Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close . . . We would be sunk if it were not for Christian scholarship! Praise be to everyone who works to consolidate the reputation of Christian scholarship, which helps to restrain the New Testament, this confounded book which would, one, two, three, run us all down if it got loose.
I have to chuckle… because the background I come from is a charismaticpentecostal church, where this is the very thing (they think) that is held in high esteem… theology and the mindstudy are disdained and anathema in regards to faith. Kierkegaard obviously was attacking heartless and false religion, but most of the folks i used to associate with would ignorantly say a hearty & self-approving amen to his statement.
Well, the way Kierkegaard substitutes the NT for the Bible lends itself to this kind of problem.