Picking up where I left off two posts ago

I can't remember how I first heard about Soren Kierkegaard, and I can't remember whether I had started reading Kierkegaard before, during, or after my first semester at Wake Forest (Spring of 1981). I do know that I was reading everything by Kierkegaard that I could find by the summer of 1981: Fear and Trembling, and a Sickness unto Death, Unscientific Postscript, the Concept of Anxiety, Journals, and right at the center of it all, "Attack on Christendom."

I read these books with a great deal of identification with the author, who had written in the middle of the 19th century. I identified with Kierkegaard's intellectual protest against the liberal scientific approach of his day that left little room for subjectivity and the individual. Kierkegaard wrote and addressed others by emphasizing "the individual standing before the Eternal." He criticized the herd mentality (the crowd) and asserted the power of the individual who was authorized by the Eternal, to find his or her way. Kierkegaard was very sharp in his attack on organized Christianity in Denmark where he lived. Over against the popular view of the Christian life in Denmark, Kierkegaard set the actual text of the New Testament which described a much different version of what it meant to be a Christian. Many times in his works, he pauses to say that in light of the New Testament view of what it means to follow Christ, he can't say that he is a follower of Christ. Kierkegaard used to say that amidst all the deception of Christendom in his land, he sought to tell the truth, whether that exposed his lack or not.

I was reading the Bible very much around this time, and reading theology for the first time, and studying the Bible also from the historical-critical perspective for the first time as well. I was also in an intellectual, academic environment for the first time that was very much persuaded in the superiority of a scientific, historical critical view of all things in life. In Kierkegaard, I found a wise friend who gave voice to many tensions I was feeling in trying to find my place in all of this. First, he was a close reader of scripture who clearly was moved by its power, as something that could shake and awaken to new meaning, but also disturb the status quo. Second, he paid attention to his own experience as he tried to make sense of things, and would not allow anyone to convince him that his own experience was irrelevant to finding the truth in life. Third, he was different from the crowd, and had a peculiar way of making sense of life, and he refused to conform to what was considered normal either intellectually, religiously or personally. Fourth, he had a lot of confidence in his own intellectual ability and in his sense for what is true, and he was just as comfortable taking on the scientific, philosophical rulers of his day as he was taking on the Bishops and religious leaders of his time. And, finally, what Kierkegaard wrote had such a strong ring of truth to it, that I read and read and felt comforted by the genuineness of his search for the truth in life, and inspired by the courage with which he undertook this search.

Kierkegaard was like a priest or pastor without a parish, or with parishioners that he would never see or know. He was in a sense my pastor through college and seminary and after that to some extent. Because he could speak to me where I was, and he could encourage me in the way of faith, even as I felt repelled by the religious culture around me. And, as I felt provoked by the academic, irreligious culture as well, that thought it could understand all things from the perspective of science but didn't even know the first thing about what it meant to be human.

I was still very apolitical, very much focused on personal relationships as opposed to any commitments to social issues or organizations. I might be involved at this time or that with helping a stranger, but it was never part of some focused effort. I think I attended worship services at a local church maybe three or four times a semester, and I attended some parachurch Bible Studies or meetings a two or three times a semester as well. But, I had long and regular discussions with individuals about religion and series issues of life on a daily basis.

These thoughts describe what was going on for me in many ways during the middle of my last two years of college, however, as I moved along and read more of the later Barth, I tried to take up more of a positive view of institutional Christianity, and became more dogmatic towards the end of college and right after. I was trying to figure out my role as an adult. I looked up and realized that I was married, was going the seminary, needed to figure out how to make a living, etc. During this stage, I read the entire scripture, and all of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, and then came seminary in the summer of 1984. I remember reading the Bible and Calvin's Institutes every day during my lunchbreak when I was working as a cook at Buckhead Baptist Daycare Center in Atlanta from Sept, 1983 through June of 1984. At that time, I started Greek School at Columbia Theological Seminary. And, I loved it. To be able to read the New Testament in the original language was great, and by the end of Greek School that summer, I was beginning to do just that. My seminary education began on a very positive note.