Postmodern Christianity - Christian Existentialism

Christian Existentialism

Christian existentialism is a form of Christianity that draws extensively from the writings of Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard initiated the school of thought when he reacted against Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's claims of universal knowledge and what he deemed to be the empty formalities of the 19th century church. Christian existentialism places an emphasis on the undecidability of faith, individual passion, and the subjectivity of knowledge.

Although Kierkegaard's writings weren't initially embraced, they became widely known at the beginning of the 20th century. Later Christian existentialists synthesized Kierkegaardian themes with the works of thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, and Martin Buber.

Paul Tillich, Lincoln Swain, Gabriel Marcel, and John Macquarrie are examples of leading Christian existentialist writers, building upon a legacy of neo-orthodox thinkers like Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, who similarly disdained the propositionalism of traditionalist Protestantism.

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