On being offensive, and on being humble
Postures that are not only compatible, but necessary
“I cannot hazard uttering a theological word without feeling like I'm going skydiving, night snorkeling without a light in a Belizean reef, or picking a fight with a professional boxer. I'm perilously jumping into something that might not end well.” — Chris Haw
“even when it seems that God is silent, theology should, like Job himself, be prepared to speak even when all that remains in the moment is the protest of despair—even blasphemy itself.” — Simon Podmore
1The Sickness Unto Death, written by Søren Kierkegaard in 1849, is theological art. Taking the story of Lazarus as a cue, the book opens with a reminder that Lazarus’s lethal sickness wasn’t actually what killed him, or wasn’t what killed the part of him that mattered. “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God,” said Jesus.2 What, then, is the truly lethal condition Lazarus was inflicted with? We might be tempted to say Jesus was speaking metaphorically, or speaking primarily with the coming resurrection in mind, and I won’t argue with that. But Kierkegaard takes this comment as a passing reference to “despair,” that affliction affecting all humankind which, if we are blessed, will kill the part of us that matters: “in Christian terminology death is indeed the expression for the state of deepest spiritual wretchedness, and yet the cure is simply to die, to die to the world.”3
The little book wastes little time in exploring despair as, on some level, the increasing awareness of what a human self actually is. A human self is something spiritual, a synthesis of the finite and the infinite, and only exists as a self before God—it is only a self in relation to God. To be aware of this4 is to despair: “To exist before God may seem unendurable to a man because he cannot come back to himself, become himself. Such a fantasized religious person would say (to characterize him by means of some lines): ‘That a sparrow can live is comprehensible; it does not know that it exists before God. But to know that one exists before God, and then not instantly go mad or sink into nothingness!’”5
He goes on to define sin in relation to this despair and how to escape via faith, and he describes that intellectually untenable hump one must climb over to do so, the “offense” of Christianity: the possibility of true forgiveness of sins. I’ve been wrestling with some of the ideas for months now, although I never sat down and read it cover-to-cover until recently. It is a book that calls Christians into greater awareness of their own sin and yet points with hope to that “Sabbath rest for the people of God.”6 But the actual content of the book and its “biblicalness” is for another day; today, I am inspired by the way a simple posture of humility, of self-criticism prior to criticism of others, enables one to make bold statements of truth and assessment that extend far beyond the self or the subjective.
“For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” — Matt 7:1-3, ESV
When Kierkegaard set out to write a book with the lofty goal of defining sin and its antithesis, faith, he was torn whether he could even publish such a book under his own name,7 petty sinner as he was like the rest of us, saying, the book “is poetry—and therefore my life, to my humiliation, must obviously express the opposite, the inferior.”8 In the end, it was published under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, an imaginary author who “considers himself to be a Christian on an extraordinary high level.” Kierkegaard found himself positioned squarely between the high Christianity of Anti-Climacus and the lowly pseudonym Johannes Climacus, who would not even call himself a Christian at the risk of sullying the ideal.9 To write a book of such theological hubris required that it be primarily a criticism of himself, the mere religious poet, and not of other Christians—for “judgment is not made en masse…in many ways [people] can be treated as cattle, but they cannot be judged as cattle, for cattle cannot come under judgment.”10
Harumph. Very funny, Kierkegaard—funny but true. “This is why God is ‘the judge,’ because for him there is no crowd, only single individuals.”11 Kierkegaard was intentionally as abrasive and offensive as possible toward so-called intellectuals—the philosophers and scholars who would go on to be most of his readership—but he never ceased to apply his theology to himself. I think that's important.
I’ve got some hot takes and controversial opinions I like to share here, and hopefully with time I only become more offensive to those most important—those who care. But I think I’m only as usefully offensive as I am humble. This morning, I was reading a sermon from 1981 given by a man who is now a pillar in my church community, and his comments on 1 Pet 4:12-16 struck me: “How should we apply this [passage] to our lives? When opposition or insult comes, we need to examine our lives first to see if there is anything ungodly in us to justify the things being said. Sometimes we may find some truth in what the critic is saying. If so, we should deal with that, but all the while realizing that opposition will still come, but now for the right reasons. Opposition or persecution is one of the marks of genuine [Christian] discipleship. When found in concert with other biblical qualities (like the first seven beatitudes) it is an indication of something genuine. By itself, it may not say anything except that a person has a character that is offensive even to the world’s low standards.”12
I desire criticism in order to grow, but can I handle it? Like Kierkegaard, I must emulate that pagan prophet Socrates: I know that I know nothing. “Socrates, Socrates, Socrates! Yes, we may well call your name three times; it would not be too much to call it 10 times, if it would be of any help. Popular opinion maintains that the world needs a republic, needs a new social order and a new religion—but no one considers that what the world, confused simply by too much knowledge, needs is a Socrates.”13
I am certainly no Socrates or Kierkegaard, but I strive to be as offensive as they, even as offensive as the one who offers up the great “offense” of Christianity, Jesus, just as I strive to be as humble:
The greatest possible human misery, greater even than sin, is to be offended at Christ and to continue in the offense; and Christ cannot, ‘love’ cannot, make this impossible. This, you see, is why he says: ‘Blessed is he who is not offended at me.’ More he cannot do.14
Be offensive and humble. Be strong and meek. Be indignant and loving.
Allow me to close by pronouncing a judgment upon myself, a babbler and loose thinker and hanger-on, knowing all the while that I am but one head in a herd: “Woe to the babblers, woe to the loose thinkers, and woe, woe to all the hangers-on who have learned from them and praised them!”15
Opening quotes are from From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart: Rekindling my Love for Catholicism by Chris Haw, pg 79 (Ave Maria Press, 2012) and Kierkegaard and the Self Before God: The Anatomy of the Abyss by Simon D. Podmore, pg 25 (Indiana University Press, 2011).
John 11:4, KJV.
The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, by Anti-Climacus (Søren Kierkegaard), translated by Howard V. Hong & Edna H. Hong, pg 6. Princeton University Press, 1980.
One needs not be conscious of this reality to despair, as Kierkegaard shows.
The Sickness Unto Death, pg 32.
Heb 4:9, ESV.
The Sickness Unto Death, pg xv-xx.
Ibid, pg xx.
Ibid, pg xxii.
Ibid, pg 123.
Ibid.
The sermon can be found in In Search of a City: An Autobiographical Perspective on a Remarkable but Controversial Movement by Thomas A. Jones, pg 75. Discipleship Publications International, 2007.
The Sickness Unto Death, pg 92.
Ibid, pg 126. Cf. Matt 11:6, Luke 7:23.
Ibid, pg 117.
"...but he never ceased to apply his theology to himself. I think that's important." Truth.