Reddit mentions of Kierkegaard's Critique of Christian Nationalism (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs)

Re-posted from the now-deleted /r/philosophy post:

Kierkegaard is frequently given as an instance of irrationalism, fideism, and as championing a “leap of faith” by means of “the absurd,” which is taken by some scholars to indicate a radical “criterionless choice” à la Sartre. However, many scholars have challenged this interpretation of Kierkegaard. See especially Kierkegaard After MacIntyre, and Anthony Rudd’s “Alasdair MacIntyre: A Continuing Conversation” in Kierkegaard's Influence on Philosophy: Anglophone Philosophy.

To be sure, Kierkegaard does stress the limits of reason, both in general and in relation to faith, but this does not mean God is cognitively inaccessible, as he does allow for a knowledge of God through nature. And while his pseudonym Johannes Climacus also provides a number of critiques of arguments for God’s existence (my own assessment of those arguments is mostly negative), Kierkegaard himself ultimately maintains that reason leaves the God-question in rational equilibrium.

Kierkegaard is also emphatic that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is primarily existential (practical) and not chiefly intellectual (doctrinal) in nature. Not only that, but all linguistic communication is only a half measure, albeit a necessary one, when it comes to understanding God. For both of these reasons, religious truth requires a certain amount of indirect communication if it is to be true.

Apart from the more straightforwardly philosophical side of religion, Kierkegaard is, despite his own religiousness—or rather because of it—an ardent opponent of certain forms of nationalism-inspired religion, in particular the State Church of his own day. On this, The Moment and Late Writings is a good primary text, and Stephen Backhouse’s Kierkegaard's Critique of Christian Nationalism is a good secondary source.

There is much more to say, for example about Kierkegaard’s ruminations on death, anxiety, despair, and the like. If you want a more general intro to Kierkegaard, I recommend the SEP entry or my own here.