“Mark and Bev Tindall” <> wrote in message news:<>… “Reprinted from http://www.bruderhof.com. Copyright 2002 by The

Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission.”

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[Soren Kierkegaard]

Christendom and Counterfeit Christianity

Gold and silver I do not have, but I give you what I have; stand

up and walk,” said Peter. Later on the clergy were saying: Gold

and silver we have – but we have nothing to give.

The existence of the Established Church is a money question,

and the solemn silence of the clergy has a perfectly simple explanation,

corresponding to what happens in business when a

debtor is asked for money and perhaps first tries to get out of it

by pretending he did not hear.

Christendom is a society of people who call themselves Christians

because they occupy themselves with obtaining information

about those who a long time ago submitted themselves to

Christ’s examination – spiritlessly forgetting that they themselves

are up for examination.

One would think that the omnipotence of money would run

aground on the rock of Christianity, which proclaimed that a

rich man would have difficulty entering the kingdom of God.

Yes, so it was originally, but then the ordained hired-servants,

the money changers of Christianity, got hold of things, and

Christianity was improved practically and it triumphantly

spread over kingdoms and countries.

The established Church is far more dangerous to Christianity

than any heresy or schism. We play at Christianity. We use all

the orthodox Christian terminology – but everything, everything

without character. Yes, we are simply not fit to shape a

heresy or a schism. There is something frightful in the fact that

the most dangerous thing of all, playing at Christianity, is never

included in the list of heresies and schisms.

Imagine a fortress, absolutely impregnable, supplied with provisions

for an eternity. A new commandant comes. He gets the

idea that the right thing to do is to build bridges over the

ditches – in order to be able to attack the besiegers. Charming!

He transformed the fortress into a village, and the enemy captured

it, naturally. So it is with Christianity. We changed the

method – and the world conquered, naturally.

Christianity has been abolished somewhat as follows: life is

made easier.

Christendom plays the game of taking God by the nose: God is

love, meaning that he loves me – Amen!

When we receive a package we unwrap it to get at the contents.

Christianity is a gift from God, but instead of receiving the gift,

we have undertaken to wrap it up, and each generation has furnished

a new wrapping around the others.

Imagine a family of noble blood demoted to slavery as punishment

for a crime. Imagine someone of the tenth generation

with a background of eight or nine generations who have lived

as slaves. The result will probably be that the tenth-generation

man is well satisfied with the conditions of life, he feels at home

in his station by birth, which was his father’s before him, and

grandfather’s before him. Now if someone were to come to this

tenth-generation man and explain to him that he is of noble

lineage, he would be laughed to scorn and would discover that

the persons involved care least of all. Yes, they even become embittered

because someone seeks to disturb their routine, the

routine in which they had contentedly lived for a long time.

So it is with Christianity. Christianity points to the fall (Gn. 3)

as its presupposition. But in the meanwhile, through the consequences

of repetition, the fall has burgeoned into such a frightful

habit that it is like an enormous parenthesis, so colossal that

no one has sufficient range of vision to see that it is a parenthesis.

And within this parenthesis life goes on lustily. The degradation

continues, and in constantly increasing proportion from

generation to generation. The next generation becomes less significant

than its predecessor, with whose insignificance it began,

and also more numerous. And now the two greater powers,

insignificance and numbers, join to reduce humanity to such a

triviality that the Christianity of the New Testament, if brought

into touch with it, is looked upon as nonsense.

We, however, have long ago forgotten that the fall is a parenthesis

into which we have entered, and that Christianity was

introduced precisely as the divine in-breaking. No, we live

pleasantly within the parenthesis, propagate the race, and organize

world history – and it is all a parenthesis. Question: is a

parenthesis-man immortal?

Think of a very long railway train – but long ago the locomotive

ran away from it. Christendom is like this. Generation after

generation has imperturbably continued to link the enormous

train of the new generation to the previous one, solemnly saying:

We will hold fast to the faith of the fathers. Thus Christendom

has become the very opposite of what Christianity is.

Christianity is restlessness, the restlessness of the eternal. Any

comparison here is flat and tedious – to such a degree that the

restlessness of the eternal is restless. Christendom is tranquillity.

How charming, the tranquillity of literally not moving.

In so-called Christianity we have made Christmas into a great

festival. This is quite false, and it was not at all so in the Early

Church. We mistake childishness for Christianity – what with

all our sickly sentimentality, our candy canes, and our manger

scenes. Instead of remaining conscious of being in conflict that

marks a life of true faith, we Christians have made ourselves

a home and settled down in a comfortable and cozy existence.

No wonder Christmas has become little more than a beautiful

holiday.

Think of a hospital. The patients are dying like flies. Every

method is tried to make things better. It’s no use. Where does

the sickness come from? It comes from the building, the whole

building is full of poison. So it is in the religious sphere. One

person thinks that it would help if we got a new hymnal, another

a new altar-book, another a musical service, and so on. It’s

no use. It comes from the building. This whole pile of lumber of

an established Church, which from time immemorial has not

been ventilated, spiritually speaking – the air confined in this

lumber room has developed poison. And for this reason the religious

life is sick or has died out.

In talking with a pupil, a teacher sometimes expresses himself

in lower terms while meaning something higher, but he does so

in such a way that the pupil understands it. He says, for example,

“Tomorrow will be a fun day” and means by this that it

will be a rigorous day with much to do, which in a certain

higher sense can also be fun. But suppose that a pupil takes the

liberty of pretending he did not understand and loafs all day

long. When the teacher rebukes him he answers, “Didn’t you say

that tomorrow should be a fun day?” Would the teacher put up

with this?

So it is with Christianity. In his majestic language God has

proclaimed a great joy to us – a great joy. Yes, God cannot speak

in any other way about the high goal he has for us. And what is

Christendom? Christendom is a tricky boy who pretends he

does not understand what God meant but thinks that since it is

a great joy the task must be to enjoy life thoroughly. Does God

put up with this?

Once upon a time learning to read was a rigorous matter; it

took a lot of hard work. But eventually the theory was devised

that everything ought to be enjoyable. So the practice of having

a little party after each hour of reading was introduced, and the

A B C’s were decked out with pictures, etc. Ultimately that hour

was also dropped, and the A B C’s became simply a picture book.

But still people went on talking about learning to read, even

though the children did not learn to read at all. Learning to read

was now understood to mean eating cookies and looking at

pictures, which became an even more pleasant experience just

because it was called “learning to read.” So also with the transformation

of Christianity in Christendom, except that here (which

is not the case in the illustration) “the teacher” (i.e. preacher) is

also interested in this transformation, it suits him best of all.

Christianity is proclaimed in Christendom in such a way that

obedience is taken away and reasoning put in its place.

No one can be the truth; only the God-man is the truth. Then

comes the next: the ones whose lives express what they proclaim.

These are witnesses to the truth. Then come those who

disclose what truth is and what it demands but admit that their

lives do not express it, but to that extent still are striving. There

it ends. Now comes the sophistry. First of all come those who

teach the truth but do not live it. Then come those who even

alter the truth, its requirement, cut it down, make omissions –

in order that their lives can correspond to the requirement.

These are the real deceivers.

The world does not want to eliminate Christianity, it is not that

straightforward, nor does it have that much character. No, it

wants it proclaimed falsely, using eternity to give a flavor to the

enjoyment of life.

Just as the statement, “Everything is true,” means that nothing

is true, so to exclaim that all are Christians means that no one is

a Christian.

Christianity has been made so much into a consolation that

people have completely forgotten that it is first and foremost a

demand.

We humans have ingeniously turned God into a humbug. We

talk about the fact that God is love, that we love God (who does

not love God, what “Christian” does not love God, etc.) and

even rely on him, and yet we refuse to see that our relationship

to him is purely and simply a natural egotism, the kind of love

which consists of loving oneself. We try to get this loving God’s

assistance, but only to lead a right cozy, enjoyably religious life.

Think of a father. There is something he wishes his child to

do (the child knows what it is); so the father has a plan: I will

come up with something that will really please my child and

give it to him. Then, I am sure, he will love me in return. The

father believes that his child will now do what he asks. But the

child takes his father’s gift and does not do what he wills. Oh,

the child thanks him again and again and exclaims: “He is such

an affectionate father”; but he continues to get his own way.

And so it is with us Christians in relationship to God. Because

God is love, we turn to him for help but then go our own

way. Although we dance before him and clap our hands and

blow the horn and with tears in our eyes exclaim, “God is love!”

we go on our merry way doing what it is that we want.

The apostasy from Christianity will not come about by everybody

openly renouncing Christianity; no, but slyly, cunningly,

by everybody assuming the name of being Christian.

When there is something distasteful to us we look to see if the

power that commands us is not too great for us to pit our power

against it. If we are convinced that it is not too great, we revolt

in defiance. But if the power is so superior that we despair of

making a revolt, we resort to hypocrisy. This certainly applies to

Christianity. The fact that the apostasy from Christianity occurred

long ago has not been noticed because the apostasy

came about, the revolt was made, in hypocrisy. Christendom is

precisely this apostasy.

Think of a fisherman who owns a splendid net that he inherited

from his father. Year after year he puts out his net – but gets

no fish. What is the matter? What can it be? “Sure enough, I

know,” says the fisherman. “The fish have changed; in the

course of time they have decreased in size. If I want to catch

them, I must get hold of a net that is not made for large fish.”

Now think about eternity in terms of salvation. From generation

to generation, steadily, incessantly, the cost of being

Christian has become cheaper and cheaper, the terms of salvation

have become easier and easier. A generation of jubilant

millions, served by huckster clergy, has replaced Christianity

with a religion of easy terms. It has rendered Christianity

worthless and taken Christianity in vain, all in the name of perfecting

Christianity. Eternity quietly looks on and observes: I

am catching no one. But eternity is not like the fisherman. It

does not need us. It is we who need eternity, to be caught is to

be saved. Moreover, eternity is at one and the same time the

fisherman and the net – consequently it does not change.

The Moral: The fisherman needs the fish; ergo, he changes

the net. If, on the contrary, it is the fish that need to be caught –

and this is the Christian way – then to be caught is to be saved.

But then the fish must change, which is impossible as far as the

metaphor is concerned but not in respect to what the metaphor

signifies.

The definition of “Church” found in Protestant Confessions,

that it is the communion of saints where the Word is rightly

taught and the sacraments rightly administered, grasps only

two of the points. It overlooks the foundation, the communion

of saints.

It is simply comical to think that one can “introduce” Christianity

into this or that situation, just as one introduces improved

sheep breeding. Christianity is precisely the one thing

that cannot be introduced.

Christianity received its first blow when the emperor became a

Christian. The second, and far more dangerous blow, came

when the “extraordinary Christian” emerged. The error lay not

in entering the monastery but in the title of extraordinary

Christian.

Everything has become reversed. There was a time when the

world wanted to fight Christianity – then Christianity fought

back. Now the world is in fraudulent possession of Christianity.

Its tactics are, with all its power and at any price, to prevent a

showdown. It is as when a swindler has misgivings – if the matter

goes to court, he has lost – and therefore all his tactics are

directed toward keeping it from going to court. In the realm of

the spirit this happens far more easily than in the actuality of

civil life, for the technique consists in the world continually

counterfeiting Christ’s position so that it is kind of saying the

same thing – but good God, then the world and Christ are

agreed!