of faith that just happens to be Kierkegaardian in word and spirit, Mark Tietjen deceives us into Kierkegaard. --Jack Mulder Jr., Hope College

Tietjen effectively reminds us of how Kierkegaard, with what amounts to a doctorate in theology, was deeply concerned about church culture in Denmark at a time when being a Dane and a Christian were commonly equated, and where the church's extraordinary teachings about Jesus (the God-man) seemed too easily accepted by many and too little acted upon. Tietjen show us Kierkegaard's life-long passion, as a committed critic, was to call the Church of Denmark back to discipleship after Christ. . . . Tietjen brings out a key though of Kierkegaard's: unless we proclaim what must be offensive that the lofty God became a lowly human for our salvation we have not proclaimed the gospel. I ask, do we evangelicals take this for granted? Then let's heed the Dane's warnings through Tietjen: don't lose its wonder or be content to admire Jesus, rather than imitate (follow) him. --Terry M. Smith, The Messenger, July-August 2016

Author Information

Mark A. Tietjen (PhD, Baylor University) is director of religious life and Grace Palmer Johnston Chair of Bible at the Stony Brook School in Stony Brook, New York. Former secretary-treasurer of the Søren Kierkegaard Society, Tietjen is the author of Kierkegaard, Communication, and Virtue: Authorship as Edification.

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