The Poet and the Christian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a TLS review of several new books on Kierkegaard, Will Rees comments on the therapeutic cruelty of Kierkegaard\u2019s writing. In Sickness Unto Death,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Poet and the Christian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a TLS review of several new books on Kierkegaard, Will Rees comments on the therapeutic cruelty of Kierkegaard\u2019s writing. In Sickness Unto Death,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Leithart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@PLeithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/\",\"name\":\"The Poet and the Christian\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\"},\"description\":\"In a TLS review of several new books on Kierkegaard, Will Rees comments on the therapeutic cruelty of Kierkegaard\u2019s writing. In Sickness Unto Death,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Poet and the Christian\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\",\"name\":\"Leithart\",\"description\":\"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\",\"name\":\"Peter Leithart\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Peter Leithart\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Poet and the Christian","description":"In a TLS review of several new books on Kierkegaard, Will Rees comments on the therapeutic cruelty of Kierkegaard\u2019s writing. In Sickness Unto Death,","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Poet and the Christian","og_description":"In a TLS review of several new books on Kierkegaard, Will Rees comments on the therapeutic cruelty of Kierkegaard\u2019s writing. In Sickness Unto Death,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/","og_site_name":"Leithart","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","article_published_time":"2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00","author":"Peter Leithart","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@PLeithart","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter Leithart","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/","name":"The Poet and the Christian","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d"},"description":"In a TLS review of several new books on Kierkegaard, Will Rees comments on the therapeutic cruelty of Kierkegaard\u2019s writing. In Sickness Unto Death,","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Poet and the Christian"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/","name":"Leithart","description":"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d","name":"Peter Leithart","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Peter Leithart"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3021"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":18439,"date":"2016-10-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=187"},"modified":"2016-10-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T00:00:00","slug":"the-poet-and-the-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/10\/the-poet-and-the-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poet and the Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I<\/span>n a TLS review<\/a> of several new books on Kierkegaard, Will Rees comments on the therapeutic cruelty of Kierkegaard\u2019s writing. In Sickness Unto Death<\/em>, \u201cAnti-Climacus explains how, far from an inheritance of birth, the \u2018self\u2019 is in fact a vocation \u2013 something that one must forge in a solitary reckoning with God, an experience that couldn\u2019t be further from the comforts and consolations offered by mainstream Christendom.\u201d <\/p>\n

Reading the book is \u201cunpleasant,\u201d and it\u2019s supposed to be: \u201cKierkegaard aims to strip his reader of \u2018the so-called security, contentment with life, etc., which is simply despair\u2019 so that he or she may face up to the difficult \u2013 but necessary \u2013 task of \u2018becoming a single individual.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kierkegaard\u2019s later assaults on Danish Christendom have the same purpose: \u201cthey seek to violently strip the reader of the psychic and social comforts that stop one from being forced\u2014and therefore able\u2014to confront the terrifying task of forging an individual self before God.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this is in service to Kierkegaard\u2019s conviction that \u201ctruth is subjectivity.\u201d As Rees explains, this \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean that something becomes true by virtue of my saying or believing it to be so, but that beliefs acquire truth only in relation to the individual\u2019s lived orientation towards them.\u201d<\/p>\n

All along, Kierkegaard was writing another sort of work, sermonic \u201cdiscourses\u201d that were plain-spoken, straightforward exegeses of the Bible. Rees is struck by the \u201cgentle, graceful simplicity\u201d of these works. In one, Kierkegaard contrasts the poet\u2019s response to nation with that of the Christian. In Rees\u2019s summary, \u201cThe poet\u2019s \u2018sincerity\u2019 is but dissembled cynicism; really, his euphonic lament at man\u2019s inferiority to silent nature is an attempt to prove the dominance of speech\u2014namely, his own\u2014over silence. Unlike the poet, the Christian does not lament; instead, he earnestly submits himself to the lily and the bird, treating them as teachers from which one can learn the virtues of silence, obedience and joy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"