”A writer is called upon to free the chained thoughts of our time”, our teacher taught us in school.  Denmark has had her intellectual ”princes”, but the rising generation mostly doesn´t care.  They left their marks however.  Two of those were Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and Georg Brandes (1842-1927).

The thoughts of Kierkegaard got international fame, and he´s still being frequently quoted, while Brandes is almost forgotten and is never quoted.  Ironically it was his philosophy, however, that vanquished our culture.  -  Kierkegaard´s thoughts affected (and still does) many intellectuals, including many theologians.  The teacher of my early childhood, a well known psychologist, ”mastered” Kierkegaard´s writings and was at one time also under the influence of Christianity, and yet, sad to say, he died as an agnostic.  I saw him a few times as an old man, and he still thought highly of Søren Kierkegaard.

Georg Brandes swept Denmark off her feet in the 1870´ies as a brilliant literary historian and an intellectual revolutionary.  He admired Søren Kierkegaard (but defied his faith) and was a spell-binding lecturer whom the youth embraced with enthusiasm.  He sure enough unchained many thoughts and expressed what many thought but didn´t dare say openly.  He was a sworn naturalist, inspired by the godless philosophers from the southern part of Europe (Germany, France, Italy), and he boldly defied our Christian tradition and argued for ”free (sexual) love” having himself several mistresses on a sophisticated, aesthetic level. (He would never approve of the pornographic culture of our time).  His immorality was very ”moral” according to his own philosophy.

G.B. was in his very early youth influenced by the gospel (though born Jewish), but before he was 20 he made his fateful choice.  He was according to himself obsessed with a ”demonic” desire to realize himself.  Two years before he died in 1927 he wrote a haughty little book called ”The Jesus Myth”.
The idea of being one´s own god and one´s own devil, openly or implied, has affected my people, our culture and many politicians.  But it all started before the end of the 19th century and in the wake of that movement a lot of impurity has followed up to our time.  Søren Kierkegaard looked at his time as a ”time of decay”, and we´re in the midst of such a self destructive time right now.

Is it possible to swim against the tide?  Yes, but only as a born-again follower of Christ holding forth His gospel.  Formal Christians will passively swim with the tide accompanied by soothing church music and a dead creed with dead lip service.

-jn-