Picked up this quote from Soren Kierkegaard on my friend Peter Walker’s blog today. For me, it dovetails with yesterday’s question regarding the point at which believing may or may not become poor judgement. Kierkegaard writes:

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”

So, balancing this with the last post, how does one strike a balance between having a radical, countercultural faith without falling into self-righteousness, spiritual arrogance or cultishness?