Grundtvigs syn på forkyndelsen

Grundvig's Views on Preaching. By Regin Prenter. On the first pulpit in Grundtvig’s Church in Copenhagen is an inscription: “ Read out what is written, and bear witness to what thou hast lived”. Many think that this strikingly expresses Grundtvig’s views on preaching the word. Preaching is life-testimony; therein lies its value, but also its limitation, for it is a human word, and cannot be ranked with God’s own word in Baptism and Holy Communion. Such a view of preaching is clearly opposed to that of Luther, who describes the preacher’s word as God’s own word, and refers to it as the “ living word” in contrast to the dead written word. No doubt this conception, which is inconsistent with the older Lutheran conception, is held by many of Grundtvig’s disciples, but did Grundtvig himself really hold it? In “ Den Christelige Bornelardom” Grundtvig writes of preaching as hope’s sign of life (“ Livstegn” ), just as the Creed is faith’s and the singing of hymns is love’s sign of life. We can see from the context here that preaching is regarded, not as the expression of an individual's experience, but as something which springs out of the Church's hope, just as the Creed expresses the Church's faith and hymns express the Church's love. To understand Grundtvig’s views on preaching we must consider them in connection with his whole conception of the nature of the Christian life, and in particular with his conception of faith, hope and love as the expression of the growing life of Christ in the Church and with his ideas about Church and school. Both in his hymns and in “ Den Christelige Bornelardom” we find many references to Grundtvig’s conception of Christian life as the presence and growth of Christ in the individual and the Church, beginning in blind-born faith, hastening onward through hope, and perfected in love. E. g. in “ Bornelardom” he speaks of the eternal word of life from the Lord’s own mouth as being threefold, like the Christian life: the word of faith, the word of hope, and the word of love (expressed in Baptism, the Lord’s Prayer, and Holy Communion). Only as this threefold word reaches its full power through faith and the spirit does the Church live its own life no longer, but Christ’s. Grundtvig criticises Lutheranism for regarding faith as the end, rather than the feeble beginning of the Christian life, and thus not giving their due place to hope and love. Nowadays, however, we seem to concentrate on what Grundtvig says of faith’s “ sign of life” , in Baptism, and neglect what he said of the Lord’s Prayer as hope’s “ sign of life” ; and the words of the Communion Service as love’s “ sign of life” and thus we have largely lost the strong sacramental realism of his conception of the Christian life as Christ’s own life in us, and tend to regard it as merely our own inner religious life. In emphasizing the nature of Christian life as a growth from faith through hope to love, Grundtvig, in spite of differences, has this in common with the other great nineteenthcentury Danish religious thinker, Kierkegaard, who insisted that “ Christian” is not something which one is, but something which one becomes. Grundtvig’s conception of the Christian life determines his views on the scriptures, theology and preaching, and his well-known distinction between Church and Christian school (“ Kirkeskole” , i.e . theology). Since Christ, without being what men call “ learned” , nevertheless knew and need the Jewish Scriptures, and after His Ascension chose the scholar Paul as one of His Apostles, it is clear that the Scriptures are indispensable, and Christian teachers, aided by the holy infallible Scriptures, are needed for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ (cf. Ephesians, IV, 11-13). In his “ Kirkelige Oplysninger” , Grundtvig stresses that the Scriptures are needed, not for the salvation of the individual, but for the enlightenment of the Church. Enlightenment (“ Oplysning”) is one of the most significant words in Grundtvig’s Christian philosophy. “ Oplysning” is the clear understanding of life that follows life’s growth; the Bible is a book that casts light on life, but does not, like Baptism, regenerate it. Enlightenment results in learning, but the “ living word” results in life. Here is the root of the distinction between Church and Christian school. The Church is the fellowship of those who live the life of faith; the school is the fellowship of those who, book in hand, seek enlightenment about life. But, referring to Ephesians, IV, 11-13, Grundtvig points out that as Christ’s Body comes nearer to the full measure of Christ, faith and understanding, Church and school, will come closer and closer together. Grundtvig considers it immensely important that the Church should stand firm as a rock in its faith, while the school should constantly move forward in its enlightenment. This view finds expression in an important passage in his “ Udvalgte Skrifter” (Selected Writings), IV, 663 ff. The impulse which makes the school move forward, while faith stands fast, is the same as that which leads the Christian life forward through hope to the perfection of love. There is therefore a special connection between the Christian school and hope. As Grundtvig put it in one of his hymns: “ The Church, built on faith, must remain secure on its foundation, while Hope goes to school” . As hope leads the Christian life nearer to its perfection, enlightenment also grows; and, seen from this standpoint, preaching is the means by which Christian teachers, the “ Christian school” , communicate this growing enlightenment to the whole Church. It is the word of Baptism, not preaching, that creates life; but the word of preaching springs from life, from life as hope, and prophesies what the Church shall be when it shall have grown up into Christ. Preaching in the Church thus corresponds in a way to mythology, which, in a nation’s youth, prophesies in poetic form what that nation’s life will be when it reaches its full unfolding. Luther regarded the preacher’s word as creating life; for Grundtvig it is the words of the sacraments that create life, and the preacher’s word only gives light; but this does not mean that it is not essential to the life of the Church, and a wondrous work of God. In “ Bornelardom” Grundtvig writes of the mysteries of the Christian life: “ the mystery of calling in the preaching of the gospel, the mystery of regeneration in Baptism, and the mystery of nurturing in Holy Communion” . The function of preaching in the life of the Church is to call us to Baptism and Holy Communion, through which alone the life of faith can be transmitted. But preaching is essential to the Church, and Grundtvig stresses its importance in what he writes about the miracle of Pentecost, e. g., in “ Udvalgte Skrifter” , X, 103f., and “ Sangvark” , II, 92 and 93. When we see Grundtvig’s conception of preaching as an integral part of his theory of the life of Christ and of the Church, it can hardly be claimed that he sets less value on the preacher’s word than Luther does. The singing of Grundtvig’s hymns about the Holy Spirit would be quite in tune with a Lutheran sermon. But Grundtvig’s conception of the nature of preaching is something much greater than can be expressed in the words: “ Read out what is written and bear witness to what thou hast lived”

Grundtvigs udfordring til moderne theologi

Grundtvigs challenge to modern theologyBy Regin PrenterIn the first part of his paper Regin Prenter is concerned with presenting a simplified picture of modern theology, in order subsequently to examine the nature of Grundtvig’s challenge. He explains that he will confine himself firstly, to discussing modern protestant theology on the grounds that Grundtvig himself was a Lutheran, secondly, to treating systematic theology in the widest sense of the term, and thirdly, to pointing out prevalent tendencies in present-day systematic theology.The theological revolution for which Karl Barth was responsible between the First and Second World Wars brought about an increasing interest not only in biblical theology, but also in the study of the great Christian thinkers, the Church Fathers, the medieval scholastics and, above all, the reformers of the sixteenth century, who exerted a strong influence on the thought of these neoorthodox theologians, as they came to be called in the U.S.A.Today, Regin Prenter says, the younger generation of theologians, almost without exception, react somewhat violently against this theological renewal. Not that they would dream of returning to the essentially middle-class Liberal Theology of the turn of the century, despite their approval of its critical attitude towards the Classical Christian heritage, since the vast majority of them – disregarding the fundamentalists - are socialists and extremely critical of the "established" capitalist society of the West."The World” is the focal-point of interest for theologians today. The main theological question is no longer, as it was between the Wars, "What do the Holy Scriptures say, or, What does the Church say, with regard to a given point?” but, "What can or should the Church, or Christians, do to change the world, in order to make it a better place to live in for the hungry and oppressed, who still constitute the greater part of mankind.”Under the influence of neo-marxist thinkers such as Ernest Bloch, political action is, to an increasing degree, becoming the criterion for theological truth, e.g. in Jürgen Moltmann’s Revolution theology. This does not mean that the theologians in question dissociate themselves from the "theology of Revelation” as such, some of them, indeed, for instance Jürgen Moltmann, being disciples of Barth and interested in a "theology of the Word”. But they are convinced that not all truth, including the truth of God’s Revelation, is apprehended as such, unless it is translated into action, i.e. political action. Biblical eschatology and the neo-marxist philosophy of hope merge into each other in Moltmann’s Theology of Hope. The Christian hope in the eschatological salvation of the whole universe is reduced to sentimental nonsense if it does not lead to political action, aiming at transforming the world here and now, by making it more human. People do not truly hope for eternal salvation unless they work actively for the earthly salvation of their fellow-men.It is at this point that Regin Prenter asks whether there is in fact room for a living God, since the plans for the transformation of the world overshadow this question. He asks whether “God” is not a word that only contains reality within the context of a political programme, and whether the “theistic” conception of God is anything more than a creation of the religious imagination. Theism, the idea of a personal God, being inextricably bound up with the Established Church in established society, must surely be sacrificed first if the world is to be radically changed. He finds it quite understandable that extreme forms of "world theology” sometimes become "atheistic Christianity”, a "God-is-dead” theology, or a Christ-centred theology, in which the man Jesus does not reveal God, but replaces him (as in Dorothee Sölle’s theology).Regin Prenter admits that not all the theologians who fall into the above category would draw such radical conclusions. He is nevertheless convinced that it is the most extreme forms of secular theology, and not the countless attempts at compromise between political theology and the theology of Revelation that reveal the desperate situation in which politically-engaged young theologians find themselves today. The more radical the thinking in these directions, the more imperative it becomes to make a final choice between God and the world, between the Bible and marxism. Jesus’ words: "You cannot serve God and mammon,” can easily be paraphrased as: "You cannot love the suffering world and the God of the Church.”Prenter asserts that if theology is the attempt by Christians to clarify the role of the Christian, and if this implies being committed to the love of mankind which is manifested in Jesus’ dealings with men, as described in the Gospels, then a revision of their whole theology seems essential, in order that the faith and love claimed by God in the old theology may now be transferred to the people of the suffering world.He postulates that such a revision would involve the renunciation of belief in the transcendent God. Christianity would have to be interpreted as the principle of human love, as preached and exemplified by Jesus called the Christ, thus making it necessary to abandon all the traditional dogma, indeed, even the idea of a transcendent God. He asks whether such an antitheistic interpretation of the Gospel is the only form in which Christianity can survive, and goes on to say that it is to theologians to whom such questions are vital that Grundtvig is a challenge.Here Regin Prenter turns to Grundtvig himself. Despite the fact that he was not a Doctor of Theology and never became a professor, Grundtvig’s hymns, sermons, historical and mythological works are permeated with theology Yet measured by the usual theological yardstick, he was a decidedly secular writer, being a poet, historian, philosopher, educationalist and politician. He was no "systematist”, and never succeeded in keeping the various aspects of his manysided activity separate. Thus throughout his theology we find his secular engagement constantly present as a disturbing and stimulating element, while his theology both underlies and bounds his secular thought and activity. It is this peculiarity of Grundtvig that makes him a challenge to modern secular theology.While admitting that it is impossible to formularize Grundtvig’s theology, Prenter maintains that one can however point to some unmistakable guiding principles in his theological thought, which can - cautiously - be expressed in two famous quotations from his hymns:Only in the bath and at the table (i.e. in Baptism and the Eucharist) Do we hear God’s word, spoken to us.First a man and then a Christian,this is a fundamental.Prenter finds that there is a remarkable exclusiveness in this conception of the Church; "no salvation outside the Church" pales beside Grundtvig’s "only in the bath and at the table." Only when God’s people is assembled, only through the divine service and the institutions given by the Lord, does God speak to His people. Conversely, only when and where God speaks, at Baptism and the Eucharist, is God’s people present as a spiritual community. The Church, as Grundtvig understands it, is not the world, nor a part of the world, and neither is the world the Church, not even potentially. The Church is the people of God as a spiritual community, drawn from all nations and speaking all tongues.Grundtvig’s Church-centredness makes him a catholic theologian (in the early Church sense of the word), but not a Roman Catholic. Nevertheless he always considered himself a true Lutheran, since for him both the baptismal font and the Communion table are the places where God speaks to his people. And God himself has chosen where and how he will speak. Both ideas are essentially Lutheran.To the question of why Grundtvig binds God’s word to the Church Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, Regin Prenter gives two answers.1) The life-giving word of God is Jesus Christ himself. Grundtvig sees Baptism as the New Covenant between God and His people, God and fallen man, founded upon God’s Creation and redemptive work in and through His only-begotten Son. Therefore Baptism is performed in the name of the Trinity, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Only the Trinity can say what this name contains, and does so at the baptismal ceremony, in the Apostles’ Creed, understood as God’s own interpretation of His name in and through the history of the Creation and the Redemption, the events of which are summed up in the three articles of the Creed, the centre being the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The very first sentence takes us far outside the church walls, with the mentioning of the creation of heaven and earth and all that is therein. But it is in the churchbuilding, at the font, that God speaks the word that takes us out into the vast universe.That God’s own interpretation of the secret of His name is expressed in the form of a question (Do you renouce. . .? Do you believe...) is of great importance to Grundtvig (which is why, as long as Grundtvigians exist, there would be an uproar in the Danish People’s Church if any attempt were made to abolish the questions at Baptism). It means that life in this name, faith itself, is not a possibility or a choice open to man, but a gift of God; a gift in so complete a sense, that He even gives us the wording in which we accept His offer. In the Eucharist, God’s word to His people is bound up with the gifts of the Body and Blood of Jesus; it is a "declaration of love”whereby God establishes communion between Himself and all those who were baptized in the name of the Trinity, and who believe in and confess that name.2) Man, created in God’s image, and to whom God speaks His life-giving word in Jesus Christ, is a wonderful mixture of spirit and flesh. The word that God speaks to mortal men in Jesus Christ is not an expression of timeless truths in human terms, but God’s own eternal truth, made man and therefore a historical word. By assuming the nature of a body (the water at Baptism and the bread and wine at the Eucharist) God’s life-giving word becomes an event, or rather, the event, the decisive event in the history of every human being. Baptism is the new birth into God’s kingdom, into life in His truth, and like every birth it is an unrepeatable event.The Eucharist is the event of God’s communion with man, that takes place here and now, at the Communion table, in a particular church on a particular Sunday. Grundtvig confronts the socialist engagement of modern theology with the orthodox Christian distinction between earthly and eternal salvation. All human beings are subject to death, as every single one of them has turned away from God their Creator. No revolution, no earthly "salvation now” in the shape of social justice and economic equality can give a human being eternal life and liberate him from death. The perfect human life, which man is created in God’s image to live on earth, is not possible unless death has been vanquished. But in Christ, mortal men are born again and raised up, in such a way that they live here and now in faith, hope and love as the people of God, man being born again to eternal life at Baptism and the reborn life being nourished by the Eucharist. This is man’s "Christian, spiritual and eternal life”.Man is created for eternal life, and even in the most just of all societies, even in the most perfect socialist state, he cannot attain eternal life without Christ and His people, without Baptism and the Eucharist. Grundtvig’s provocative question to modern, politically (socialist)-oriented theology is this: "Is not this theology, in the interests of the social revolution, sacrificing the Christian belief in God and in the eternal destiny of man?”Regin Prenter now tackles the second quotation: "First a man, and then a Christian”. He points out that Grundtvig does not say that man is not truly human until he has been born again to eternal life in Jesus Christ. It was precisely this misunderstanding, shared by medieval Catholicism and orthodox Lutheranism that, from 1825 onwards, he fought so passionately against. Every human being is, as a human being, God’s creation, and therefore truly man. If it were not so, God’s eternal Son could not have been made man and we could not have been saved from death to everlasting life, through being made participants in His perfect human life. The fact that man has fallen, that he is a sinner without the power or the right to forgive himself, that he is a mortal creature unable by himself to gain eternal life, does not mean that he has ceased to be God’s creation. Before Christ, outside the Church and the sacraments, we find genuine humanity, which is waiting for its liberation from sin and death, which is capable of being redeemed and raised to eternity in Jesus Christ and which also, in its fallen, unredeemed, earthly and mortal state is and remains true humanity, neither brutishness nor devilishness. "First a man and then a Christian” says that nobody can become a Christian, i.e. believe in God and his own eternal destiny in Christ, hear and trust in God’s life-giving word at Baptism and the Eucharist, devote himself to a life of faith, hope and love, without first being a man, God’s creation, created in His image. Grundtvig maintains that there is a way leading from true created humanity to eternal life in Jesus Christ. There is no way leading from the denial of our created humanity to salvation. Men can deny their own divinely created humanity, thereby closing the way to Christ. Grundtvig, the preacher of joyful Christianity, has never disputed the possibility of perdition.Prenter now turns to the question of language, as Grundtvig states clearly that humanity consists in the gift of speech. In the gift of speech man has, in his fallen state, preserved a sense of truth and a longing for life which is the essence of true humanity and, as such, the absolute prerequisite for man’s salvation from sin and death.In every human word there is an element of truth, love and life-giving power, corresponding, as Grundtvig shows in his theological treatise: “The Divine Trinity”, to the three divine names in the Trinity - life-giving power corresponding to the Holy Ghost, truth to the Son and love to the Father. This truth, love and life-giving power inherent in any human word, in so far as it is truly human, is not the divine truth, love and life-giving power inherent in God’s redeeming word in Jesus Christ - yet it comes from God, in and through every single living language, into the mind and body of man, making him truly human.Grundtvig is fully aware that this man is a sinner, but a human sinner, not an animal or a devil, and therefore able to hear and trust in the word that convinces him of his guilt and forgives him his sin. This man is also mortal, but again, he is able to hear and trust in the word that convinces him of his need of eternal life and which offers him eternal life. No man can speak such a word, but he is capable of hearing it when God speaks it, because he can himself speak words containing an element of truth, love and life. God will be able to speak to him in the language that he himself speaks.The language spoken by human beings is however always a particular language, different from other languages, a mother-tongue. A living universal language does not exist. The mere fact that a person is capable of using a foreign language in order to speak to the people of that nation does not make it his mother-tongue, even if he speaks it to perfection. Indeed, it is usually this very perfection that betrays the fact that it is not his mother-tongue. The language in which human truth, love and life-giving power can find their way from one man’s heart to another is the mother-tongue. It is, of course, possible to have human contact with those who do not speak our language and to worship with them in what is for us a foreign tongue, but only in so far as our mother-tongue is a spiritual power for us, through which truth, love and life pervade our souls and bodies, making us truly human.To realize one’s own true humanity, to become "truly man” is to develop one’s humanity in a spiritual fellowship, within a particular people, with a particular mother-tongue. This spiritual fellowship comes into being through the use of a living word in the mother-tongue, a word which reveals the spiritual power entrusted to this people by the Creator, and which itself brings about achievements that are the concrete manifestation of the spiritual forces, truth, love and life-giving power, of this people - the “spirit of the people”, as Grundtvig expresses it."First man and then a Christian” means that the spiritual life of the individual people, manifested in its living use of the mother-tongue, is the soil in which the Christian community must be planted and grow if it is not to wither and die. If however, the individual or the people misuses the language, robbing it of its truth, love and life-giving power, then the individual or the people, will lose its created humanity, becoming inhuman, demoniac. Such a demoniac distortion of the language can happen in many ways, but is most frequently encountered in the political sphere, where cynical propaganda replaces the living word. And where humanity is thus corrupted, the Word of God and the Church of Christ and the spiritual life of faith, hope and love cannot survive.First a man and then a Christian therefore means that man’s free faith in God and in his Son Jesus Christ, his free love of God and His people, his free hope of his own redemption in Jesus Christ are conditioned by his recognition of his own true humanity in the life upon earth, before he meets God’s word in Jesus Christ, before the gospel of redemption is preached to him. Grundtvig’s orthodox and Church-centred Christianity is more genuinely secular, more concerned with the world than the greater part of modern secular theology.Prenter, in the final part of his paper, discusses the significance of these Grundtvigian ideas for the theologian, who, as a theologian, participates in the political struggle of our day. He should quite simply realize that in his political engagement he must not try to be Christian, but only human; as a theologian he cannot commit himself politically, but only as the human being that he also is.For all its would-be modernism and progressiveness, modern secular theology is essentially old-fashioned. The Christian politics of medieval theocratic society and the political Christianity of modern theology are twins. They both – although each in its own way - repudiate "First a man .. Grundtvig’s Christianity sanctions the engagement of the young thelogians in the struggle for a just and human society. Prenter suggests that had Grundtvig been alive today, he would almost certainly have viewed neo-marxist youth with sympathy. But he would have had a question to put to them: "Do you really know what true justice and humanity are? Do you not lack respect for true socialism and its secular basis, since you try to ‘improve’ it with Christianity and ‘theology’?”Grundtvig’s Christianity calls these theologians away from every form of theocracy, political Christianity and Christian politics, and from any attempt to make the Church political, and bids them devote their political enthusiasm and energy to making society more human. The Church does not, and cannot, fit into such an endeavour, which is why, in true socialism, the Church cannot be incorporated into the system, cannot even be of any help. Only a settled "socialist” dictatorship can "use” theologians - for propaganda. Hardly a desirable role.Is modern revolutionary socialism, of the type that attracts young theologians today, really human in its aims and means? Or is it in danger of becoming the victim of political demons? First a man! Theology and Christianity are not necessary in the struggle for political reform. There we need humanity – and whether it emanates from a Christian or a non-Christian, a theologian or a non-theologian is immaterial.Grundtvig then is a challenge to modern theology through his ability to distinguish between created and redeemed humanity, earthly and eternal life, people and Church, politics and faith - distinguishing between them in his thought, in order to unite them in his own existence as a Dane and a Christian. What has been honestly distinguished can be united in freedom. What has been dishonestly confused crushes the freedom of both Christianity and man

Dem Menschen zugute. Götz Harbsmeier zum 60. Geburtstag

Dem Menschen zugute. - Götz Harbsmeier zum 60. Geburtstag. Hrsg. Von K. E. Løgstrup und Emst Wolf. München 1970. Reviewed by Regin Prenter.On the back cover of the book under review it is claimed that the aim of all its contributors is to establish a positive relationship between Christianity and culture, but without indulging in a systematic Christian cultural synthesis. The reviewer asks the question whether all of them have actually succeeded. He finds that, in his settlement with the theology of Barth in a polemical epilogue, K. E. Løgstrup undisputably has succeeded. Løgstrup agrees with the Barthian theology that the Coming of God’s Kingdom is beyond philosophical cognition, and further, that the Coming of God’s Kingdom presupposes a common core of human experience. But he refuses to accept the point that this common core of human experience should be beyond philosophical cognition.Løgstrup also settles with the conception of this common core to be found in existential theology. It is true that Christ’s own preachings only mention such experience in passing. But this is due to the fact that what he said and did is the consummation of the Coming of God’s Kingdom. This cannot be said of the priest. He speaks of Jesu existence, which we (the priest) betray in our existence. What we say is not a message in itself, but only talk about a message; therefore we must “explain” . And therefore we cannot neglect the common core of human experience.In connection with Kaj Thaning’s interpretation of Grundtvig, Løgstrup emphasises Grundtvig’s repudiation of a Christian cultural synthesis. Although Christianity to Grundtvig was a message of the eternal salvation of the individual, this did not belittle the significance of earthly life. Christianity returns man to this life. Here man makes the experiences of life and death that make the message of an eternal life meaningful to him. It is suggested that in the last analysis Løgstrup agrees with Grundtvig rather than with Thaning. – In what follows the reviewer finds that Thaning’s contribution to the Festschrift is too orthodox in its Grundtvigianism - and this he regrets, for it makes dry reading.Apart from Løgstrup’s article the reviewer draws attention to Niels Thomsen’s article “That we should not despise Mystery and Cult” and Thorkild Bjørnvig’s “The young Dead - the young Living”. He also finds that Jørgen K. Bukdahl’s article on theological critique of Marxism is interesting reading matter. The crucial point is how we should understand man’s attidude to his own history. Is man created in the theological sense of the word, or is there nothing outside himself for him to take refuge to? - But how is the theologian to express his concept of creation in philosophical terms?Now and again Grundtvig is felt to be present in the background; but the book can by no means be regarded as presentation of Grundtvig as a challenge to the German philosophical and theological tradition, not even in Løgstrup’s and Thaning’s articles. This, however, is not a valid reason for not noticing the best of the contributions to the Festschrift. A summary of the last two reviews will appear in Grundtvig-Studier 1973

Johannes Knudsen: Danish rebel. The life of N. F. S. Grundtvig - og Ernst Nielsen: N. F. S. Grundtvig. An american study

Johannes Knudsen: Danish Rebel. The Life of N. F. S. Grundtvig — and Ernest Nielsen: N. F. S. Grundtvig. An American Study. By Regin Prenter. These two books are typically American, but at the same time dependent on the Danish Grundtvigian tradition and recent Danish research on the life and writings of Grundtvig, with which they are both completely familiar. The two books do not contribute anything fundamentally new to the understanding of Grundtvig, but their American background makes it possible for them — especially in the case of Knudsen — to take up an independent attitude towards the divergent interpretations of Grundtvig in Denmark. Knudsens book is a well-written biography, factual and critical, without any hagiographical tendencies. Two concluding chapters of a more systematic nature (on the Church and on the nature of man) seek to show Grundtvig’s significance for the modern age. In his interpretation of Grundtvig Knudsen adopts the point of view that 1832 does not mark any decisively new phase in Grundtvig’s development. The new ideas are latent in the old. Grundtvig’s understanding of man is conditioned by his unterstanding of Christianity; but this includes a high valuation of what is human as the presupposition for what is Christian. Nielsen’s book is planned as a systematic investigation with Grundtvig’s understanding of the reality of the Spirit as its central theme. Its main thesis is that Grundtvig’s view of life is historical in contradistinction to every metaphysical or specualtive interpretation of existence. This point of view is worked out in an interesting way, but one could have wished that the author could have gone more thoroughly into a critical appraisement of this historical interpretation of existence than the very limited space at his disposal has allowed him to do. Both books are very much in sympathy with their subject, and a feature which they have in common is that they see Grundtvig as an ecumenical figure, and for this reason they betray a marked repugnance towards any attempt at a sectarian glorification of Grundtvig. It is much to be desired that these two books may awaken new interest in Grundtvig in America. But in order that this should succeed fully they must be followed by translations of Grundtvig’s writings

Spiritus Creator

Philadelphiaxx, 311 p.; 18 c