The Abased Christis the first monograph to be devoted exclusively to Søren Kierkegaard’s Christological masterpiece,Practice in Christianity. Alongside an argument for a new translation of the work’s title, it offers detailed textual commentary on a series of themes inPractice in Christianity, such as the person of Christ, contemporaneity, imitation, and Kierkegaard’s philosophy of history.
Anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author ofPractice in Christianity, presents to his readers a uniquely challenging understanding of who Christ is and what it means to follow him. The Christ of Anti-Climacus is not the glorious Christ who abides with the Father in heaven, but the abased Christ who is poor, marginal, offensive, and persecuted. ThroughoutPractice in Christianity, we are called not only to perceive the abased Christ, but to follow after him.
The Abased Christ aims to enrich historical theologians’ appreciation of Kierkegaard’s Christology. However, it concludes by grappling with questions of power, agency, and sacrifice which have been at the forefront of contemporary theology in the 20thand 21stcenturies, thereby suggesting how we might make sense of Kierkegaard’s Christology today.
