further …

… to yesterday’s post, what if, here is a section from Kierkegaard:

But as in Christendom everything has been brought to confusion, so also this; and thereby the point has been reached where Christianity has become paganism. In Christendom they preach perpetually about what happened then after Christ’s death, how He triumphed, and how His disciples made a triumphal conquest of the whole world-in short, one hears only sermons which might properly end with Hurrah I rather than with Amen. No, Christ’s life here upon earth is the paradigm; it is in likeness to it that I along with every Christian must strive to construct my life; and this is the essential object of the sermon, this is the end it should serve, to keep me alert when I would become slack, and to strengthen me when I would become disheartened. In such a sense He is the paradigm in the situation of contemporaneousness; in that situation there was no stuff and nonsense about what happened afterwards. But Christendom has abolished Christianity – on the other hand, it would like to inherit Him and His great name, to gain advantage from the immense consequences of his life, coming pretty close to appropriating these consequences as its own meritorious achievement and making us believe that Christendom is Christ. Every generation has to begin all over again with Christ and thus to present His life as the paradigm; but instead of this, Christendom has taken the liberty of interpreting the whole relationship simply historically, beginning by letting Him be dead-and then it triumphs! Since that time Christendom has been increasing in numbers year by year-and what wonder; for people are only too eager to take part when there is nothing whatever to do but to triumph and to join the parade. And therefore to be a Christian in Christendom is as different from being a Christian in the situation of contemporaneousness as paganism is from Christianity.

Training in Christianity, 109