Quotable Kierkegaard III: On Worship

In the theater the performance is played before persons present who are called spectators, but at the religious address God himself is present; in the most earnest sense he is the critical spectator who is checking on how it is being spoken and on how it is being heard, and for that very reason there are no spectators. Thus the one speaking is the prompter, and the listener is present and open before God; he is, if I may put it this way, the actor, who in the true sense is acting before God.

~"Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing"

From Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits

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The Massacre of the Innocents [By W.H. Auden]

[From For the Time Being, by W.H. Auden] HEROD One needn’t be much of a psychologist to realize that if this rumor is not stamped out now, in a few years it is capable of diseasing the whole Empire, and one doesn’t have to be a prophet to predict the consequences if it should. Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, and the same for all, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions—feelings in the solar plexus induced by undernourishment, angelic images generated by fevers or drugs, dream warnings inspired by the sound of falling water. Whole cosmologies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of school children ranked above the great masterpieces. Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Priapus will only have to move to a good address and call himself Eros

Works of Love XVIII: “Love for the Dead”

[From Part II, Chapter IX: “ The Work of Love in Remembering One Dead ”] “Weep less bitterly for the dead, for he is at rest.” Sirach 22:11 (NRSV) [1] With chapter 9 of part 2, Works of Love is beginning to come to a close. With entry 17, this blog series is also nearing its end. As Kierkegaard has given us a detailed view of what Christian love is supposed to look like, now he gives us a way to test the purity of our own love: look at the way you love those who have died. [2] We are to love everyone, and loving means remembering, and so we are to love the dead. But loving those who have died is a special circumstance, and it shows us what kind of love we are showing. If we reflect on the way we love the dead, we can see whether we are showing truly Christian love. Kierkegaard identifies three ways that love for the dead is unique. First, he says that showing love for the dead is “a work of the most unselfish love.” He writes, “If one wants to make sure that love is

Choruses from the Rock (VI), By T.S. Eliot

[I know that I promised blog entries that I haven't delivered yet. I've got plenty of ideas in my head, it's just a matter of finding the time and the motivation at the same time. Anyway, I expect that I'll be ready to write relatively soon, but until then I thought I would tide you over with a section from T.S. Eliot's excellent poem, Choruses from "The Rock". Enjoy!] It is hard for those who have never known persecution, And who have never known a Christian, To believe these tales of Christian persecution. It is hard for those who live near a Bank To doubt the security of their money. It is hard for those who live near a Police Station To believe in the triumph of violence. Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World And that lions no longer need keepers? Do you need to be told that whatever has been, can still be? Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments As you boast of in the way of polite society Will hardly surv

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