Priest or clergy

                      There is a complete crew of bishops, deans, priests, learned men, eminently learned, talented, gifted, and humanly well-meaning but not one of them is in the character of the Christianity of the New Testament. If such is the case, the existence of this Christian crew is rather a peril, because it is so infinitely likely to give rise to a false impression and the false inference that when we have such a complete crew we must of course have Christianity, too. He criticized the Danish state church, its clergy, its sacraments, its institutions, its worship, and above all, its claim to be servant of the Gospel in a Christian society. According to him, Danish Lutheranism had nothing at all to do with New Testament faith.  

           

The word of God which is essential for Christianity should be preached to the people. Hence, men are still necessary to preach the word of God and reach it to people. The medium is the clergy. This medium ought to be free from all selfishness. But evil has always been fond of this medium, and still is. Catholicism has correctly seen that it was good for this medium to belong as little as possible to this world; hence celibacy, poverty, asceticism. It is perfectly correct to remove selfishness from the medium. Protestantism did not overlook this error.  To guard against this spiritual pride, Protestantism contrived the notion that the clergy should be exactly like other men. So there is completely laicized clergy, officials, dignitaries, married men with wives and children.This is the medium through which God’s word must resound. Luther is an exact opposite of Apostle. The apostle expresses Christianity for the sake of God. He comes with authority from God and for His sake. As for Luther, he expresses Christianity for the sake of man. He is fundamentally the reaction of the human against the Christian acting for the sake of God.

           

 Kierkegaard accuses the clergy of the Established Church of being hypocrites who do not practice what they preach. Kierkegaard says that they are simply actors in disguise, and caustically remarks that the only difference between Church and theatre is that the Church doesn’t allow you to claim your money back if you don’t like the show!