What if the “World” is Actually the “Church”? (Kierkegaard for Lent)

One of my all-time favorite Kierkegaard texts is Practice in Christianity, published in 1848 (along with a host of other works in a very productive year). Kierkegaard thought very highly of the work: “Without a doubt it is the most perfect and truest thing I have written; but it must not be interpreted as if I am supposed to be the one who almost censoriously bursts in upon everybody else–no, I must be brought up myself.” In the work he takes on “Christendom,” or established Christianity–the Church/State situation which in his view resulted in a tragic conflation of culture and Christian faith/practice. In Practice, he spells out a distinction between the “Church triumphant” and the “Church Militant”:

“What is meant by a triumphant Church? By this is meant a Church that assumes that the time of struggling is over, that the Church, although it is still in this world, has nothing more about or for which to struggle. But then of course the Church and this world have become synonymous; and this is indeed the case not only with everything that calls itself the Church triumphant but with what is called an established Christendom. In this world Christ’s Church can truly endure only by struggling—that is, by every moment battling to endure. If it is the established Church, then this is because it has been victorious.” (PC 211-212)

In established Christendom, there is no more “struggle,” the Church just “is.” But for Kierkegaard this was deadly, because life depends on a continuing struggle. The criterion of truth is no whether something “is” (or rather, the criterion of truth is not the “results”–i.e. that the Church consists in X amount of members or has attained X status), but rather it is whether the struggle continues forward. It is always the how (or passion, faith, becoming) not the what (of stature, status, attainment). The situation of a true Christianity must be one in which struggle–and suffering–is a characteristic of its nature. So that,

To be a Christian in the Church militant means to express being Christian within an environment that is the opposite of being Christian. To be a Christian in a triumphant, an established Christendom means to express being a Christian within an environment that is synonymous, homogenous with being Christian.

Militant Christianity is one that is at odds with the “world.” This “world” is different from the “world” that I learned about growing up an evangelical Christian. For us, the “world” was always the secular realm, the Godless, partying, carefree folks who had little to do with church. for Kierkegaard, the “world” is the Church–that is, it is “Christendom.” In other words, we are probably the ones in need of repentance because we are so prone to hypocritical delusions. We are the ones who need grace. The Militant Church therefore is a church always in search of repentance and always open to self-critique and always aware that its first responsibility is to suffer on behalf of others.