one of these machines. In that way we would at least be spared a scandalous
situation, because there is nothing scandalous when a preaching machine
does not practice what it preaches.”
Kierkegaard was simply beside himself with delight over this marvelous
machine, and he added an instructive note in the margin, explaining that
the machine could handily be operated by a sexton, who could be trained
to accompany the canned Sunday sermons with the requisite “gesticula-
tions”—so that at regular intervals the sexton would “blow his nose, mop
the sweat from his brow, and in brief, behave as he had surely seen the
pastor behave.” Kierkegaard concluded: “It would be amusing to hear a
music box say, ‘Even if everyone else fell by the wayside, I would be faithful
to Christianity, the gentle doctrine, the consolation and cure for all sorrow,
that gives joys their true savor. It is my innermost conviction that et cet-
era.’” The noncommittal chattiness of a music box was a perfect parody of
Mynster’s art of preaching, a blasphemous toying with His Reverence.
The Idiot God—and His Times
Thus, according to Mynster, the second section ofPracticewas aimed at
him, while the first section was a sustained critical rejoinder directed at
Martensen. This observation is probably a bit too heavy-handed, but in any
case Martensen did read the book, and in a letter dated November 26, 1850,
he presented his judgment of the book to Ludvig Gude, who for his part
had felt more demoralized than edified by the work. “I am in complete
agreementwithwhatyousayaboutKierkegaard’swork,”Martensenwrote.
“His arguments are immediate and direct communications—they of course
are dependent upon patent sophisms and wordplays. Very few have noticed
the polemics. The book has had the further consequence that the Bishop
has now totally abandoned Kierkegaard’s work. Naturally, he is indignant
about the shameless remarks regarding the church’s sermons. There is cer-
tainly something true in [Kierkegaard’s] remarks, but criticizing the Church
like this does not strike me as having any sort of reforming intent, but must
rather be called Mephistophelian criticism, which of course always contains
sometruth.”
As usual, Martensen was writing with an icicle, but he had seen some-
thing quite clearly.Practiceis, in fact, a radical and daring book, in places
satirical to the point of blasphemy, and thus not without an element of the
Mephistophelian, of the satanic. Not only does Anti-Climacus launch a
harsh critique of the “everlasting Sunday nonsense” that might more appro-
priately “end with ‘Hurrah!’ than with ‘Amen,’” he also writes (as he puts