Taking Kierkegaard Back to Church: The Ecclesial Implications of the Gospel
Ebook
Overview
Soren Kierkegaard's vociferous attacks upon Christendom have hardly endeared him to the ecclesial establishment, yet the church continues to dismiss his paradoxical voice at its peril. This book moves beyond the ill-conceived postmodern interpretations of Kierkegaard's thought by illuminating his ecclesiological value through a distinctly kerygmatic lens. Kierkegaard's authorship demonstrated this mission in creative and arresting ways. His sharp critiques of academic theologians and duplicitous pastors remain starkly relevant today. Furthermore, his fascinating reflections on inconsequential sermons, biblical defamiliarity, indirect communication, pastoral correctivity, street preaching, revivalism, and even church furniture, further illustrate the ways he sought to reimply the gospel to a Christendom-poisoned church. Hearing Kierkegaard's ecclesiological voice afresh, we also see its surprising applicability to the post-Christendom situation, which may like to think it has moved on without him. This book will intrigue anyone interested in the fundamental questions of what it means to hear (or not to hear) the gospel today, if we dare to allow our ears to do so.
“Edwards has written a lively, insightful, and hugely readable
study of Kierkegaard’s genuine significance for contemporary
Christian self-understanding amidst the ever-threatening condition
of ‘Christendom.’ Taking Kierkegaard Back to Church, it
turns out, involves taking the church to school with Kierkegaard.
The author’s vivid case for the ‘kerygmatic Kierkegaard’ looks to
ensure that today’s churches are not left without the salutary
provocation of Kierkegaard’s summons to the serious joy of
Christian life.”
—Philip G. Ziegler, Chair in Christian Dogmatics, University of
Aberdeen
“As Edwards beautifully reveals, the Kierkegaard who is
often dismissed as a ‘subjectivist’ and ‘individualist’ is actually
a deeply ecclesial thinker, one whose ‘kerygmatic’ sense of the
gospel challenges even today the faith and preaching of our own
‘post-Christendom’ church. Through spirited dialogue with classical
and contemporary theologians and recent Kierkegaard scholars,
Edwards splendidly situates Kierkegaard as a radical ecclesial
interrogator of our own understanding of the gospel’s role in the
church. ‘Take and read!’”
—David J. Gouwens, Professor emeritus of Theology, Brite
Divinity
Aaron P. Edwards is Lecturer in Theology, Preaching, and Mission at Cliff College, Derbyshire, UK. He is the author of A Theology of Preaching and Dialectic (2018), and the coeditor, with David J. Gouwens, of the T. & T. Clark Companion to the Theology of Kierkegaard (2019).