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piccoline 's review for:
The Sickness unto Death
by Søren Kierkegaard
Of course, book-burning has at this point a rather disreputable history, but I have to say, after now having read quite a few of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works, that I think modern Christianity would do well to go ahead and toss all the treacly self-helpish/12-steppish and (worst of all) hopelessly culture-bound success-oriented books of Rick Warren and Mark Driscoll and their ilk into the flames and return to Kierkegaard. What a renewal and what inspirational passionate humility might spring from such a commitment! What a challenge he still presents to so-called Christendom! (I imagine, with a joyous smile on my face, Sunday school classes from coast-to-coast wrestling with the implications of this man’s challenging work. Now that’s a Sunday school class! (Or small group study, if that’s more your speed.))
Not to say he has nothing to offer to the non-religious. On the contrary (as Sartre and Heidegger and so many others would agree), he offers much to think about both here and elsewhere. This work, The Sickness Unto Death seems especially important, frankly. Yes, it focuses on the (to some) overused word “sin” throughout, but the kernel that so excited later thinkers is here: we must avoid the despair of failing to will to be ourselves and similarly avoid the despair of defiantly willing to be ourselves.
Highly recommended.
Not to say he has nothing to offer to the non-religious. On the contrary (as Sartre and Heidegger and so many others would agree), he offers much to think about both here and elsewhere. This work, The Sickness Unto Death seems especially important, frankly. Yes, it focuses on the (to some) overused word “sin” throughout, but the kernel that so excited later thinkers is here: we must avoid the despair of failing to will to be ourselves and similarly avoid the despair of defiantly willing to be ourselves.
Highly recommended.