Chapter 14, Training in Christianity Summary and Analysis

Kierkegaard's own choice for his favorite work is Training in Christianity. All of Kierkegaard's work focuses on what it means to be a Christian in a Christian society and the Training answers the question. The central concept of the piece is the idea of being "contemporaneous with Christ." The theme pervades the Training. If you are a Christian, you are not simply holding a particular view about how Christ is, nor believing that Christianity is a force for good (or even the greatest force for good).

Instead, to be a Christian is to be Christ's contemporary with respect to His humiliation and pain, to be an Apostle, following Jesus despite His being rejected by the world. This is quite distinct from the actual history of Christianity, but instead, when someone converts to Christianity for a...