A Vexing Gadfly: The late Kierkegaard on economic
matters
Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez
James Clarke & Co. £20.25
(978-0-227-17371-8)
Church Times Bookshop £18.20 (Use code
CT231 )
WHEN IT comes to liberation theologians, it takes one to know
one.
An immense literature has grown up around Søren Kierkegaard's
contribution to modern philosophy, theology, psychology, ethics,
and aesthetics, but relatively little attention has been paid to
his socio-political views in general, and his approach to wealth
and poverty in particular. Perhaps Professor Enrique Dussel in his
foreword to this ground-breaking essay is right in his judgement
that "only an Hispanic theologian could have uncovered such
previously unknown aspects of Søren Kierkegaard".
In any event, Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez really has brought to light a
rich seam of Kierkegaardian wit and wisdom on economic matters
which has been only implicit in the work of, for example, Bruce
Kirmmse.
Against the image of Kierkegaard as a bourgois intellectual of
independent means and idiosyncratic tastes, Pérez-Álvarez portrays
a man passionate about the poor, allying himself with the "ordinary
man", and scathing in his attack on wealth and privilege. But this
is no proto-Marxist manifesto. What scandalises Kierkegaard is that
the prevailing culture is coated with the veneer of Christian
respectability to the extent that the Christianity of Jesus and the
Apostles has been reduced to mere Christendom. Christendom is the
political, cultural, and ecclesiastical Establishment baptised by
well-paid bishops and clergy, whom Kierkegaard mercilessly attacks
in his final fusillade of acerbic newspaper articles and
pamphlets.
Pérez-Álvarez argues that Kierkegaard moved from a position of
conventional conservatism, through a transitional period of
increasing interest in economic affairs, and on to a final,
thorough-going radicalisation of his socio-economic rhetoric.
Imitation of Christ entails a bias to the poor, and no one who
benefits financially from proclaiming Christ can claim to be a
"witness to the truth".
It was the cosseted complacency of Golden Age Denmark, and the
failure of the mid-19th-century revolutionary spirit to deliver
real change which stirred Kierkegaard into radical action. But the
author sees parallels with our own time, as the Establishment
colonises Christianity in a new incarnation of Christendom, and the
Church seeks social status and state funding to sustain a
thoroughly unchristian lifestyle. While Pérez-Álvarez draws
extensively on Kierkegaard's published writings, he uses his own
translations of Kierkegaard's neglected Journals to
bolster his case and give it real sparkle and urgency.
The book is in three sections. First of all, he sets the
philosophical, economic, and social context. The second section
focuses specifically on the years 1846-52, when Kierkegaard moved
from pseudonymity to an open assault on the contradictions of
Christendom. The third chronicles the years up to his death in
1855. During these, he orchestrated his assault on the gospel of
the prosperous, and pulled no punches when it came to berating the
bishops, clergy, and all who benefit financially from proclaiming
Christ to their own advantage.
There are flaws in the argument. Kierkegaard's later views are
more to the fore in his earlier authorship than Pérez-Álvarez
allows. Also, no mention is made of Kierkegaard's calls for an
"admission" from the bishops and others of how far they fell short
of New Testament Christianity. If such an admission had been made,
he would have called off his attack. It was honesty that he wanted
rather than to be over-concerned about lifestyle changes - and it
is this that makes him less of a liberation theologian than is
claimed here.
There is no index, and the book reads too much like the doctoral
dissertation from which i t emerged. But it is an important
contribution to Kierkegaardian scholarship, and will challenge many
students of "the melancholy Dane" to think again.
The Rt Revd Dr Saxbee is a former Bishop of
Lincoln.