Var Grundtvigs nyerkendelse i 1832 en tragisk hændelse?

Abstract

Was Grundtvig’s New Discovery in 1832 A Tragic Event?

By Bent Christensen

The title of this lecture for the Degree of Divinity has been given its provocative wording by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen. In his thesis for the Degree of Divinity, published in 1987 and reviewed in Grundtvig Studies in 1988, Bent Christensen has described and evaluated Grundtvig’s attitude in the field of church policy over the years from 1824 to 1832, a critical period of time for himself, in such a way as to give the reader the impression that the writer regards the attitude taken by Grundtvig in the comprehensive Introduction to his ’’Norse Mythology”, 1832, towards the thoughtful people of his time, as a step backward compared to the attitude taken by Grundtvig in his great autobiographical poem, "New Year’s Morning", 1824, and in the preface to it. In this preface Grundtvig wrote that the goal which God "surely wants to be achieved" is "the revival of the heroic spirit of the North to Christian deeds in a direction suited to the needs and conditions of the time."

In a book "The Land of the Living 1984", a series of lectures held in the 200th anniversary of Grundtvig’s birth, Professor Aage Henriksen proposed the view that the poem "New Year’s Morning” is the crowning achievement in Grundtvig’s writings. However, already in 1963 Dr. Kaj Thaning had advanced the idea that the Introduction to "Norse Mythology", 1832, was a decisive turningpoint in Grundtvig’s literary career since, from 1832 onwards, human life and the human world acquired an entirely different position and importance in his understanding of Christianity than was the case before that crucial year. Bent Christensen is inspired by both these writers, but adopts a critical attitude to Kaj Thaning.

In part 1 of his lecture Bent Christensen describes the entire progress of his Grundtvig studies and the problem he has posed: What is it really that the Introduction has which was not already present in the inspiration behind the poem "New Year's Morning’? In the answer to this question he particularly emphasizes the sermons from 1823 to 1824, which are influenced by Irenaeus, and which are imbued with the thought that man was created in God’s image and has preserved this image of God also after the Fall. According to Bent Christensen they represent "a Grundtvig who is at least as good as the Grundtvig we got".

Next he asks "if the ’Grundtvig of 1832* is in any way better than the ’Grundtvig of 1824’"? - Before he answers this question he presents a survey of the development from 1824 to 1832. He agrees with Thaning that "the deeds came to nothing". There was a general atmosphere of stagnation, but in the meantime the situation in the Church came to a head: members of a so-called "godly assembly" in Funen were positively persecuted. And at the University of Copenhagen the popular Professor H.N. Clausen propagated his "Protestant Christianity", diluted beyond recognition. In opposition to this, Grundtvig pointed to "the real Jesus Christ’s Church on Earth" and published his "The Rejoinder of the Church" against Professor Clausen’s latest book. "This was where the tragedy began. For instead of entering into an ecclesiastical discussion, Professor Clausen brought an action for libel against Grundtvig!" According to Bent Christensen the full extent of the tragedy was that the country had a state church which everybody had to be a member of, and which was bound to Lutheran Christianity, but in reality it also had a clergy whose leading circles represented a rationalism and idealism, which was completely at variance with Christianity. This was the situation which Grundtvig described as "the legal Hell", Bent Christensen says. He describes Grundtvig’s writings on church policy in this situation as a development consisting of 3 phases:

1. The time from the discovery of the Apostles’ Creed in July 1825 and the Rejoinder in September 1825 until his resignation from office in May 1826. At this time Grundtvig thought that the anomaly could be redressed once it was clearly pointed out.

2. The time from September 1826, shortly before the sentence was pronounced, until winter 1830/1831, when Grundtvig presented various proposals for church organization with a Christian state church, while those who did not want to join such a church could leave it in complete freedom of religion.

3. The time from April 1831 when Grundtvig declared himself willing to be in charge of the organization of a free-congregation church, thus agreeing to the ’’amicable settlement” which, towards the end of February 1832, led to his permission to function as a free evensong preacher in Frederick’s Church.

During the time up to this "amicable settlement”, Grundtvig had worked his way through the numerous drafts for the Introduction to his new ”Norse Mythology”, and in the process, according to Bent Christensen, ’’had managed to construct an entirely new model of church policy”, characterized by peaceful coexistence and competition between the real Christians and those Grundtvig called the "Naturalists”, "within the framework of what Grundtvig continues to term a ’’church”, but what is in reality a common, public religious service system". In the same year he drafted his proposal for "sogneb.ndsl.sning" i.e. abolition of the obligation to use the vicar in the parish where one is a resident, for all church ministrations.

According to Kaj Thaning, Grundtvig had now finally "found himself, having learnt to distinguish rightly between what is "human” and what is "Christian”, so he could now call off the ecclesiastical controversy and instead throw himself into a cheerful effort to turn his new view of life to practical use”. ”In my opinion, I have invalidated this evaluation," Bent Christensen says. Grundtvig’s concept of Christianity was optimistic already in 1824, as was the factual distinction between the intrinsic value of life and the salient feature which is Christian salvation. The question now is what it was that Grundtvig managed to free himself from in the years 1831 to 1832. Bent Christensen’s thesis is that he 1) managed to free himself from the ecclesiastical controversy that he could not win, and 2) from the feeling of obligation to be in charge of an illegal organization of free-congregation churches which would isolate him from ordinary public and cultural life.

In the context of church policy, Bent Christensen describes what happened with the Introduction to "Norse Mythology" as an emergency solution. - But is this the same, then, as "a tragic event”? - No, he answers. The tragedy was that Grundtvig’s dream from ’’New Year’s Morning” did not come true, but was on the contrary followed by the nightmare of the libel lawsuit and the church controversy. ”But there is another tragedy which we suffer from even today – namely the failure of influential circles to properly understand what it was Grundtvig found himself obliged to do in 1832, so that it has almost come to be regarded as the only right way to practise church organization! In that perspective what happened in 1832 may be seen as a tragic event, Bent Christensen claims in the conclusion of part 1 of his lecture.

Part 2 of the lecture is a discussion of key passages in the two main texts, "New Year’s Morning” and the Introduction to ”Norse Mythology”. The intention is to show that the fundamental ideas in the Introduction (and in The Rejoinder of the Church) have been anticipated in the great poem from 1824: ’’Indeed, the

mythical-biographical descent of this poem through Danish history to the Land of the Living ... stands out as a great "a human being first!'

"What the Introduction has ... to a fuller extent and in a clearer form than ’’New Year’s Morning" is the fully developed view of evolution and explanation and the scientific programme connected with it. Thus the Introduction provides a unique contribution to the understanding of what it means that the world exists, and that we exist in it as human beings!”

In the concluding part 3 of his lecture, Bent Christensen poses the question "whether what happened in 1831/32 really and truly meant that Grundtvig gained himself, or whether it meant that he lost at least part of himself’. Like Aage Henriksen, Bent Christensen considers "New Year’s Morning" to be a culmination in Grundtvig’s writings, and incidentally the point from which Grundtvig’s comprehensive influence on the Danish people stems, and he sees the Introduction as a point, from where Grundtvig moves on by leaving something behind. Aage Henriksen blames Grundtvig that from being a personal poet he changed into a reformer. Bent Christensen asks instead "from the point of view of the church - whether it was after all the right programme with which Grundtvig attempted to save his dream that had been crushed by the outside world."

The alternative he mentions is that Grundtvig could have left the Church with whoever wanted to follow him, and could have worked with unflagging solidarity on this basis for the public life of the people as well as for "universalhistorical scholarship". At least he did not have to make quite so much good fortune of necessity - with the tragic consequences for the Danish Lutheran Christian congregation’s self-conception that it has to this day.

He concludes by emphasizing a passage towards the end of Grundtvig’s book, "Elemental Christian Teaching" (Den Christelige B.rnel.rdom), where Grundtvig imagines the situation that church and state were completely separated. In that case the Christians would have to establish their own educational institution for clergymen. But this would have to be a "Christian high school", i.e. a whole university. Bent Christensen finds there is good reason to turn one’s attention to this thought from 1861 - as well as to Grundtvig’s dream from 1824, when one seeks inspiration in Grundtvig.