This book looks at Kierkegaard with a fresh perspective shaped by the history of ideas, framed by the terms romanticism and modernism. 'Modernism' here refers to the kind of intellectual and literary modernism associated with Georg Brandes, and such later nineteenth and early twentieth century figures as J. P. Jacobsen, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Ibsen (all often associated with Kierkegaard in early secondary literature), and the young Georg Lukacs. This movement, currently attracting increasing scholarly attention, fed into such varied currents of twentieth century thought as Bolshevism (as in Lukacs himself), fascism, and the early existentialism of, e.g., Shestov and the radical culture journal The Brenner (in which Kierkegaard featured regularly, and whose readers included Martin Heidegger). Each of these movements has, arguably, its own 'Romantic' aspect and Kierkegaard thus emerges as a figure who holds together or in whom are reflected both the aspirations and contradictions of early romanticism and its later nineteenth and twentieth century inheritors. Kierkegaard's specific 'staging' of his authorship in the contemporary life of Copenhagen, then undergoing a rapid transformation from being the backward capital of an absolutist monarchy to a modern, cosmopolitan city, provides a further focus for the volume. In this situation the early Romantic experience of nature as providing a source of healing and an experience of unambiguous life is transposed into a more complex and, ultimately, catastrophic register. In articulating these tensions, Kierkegaard's authorship provided a mirror to his age but also anticipated and influenced later generations who wrestled with their own versions of this situation.

This volume focuses on Søren Kierkegaard as a theologian of the gospel of God's grace, rather than as the “Father of Existentialism.” In so doing, it illuminates his vision of humans as relational beings who find fulfillment in the loving embrace of God with us (thus making him a would-be critic of later secular forms of “Existentialism”).

Soren Kierkegaard's vociferous attacks upon Christendom have hardly endeared him to the ecclesial establishment, yet the church continues to dismiss his paradoxical voice at its peril. This book moves beyond the ill-conceived postmodern interpretations of Kierkegaard's thought by illuminating his ecclesiological value through a distinctly kerygmatic lens. Kierkegaard's authorship demonstrated this mission in creative and arresting ways. His sharp critiques of academic theologians and duplicitous pastors remain starkly relevant today. Furthermore, his fascinating reflections on inconsequential sermons, biblical defamiliarity, indirect communication, pastoral correctivity, street preaching, revivalism, and even church furniture, further illustrate the ways he sought to reimply the gospel to a Christendom-poisoned church. Hearing Kierkegaard's ecclesiological voice afresh, we also see its surprising applicability to the post-Christendom situation, which may like to think it has moved on without him. This book will intrigue anyone interested in the fundamental questions of what it means to hear (or not to hear) the gospel today, if we dare to allow our ears to do so.

This study considers the social and political aspects of Kierkegaard's authorship, building upon work over the last couple of decades. Dr Lappano focuses on Kierkegaard's writing between 1846 and 1852, the period of Kierkegaard's more explicitly politicized writing.

Discipleship is embodied. Formation in the Christian life is not an otherworldly exercise but one that plays out in this world, interwoven with everyday sensory experience in ordinary life. The Aesthetics of Discipleship explores this dynamic through Kierkegaard’s framing of “aesthetic existence”—the sensory experience of being “in the moment”—further developed by Bonhoeffer, as operating within a realm of freedom, encompassing not only art but play, friendship, and cultural formation. In addition to Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer, the work of Iain McGilchrist, Graham Ward, and Nicholas Wolterstorff is employed to offer a fresh perspective on discipleship, “from below”: Everyday sensory experiences are integral not only to being human but to the practice of discipleship, such that discipleship integrates aesthetic, ethical, and religious existence. Aesthetic existence unhinged from a life of faith or fueled by distorted Christendom creates and sustains aestheticized pseudorealities centered on the self. Mature aesthetic existence, however, anchored in love for God, plays a fundamental role in the Christian life, both as the incarnational celebration of being fully human, and also through the preconscious formation of imaginaries by which we live.

Theology is inherently theatrical, rooted in God's performance on the world stage and oriented toward faith seeking performative understanding in the theatre of everyday life. Following Hans Urs von Balthasar's magisterial, five-volume 'Theo-Drama', a growing number of theologians and pastors have been engaging more widely with theatre and drama, producing what has been recognized as a