{"id":1300,"date":"2013-05-04T17:20:05","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T21:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2013-05-04T17:24:37","modified_gmt":"2013-05-04T21:24:37","slug":"on-kierkegaards-200th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=1300","title":{"rendered":"On Kierkegaard’s 200th Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hans Ulrich<\/a>\u00a0has been very kind about my work. \u00a0He suggested to me once in conversation that, while my first book (Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love<\/em>) is about Kierkegaard, my second book (Conceiving Parenthood: \u00a0American Protestantism and the Spirit of Reproduction<\/em>) is my attempt to inhabit Kierkegaard. \u00a0And so is my third. \u00a0Teaching Kierkegaard\u2019s texts is a joy, but I am not terribly invested in creating more Kierkegaard scholars per se<\/em>. \u00a0I am happiest when one of his texts surprises a young, pious student into the realization that Christianity is often more amenable to delicate fairy tales than to managerial plans, logical proofs, or other sorts of ecclesial body-armor.<\/p>\n

\n

Suppose there was a king who loved a maiden of lowly station in life \u2013 but the reader may already have lost patience when he hears that our analogy begins like a fairy tale and is not at all systematic.<\/p>\n

Philosophical Fragments<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With this third book, on \u201cMuscular Christianity,\u201d Kierkegaard is again a treasured friend. \u00a0Listening to men in the U.S. whose ministries focus on men, I am struck often that Kierkegaard\u2019s Jesus is no less an offense to American notions of masculinity than he is to our default ideas about proper domesticity. \u00a0I suggested in KTL that Kierkegaard brings the sweaty, bloody Jesus into our well-appointed living rooms. \u00a0Kierkegaard also brings the impotent Jesus into the board room (or gym, or doctoral seminar). \u00a0That first image is my gleaning from Gerhard Forde\u2019s suggestion that Martin Luther strips the roses from the cross<\/a>. \u00a0In a note to my dad recently, I said that some of the men I have heard from seem not only intent to de-sentimentalize the cross, but to put a shield around the cross, to make Jesus a Holy Iron Man. \u00a0I see this impulse in some men reaching out to men whose livelihoods have been stripped of them, as in this ministry to hunters<\/a>, and also in ministries catering to the men supposedly gaining ground in this brutal economy, as seen in the manly men icon for this group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

He will appear, therefore, as the equal of the lowliest of persons. \u00a0But the lowliest of all is one who must serve others \u2013 consequently, the god will appear in the form of a servant. \u00a0But this form of a servant is not something put on like the king\u2019s plebian cloak, which just by flapping open would betray the king . . . but it is his true form.<\/p>\n

Philosophical Fragments<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The passage goes on to stress that God\u2019s omnipotence \u2013 God\u2019s power \u2013 is shown precisely in God\u2019s capacity to recreate a love that seeks equality. \u00a0Some men\u2019s ministries seem monomaniacal in their quest to reestablish hierarchy, emphasizing a vigorous, stoic capacity for men to accept suffering underneath the dominion of God and, sometimes simultaneously, exhorting men toward a passionate precision for disciplining those underneath them. \u00a0Even the unbelievers do as much. \u00a0Really, is there a difference between Daniel Craig\u2019s 007 and the Optimal Christian Man? \u00a0If so, what, and why?<\/p>\n

Years ago, a friend recommended to me an article in Prism<\/em> by Craig Wong called \u201cBlackwater as Ecclesiological Problem.\u201d \u00a0Pastor Wong says this:<\/p>\n

\n

Profiting from war through violent means likely generates a sour taste for most observers, but what does the watching world think when Christians are behind such entrepreneurial endeavors? Blackwater’s intimate family ties to some of the most high-profile evangelicals in America are no secret. Publicly known is the generous, philanthropic distribution of its family wealth among several esteemed Christian colleges and academic institutions, religious-based policy think tanks, and nationally-known parachurch ministries. Intriguingly, a number of these entities are associated with prominent leaders that helped bolster evangelical support for the Iraq war. Connect the dots.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think Erik Prince is both more and less than an ecclesiological problem. \u00a0He represents all sorts of systematic theological problems, but he also represents the good, old-fashioned problem of manna. \u00a0With a sufficiently connected matrix of money-makers, you can create the meaning of a Man.<\/p>\n

Kierkegaard took on the relatively little mess that was striving, ostensibly Christian Denmark with a remarkable series of beautifully written puzzles about faith. \u00a0I am taking on a truly hot mess in one little, fairly straight-forward book about men. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Dear Kierkegaard, at 200, please stay my muse. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hans Ulrich\u00a0has been very kind about my work. \u00a0He suggested to me once in conversation that, while my first book (Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love) is about Kierkegaard, my second book (Conceiving Parenthood: \u00a0American Protestantism and the Spirit of Reproduction) is my attempt to inhabit Kierkegaard. \u00a0And so is my third. \u00a0Teaching Kierkegaard\u2019s texts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,101],"tags":[138,136,88,137],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-theology-2","tag-ethics-2","tag-kierkegaard","tag-muscular-christianity","tag-philosophical-fragments"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EotM-kY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1332,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}