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Preach Christianity by Living it
Another excerpt from Kierkegaard's journals, in this one he imagines an
event that takes place one Sunday on the finest church in Denmark.
(Towards the end of his life Kierkegaard spent alot of time writing
against the national Lutheran church, for he believed what it taught
was not the Christianity presented in the New Testament):
- A SITUATION:
- A
theologian, but not yet appointed. He has worked very hard for a number
of years and attained some measure of fame, which will definitely
ensure that everyone will rush to hear him preach in church,
particularly all the high-ups.
- He lets it be known that he is going to preach and selects the finest, most splendid church in the capital.
- Everyone is in church, including the king and queen.
- He
mounts the pulpit, offers a prayer, and then reads his text, which is
about Christ chasing the money-lenders from the temple. Immediately
afterwards he begins like this:
- 'Let
the word be spoken, the word I have to say in this world, and for which
I have prepared myself all my life. Let that word now be spoken: To
preach Christianity in surroundings like these is not Christianity, be
they ever so Christian, it is not Christianity; Christianity can be
preached only by its being realized in the lives we l
- ive. And I hereby transform this house into actual life. I am now in your power,
- I,
just one man, but now I will speak—and then it is real life. I
will speak of it being possible to preach Christianity only by living
it.'
- Attack
on the whole smart church and smart congregation. Christ was not a
smartly turned-out man who, in a smartly decorated church, preached to
a smartly turned-out gathering that truth suffers—it was an
actual fact that he was spat upon.
- Uproar throughout the church. The cry goes out: Down with him, throw him
- out!
But the preacher rises and speaks out in a voice of thunder which
drowns out all the clamour: You see, now it is right, now I am
preaching Christianity; had my intention been suspected I would have
been prevented from mounting the pulpit here, or else you would
all have stayed at home. But now I stand
- here, I am now speaking and I make you responsible before God; you must
- hear me out, I am speaking the truth.
- Now, there you have an awakening!
I think the idea that you 'preach Christianity by living it' is a
logical implication for what I was arguing for (that our Christianity
is expressed to others existentially). With evangelism, it is not just
better to express Christ’s power existentially rather than
verbally (i.e. with preaching), but the only way to correctly share
Christianity to others.
A common objection to ‘evangelizing in silence’ is that
"people can not come to Christ through our works, if we never preach to
them about Jesus Christ they won't know what they're accepting". This
was very true for the early church; after Jesus was crucified they
spread the gospel throughout the Gentiles primarily through
proclamations and exclamations of Christ and what he did (as told in
the book of Acts). The reason they did this was because the word
‘Jesus’ was alien to the non-Jewish community, the apostles
needed to tell the gentiles who Christ was.
Today, however, the name of 'Jesus Christ' is known to everyone but the
most isolated. The idea that "Jesus Christ is Lord" has been heard by
all through the incessant preaching of Christians. I believe the reason
that Christianity/Christ has become so stagnated is because the concept
of Christ has been turned into a dogmatic statement.
Intellectually, the maxim that Jesus Christ is Lord is not justified.
Historical inquiry can only go so far as to admit that Christ lived,
died, and claimed that he was the Christ. Philosophically there is no
evidence to suggest that the jump from "Jesus Christ claimed he was
God" to "Jesus Christ is God" is a rational one. So naturally when
Christendom turned this proclamation concerning Christ into a doctrine
that new believers have to accept for admittance into the church,
atheistic rationalism spread and the church begun its decline.
For the disciples and other early followers of Christ, however, to be a
Christian meant a radical existential discipleship to Jesus. Christ
made such a spiritual impact on them that they became 'born again'.
Their existence completely changed into something fulfilling and
transcendent, which Paul dubbed as 'the new man'. It is from this
change that they exclaimed to each other, "Jesus Christ truly is the
Lord!” They did not come to this conclusion from intellectual
evidence or dogmatic preaching, which is what modern preachers try to
get people to do; they came to it from the amazing change Christ made
in them.
Thus, Christ is never effectively shown in creeds or doctrines or
preaching, He is shown as the true Lord by honest Christians. Peter
wrote in his first epistle that we should "be ready always to give an
answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in
you." Christians are supposed to evangelize by showing the radical work
that Christ has done in our spirits, not by telling friends truth
statements (such as Christ's divinity) that means nothing to their
rationalistic way of thinking. Christ's divinity is only shown to
others through men like St. Francis of Assisi, not through the work of
apologists or preachers.
We Preach Christianity by living it..
-- By Timothy Neal
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