George Müller: The Knight of Faith

George Müller: The Knight of Faith by Tom Fay Duke Divinity School Duke University Date: July 20, 2022 Approved: Curtis Freeman, Supervisor ___________________________ Gino Pasquariello, Second Reader ___________________________ William H. Willimon, DMin. Program Director Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Ministry in the Divinity School of Duke University. 2022 ! ABSTRACT George Müller: The Knight of Faith by Tom Fay Duke Divinity School Duke University Date: July 20, 2022 Approved: Curtis Freeman, Supervisor ___________________________ Gino Pasquariello, Second Reader ___________________________ William H. Willimon, DMin. Program Director An abstract of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Ministry in the Divinity School of Duke University. 2022 ! Copyright by Tom Fay 2022 ABSTRACT I have observed that contemporary Christian believers and churches often have distorted views of the meaning of faith as they seek to live out their Christian life. Such distorted views can translate into a variety of forms. For example, the phrase “the faith” may collectively denote a set of doctrines or theological beliefs. It is also adopted by the prosperity gospel movement to attain health and wealth. So, how does one learn the true meaning of faith as expressed in the New Testament and avoid the distortions in today"s Christendom? This thesis looks at the lived-out definition of faith as expressed in the book Fear and Trembling, written by Søren Kierkegaard under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio. In this book, the author uses the narrative of Abraham and Isaac in the Akedah to define the concept of faith, and he states that he has never met a person with the kind of faith that Abraham possessed. However, across the North Sea, in Bristol (England), there was a contemporary of Kierkegaard whose name was George Müller. His autobiography and the annual reports published to document the donations in support of his orphanages, schools, and missionary efforts that he had received through the power of his prayers describe well his life of faith. Last year, I published a novel featuring a fictionalized George Müller set in the twenty-first century. This contemporary setting makes this exceptional character accessible to today"s culture and society while preserving the original meaning of his mission and his faith in God. My novel was positively received iv and “inspired” a film that is currently being developed for release in 2023. The methodology that I employ to communicate the meaning of faith to Christians consists of a teaching model for small groups known as generational mentoring. Gregory Scott Massey developed this model in his 2019 dissertation Generational Mentoring: Using Past Saints as Present Examples. As the title suggests, the author uses small groups as a setting where Christians can learn specific character qualities from the model of Christians from the past who exemplified such qualities. I have included five chapters of an original workbook designed for small groups which help leaders teach the meaning of faith: (i) as defined by Søren Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling through the life of Abraham, and (ii) as was lived out by George Müller, both the real nineteenth-century man and the contemporary fictional character from my novel. ! v DEDICATION To my wife, Anna, who encouraged me through to the end; to my children, John and Natalie, and grandchildren, Hudson, Cooper, Ashlyn, and Juliana, whom I love and hope to inspire; and to the next George Müller. ! vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I ................................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 Statement of Problem and Purpose .................................................................................... 5 Scope of Thesis .................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 1: THE METHODOLOGY ........................................................................... 13 1.1 Generational Mentoring ............................................................................................... 14 1.1.1 Wide Lens .............................................................................................................. 16 1.1.2 Narrow Lens .......................................................................................................... 16 1.2 The Use of Narrative Storytelling ............................................................................... 17 1.2.1 Biblical Narrative .................................................................................................. 21 1.2.2 The Neurochemical Response............................................................................. 22 1.2.3 The Dramatic Arc.................................................................................................. 22 1.3 Small Group Implementation ..................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 2: SØREN KIERKEGAARD’S DEFINITION OF FAITH .......................... 25 2.1 Overview of the Knights .............................................................................................. 26 2.1.1 The Knight of Infinite Resignation .............................................................................. 27 2.1.2 The Knight of Faith .................................................................................................... 30 2.1.3 The Leap ...................................................................................................................... 33 2.1.4 Going Further and Passion ....................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 3: GEORGE MÜLLER ................................................................................. 38 3.1 Summary of Müller’s Life ............................................................................................ 38 3.2 George Müller’s Example of Kierkegaard’s Faith .................................................... 41 3.2.1 Knight of Infinite Resignation............................................................................. 42 3.2.2 Knight of Faith ...................................................................................................... 43 3.2.3 Mediation ............................................................................................................... 44 3.2.4 By Virtue of the Absurd ....................................................................................... 45 3.2.5 Timing .................................................................................................................... 47 3.2.6 Anxiety ................................................................................................................... 47 3.2.8 Emotion .................................................................................................................. 48 3.2.9 Abraham ................................................................................................................ 49 3.2.10 Enjoying the Finite as the Knight of Faith ....................................................... 50 CHAPTER 4: KIERKEGAARD AND MÜLLER’S PIETISM ....................................... 51 4.1 Definition of Pietism ..................................................................................................... 51 4.2 The Connections of Kierkegaard and Müller to Pietism ......................................... 54 4.3 Small Groups ................................................................................................................. 58 vii CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 64 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 66 CHAPTER 5: TRANSITION: THE WORKBOOK ........................................................ 74 5.1 Going Forward .............................................................................................................. 74 5.2 Text of Workbook ......................................................................................................... 74 5.3 Small Group Workbook Audience ............................................................................. 75 5.4 Online ............................................................................................................................. 77 5.5 Sample Workbook Exhibit ........................................................................................... 78 CHAPTER 6. SMALL GROUP STUDY GUIDE WORKBOOK................................... 80 Race # 1 ................................................................................................................................. 80 Lap 1: What is Faith? ..................................................................................................... 80 Lap 2: Background of George Müller’s Life............................................................... 82 Lap 3: Expanding the Definition of Faith ................................................................... 84 Race # 2: The Knight of Infinite Resignation ................................................................... 86 Lap 1: Introducing Kierkegaard .................................................................................. 86 Lap 2: Abraham.............................................................................................................. 89 Lap 3: George Müller’s Example ................................................................................. 91 Race # 3: The Virtue of the Absurd................................................................................... 94 Lap 1: What is the Virtue of the Absurd? ................................................................... 94 Lap 2: Abraham in the Absurd .................................................................................... 96 Lap 3: Talk About Being Absurd ................................................................................. 97 Race # 4: The Knight of Faith........................................................................................... 100 Lap 1: The Paradox of Faith ....................................................................................... 100 Lap 2: Don’t Tell Anyone ........................................................................................... 102 Lap 3: George Didn’t Tell ........................................................................................... 104 Race # 5: The Leap to Faith .............................................................................................. 107 Lap 1: What is the Leap? ............................................................................................. 107 Lap 2: Take the Leap ................................................................................................... 109 Lap 3: It Didn’t Bother George................................................................................... 111 viii PART I INTRODUCTION My own personal interest in understanding a lived faith was underscored at a time when I was not stress-free and the provisions for my life were not abundantly provided. Jesus spoke of a faith that was so profound that it would result in a stress-free attitude and lifestyle. He compared a living faith without worry about food and clothing with the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Jesus spoke of such a powerful faith that it could move mountains. I was part of the evangelical Christian tradition, but I had an impoverished and/or distorted understanding of the New Testament faith like so many of my Christian friends and the church leaders I observed. About twenty years ago I needed approximately $10,000 to keep my home from going into foreclosure. At the time I was working at my business in the Bahamas, and one morning I was walking the beach thinking of every which-way I could either beg, borrow, or steal (well maybe not steal) the money to keep my home from going into foreclosure on that Friday. I couldn’t see a clear path but finally concluded that I could always ask a friend of mine to become my “backstop.” The moment that thought entered my mind, I became convinced I made the wrong decision— only God was a “backstop.” That morning I took the “leap” to faith, and each day for the eighteen months that followed I put my faith in God to be the “backstop” and provide a home for me. Apparently, the lawyer for the lender “lost” the foreclosure filing and it went off the list of things to do. Eighteen months later I was able to make the, now, $40,000 in arrears payments. However, I was charged one late fee. The 1 event was so dramatic (and perhaps traumatic) that I set about on a quest to understand what it means to “live by faith,” which I had done for those eighteen months. I had understood from Bible college that “[t]he Greek words which come from the root pist- have a broad range of meanings, which correspond to belief, confidence, trust, faith/faithfulness.”1 And that the faith lexicon includes “πίστις (pistis) meaning faith; πιστευω (pisteuō) believe; πιστός, (pistos) passive: trustworthy, faithful; and active, trusting, believing; πιστόω (pistoō) rely, convince.” 2 But what I didn’t understand was how one was literally supposed to act,3 feel, and think when they had faith. In her book Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Churches, Teresa Morgan notes, “the language of faith is central to Christianity as to no other religious tradition.”4 She goes on to say, “In the New Testament as a whole, occurrences of the pistis πίστις (faith) lexicon far outnumber those of other key concepts such as love, righteousness, salvation, or hope.”5 But what she also makes crystal clear is that the early Christians, as a whole, took this word/meaning and gave it application in their religion which was unique in the Roman world. This application was so unique, and the change in the believer’s life was 1 David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2008), 790. 2 Moisés Silva, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 2289. 3 I use the word “act” here to denote that faith is very much an action word. The illustrations of Jesus healing and his parables give many examples of the actions of faith. Kierkegaard’s example of the Akedah is also a perfect example of action to illustrate this living faith. However, I am not referring to “good deeds.” As I address further in this paper, Abraham’s actions could not be considered good deeds, nor did Kierkegaard consider them as good deeds. 4 Teresa Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Churches (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017), 1. 5 Ibid. 2 so dramatic that “the new movement becomes known simply as hē pistis, ‘the faith.’”6 I postulate that during the first two centuries of the early church the application of their faith, their “lived faith.” of which I was so lacking, was a continuation of Acts 2:42-47: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. In other words, they did have their “daily bread” provided, there were divine incursions into their world, there was great joy and peace, and those who sold their property and possessions to share still had ample. No wonder they were given the nickname “the faith.” I think Jacques Collette sums it up so eloquently, “Christian faith is an affair of existence and not of ideology.”7 Despite the positive repercussions of faith on society from the early Christian church, the language changed, as it aways does, and the influence actionable faith had on a Christian’s everyday life waned due in part to a changed meaning. Teresa Morgan identifies this meaning change when she says, “Augustine’s division of faith into fides quae creditur and fides qua creditor, ‘the faith which is believed’ (the propositional content of faith) and ‘the faith by which it is believed’ (that which takes place in the heart and mind of the believer), has dominated western thinking since the fifth century”8 She also states, “And I shall try to show the importance of an aspect of pistis which (probably 6 Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, 2. 7 Søren Kierkegaard, The Difficulty of Being Christian, ed. Jacques Colette (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 46. 8 Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, 12. 3 under the influence of Augustine) has been relatively neglected in the study of very early churches: the fact that it is, first and foremost, neither a body of beliefs nor a function of the heart or mind, but a relationship which creates community”9 This is a relationship between the one having faith in the one who is faithful. In other words, I could trust God as my backstop because he is always faithful in backstopping my needs when I trust him. In my own life and what I observed within our historic Christian tradition has exposed a dichotomy between the importance of faith and the impoverished and/or distorted view of faith. I personally saw this dichotomy in me and those around me in the twenty-first-century Christian communities I interact with. This has haunted me for well over a decade. I longed to see and experience a faith that resonated with that described in the biblical text. I longed to see a picture of what such a faith would look like beyond the pages of scripture. Over the years, I have become more and more convinced that theological concepts like “faith” cannot simply be defined in the abstract but must be embodied in specific real-world historical and cultural settings to be meaningful. Much of this second leg of my academic journey has centered on exploring the question of faith. Along the way, there have been two books that have had a profound impact on this journey to understand and live by faith. The first book was Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard (writing under the 9 Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith,14. 4 pseudonym Johannes de silentio10) and his description of the knight of faith.11 What I found so compelling in reading Kierkegaard was that here was a theologian in nineteenth- century Europe who was bothered by the same deep sense of a lack of lived faith in the Christian communities around him as I have been in twenty-first-century America. But Kierkegaard went beyond that and shared a vision for what a deep, abiding, and lived faith would look like in a nineteenth-century knight of faith. The exemplar that served as the basis of his knight of faith was Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac. His vision was imaginary because, in his estimation, he could find no contemporary who embodied the characteristics he saw as essential for a knight of faith. The second book that took me by storm was the autobiography of George Müller, The Life of Trust.12 Reading about his life put flesh and bones upon what a nineteenth- century exemplar of a lived faith looked like. In Müller, I felt like I saw the Christian faith in action in a modern context for the first time. It was a faith that was both utterly dependent and unimposing, and yet world-changing at the same time. Müller’s story was inspirational, even in his own day. Statement of Problem and Purpose It is important to define more clearly the disconnect that I sense between the faith reflected in the biblical narrative and what passes for faith today. Since George Müller stood out as an actual exemplar of biblical faith (as I will show), it may be easier to 10 Some translators capitalize the “S” in Silentio, while others do not. However, Kierkegaard’s own reference to this pseudonym in the original book's preface is by spelling the second name with a lower case “s.” I will follow this spelling. 11 Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling: A New Translation, trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2022). 12 George Müller, The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Müller (Boston, MA: Gould and Lincoln, 1861). 5 highlight the differences between Müller’s faith and faith as it appears in the twenty-first- century Christian Church. It should also be remembered that Müller’s faith proved just as much a foil to nineteenth-century Christians as it is to twenty-first-century Christians. One obvious way in which Müller stands out is how his faith impacted his relationship with money. This shows up in two distinct ways. With Müller, virtually all the money that he raised over his life was given away to charitable causes, except for the needs of his modest lifestyle. By contrast, twenty-first-century Christians have an embarrassing record when it comes to charitable giving. The book by Christian Smith, Michael Emerson, and Patricia Snell entitled Passing the Plate reveals that few American Christians donate generously to religious and philanthropic causes.13 According to the authors, “Far from the 10 percent of one’s income that tithing requires, American Christian’s financial giving typically amounts, by some measures, to less than one percent of annual earnings. And a startling one out of five self-identified Christians gives nothing at all.”14 This research suggests that faith (to trust God to provide “our daily bread”15) has had a very minor, if any, impact on the way American Christians handle their money. A second way in which Müller approached money was by living a very modest lifestyle. Despite raising millions of dollars for his orphanages,16 his own income was 13 Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson, and Patricia Snell, Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008). 14 Smith, Emerson, and Snell, Passing the Plate, Abstract. 15 Found in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3. 16 In inflation adjusted dollars, this would amount to somewhere between $150 to $250 million. 6 modest.17 In contrast to the modest lifestyle of George Müller, today’s prosperity gospel preachers give new meaning to opulence and excess. According to Costi Hinn, the list of individuals who accumulated considerable assets derived from preaching the Gospel “include Kenneth Copeland ($760 million), T. D. Jakes ($150 million), Benny Hinn ($42 million), Joel Osteen ($40 million), Creflo Dollar ($27 million), and Joyce Meyer ($25 million).”18 They are frequently criticized for their lavish lifestyles not only by Christian cultural commentators19 but even by secular broadcasters and newspapers, who gawk at the lifestyles of these prominent Christian figures.20 While not all megachurches involve prosperity gospel preaching and teaching, these megachurches preaching the prosperity gospel are so popular that “prosperity gospel” megachurches dominated the upper tiers of 17 Admittedly this is a problematic assertion to prove. But the best research I found showed that, in 1830, an annual salary of 100 pounds (Müller’s pew rent income) would be worth $12,170.45 in today’s dollars. In 1844, it would be worth $13,537.92. However, according to Arthur Hayward, The Days of Dickens (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1926), the Cost of Living for a senior clerk (1844) was £150 (accessed May 30, 2022, https://www.victorianweb.org/economics/wages3.html). So, Müller did live a modest lifestyle. In 1829, Anthony Groves, Müller’s brother-in-law, was making £1,500 a year as a dentist, according to Müller’s autobiography. 18 Costi W. Hinn, God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel: How Truth Overwhelms a Life Built on Lies (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019), 65. For more details on Kenneth Copeland, see “Kenneth Copeland Net Worth,” Celebrity Net Worth, accessed March 29, 2022, https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/authors/kenneth-copeland-net-worth/; on Joel Osteen, see Tara Isabella Burton, “The Prosperity Gospel, Explained: Why Joel Osteen Believes That Prayer Can Make You Rich,” Vox, September 1, 2017, accessed March 29, 2022, https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes- prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump; on Joel Osteen and Joyce Myer, see Rick Henderson, “The False Promise Of The Prosperity Gospel: Why I Called Out Joel Osteen And Joyce Meyer,” HuffPost, August 29, 2017, accessed March 29, 2022, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/osteen-meyer-prosperity- gospel_b_3790384?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_si g=AQAAAMUJJyAOnVxdIaCM8oJR- YRMkBhtJSjh2JHQJe26etBHkIqbT6gY30_O5wXDge9lNI2jQg6KP4yBnkG3l_Z_Zj9KoybPjLtqFY_fYt AS3 19 “Prosperity Preachers Enjoy a Lavish Lifestyle at the Expense of the Poor,” Onward Christian Magazine, accessed March 29, 2022, https://www.onwardchristianmagazine.com/prosperity-preachers- enjoy-a-lavish-lifestyle-at-the-expense-of-the-poor/ 20 “US preacher asks followers to help buy fourth private jet,” BBC, May 30, 2018, accessed on March 29, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44305873 7 megachurches nationally”21 and “roughly 45 percent of all worshippers in the United States attended the largest 10 percent of churches.”22 In his book PreachersNSneakers, Ben Kirby has introduced a whole new category of “celebrity” leaders of megachurches wearing $1,000 (or more) sneakers and costly designer clothes, which he calls “hypepriests.”23 He states, “(I hope) more Christians are willing to ask … whether the hypepriests and prosperity pastors of today are just furthering the Christian entertainment marketplace, starving the need for actual biblical teaching and in the meantime lining their pockets and building up their platforms and influence.”24 These hypepriests, upon which Kirby focuses, have not yet accumulated the wealth of the preachers mentioned above. But their consumer spending, evident to all, opened them up to the type of criticism (both from within the church and without) that Müller managed to avoid with his modest lifestyle. The latest research from George Barna, Director of Research at the Cultural Research Center of the Arizona Christian University, reveals a disturbing understanding of faith in America by those who identify as Christians. According to the research, in 2021, 69% of Americans self-identify as Christians and within that group, 35% of 21 Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013), 182. 22 This is not to indicate that all megachurches are prosperity gospel churches. Still, according to a 2017 survey by LifeWay Research, 38% of the respondents “agree that their church teaches that God will bless them if they give more money.” http://lifewayresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/American- Churchgoers-Prosperity-2017.pdf 23 Ben Kirby and Joel McHale, PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of for-Profit Faith and (Wannabe) Celebrities (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson, 2021), 5. 24 Kirby and McHale, PreachersNSneakers, 199. 8 Americans surveyed self-identify as “born-again” Christians.25 Then, it is no wonder that American Christians also have a distorted view of money and faith. “LifeWay Research found that 38% agree that their church teaches that God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities, and 26% agree that in order to receive material blessings from God, they have to do something for God.”26 It should further be of no surprise that 57% of self-identified Christians believe in karma27 when Gloria Copeland, a prosperity gospel preacher, states: “If you have an abundance of faith in your spiritual account, you can enjoy plenty of everything— wealth, health, good relationships, peace, success.”28 Kate Bowler comments on this by saying, “Believers treated faith as a loose Christian equivalent to Hinduism’s karma, an explanation for causality in which all actions brought good or ill consequences. It was both the carrot and the stick, as ‘whatsoever we sow, whether good or bad, is coming up again!’”29 More importantly, Müller’s faith, exemplified in his diary entry reflections, was a type of lived faith that exhibited itself in action. This faith, this practice of waiting on God for very tangible, physical things, had a unique visible character. This differs so much from the faith most often preached from the pulpit that it reduces it to the level of 25 George Barna, “American Worldview Inventory 2021. Release #4. The National Religious Realignment: Identifying Dramatic Changes in Long-Term Faith Commitments,” Arizona Christian University, June 8, 2021, accessed March 29, 2022, https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp- content/uploads/2021/06/CRC_AWVI2021_Release04_Digital_01_20210608.pdf 26 Bob Smietana, “Most Churchgoers Say God Wants Them to Prosper Financially,” LifeWay Research, July 31, 2018, accessed March 29, 2022, https://research.lifeway.com/2018/07/31/most- churchgoers-say-god-wants-them-to-prosper-financially/ 27 Barna, “American Worldview Inventory 2021. Release #4,” 2. 28 Bowler, Blessed, 134. 29 Ibid. 9 propositions or beliefs. Faith, for these Christians, is a description of their theology. Teresa Morgan’s book Roman Faith and Christian Faith explores the New Testament meaning of the Greek word pistis, meaning “Faith.” Her argument that the idea of a “lived faith” found in the New Testament changed dramatically to the concept of “the faith,” referring to Christian beliefs, goes a long way toward explaining why the majority of Christians think primarily, if not only, of “faith” as “a set of beliefs or doctrine.”30 These issues described above, which display a misunderstanding of the New Testament meaning of faith, go to the heart of what my thesis aims to address. This most essential concept in the Christian community, faith, has been lost. The question is whether it is possible for the Christian community to “embody faith” once again. If this is possible, how can faith leaders within the Christian community both paint a clear picture of what faith in action, living by faith, looks like and how best to foster it within their own lives. Scope of Thesis I have laid out the problem that Christians in America have an inadequate and/or distorted view of the meaning of the New Testament faith. My obsession with living by faith has generated a personal ministry that focuses on helping Christians live out the faith Jesus described as worry-free and powerful enough to move mountains. This thesis project seeks to accomplish this in a pragmatic, tangible way. My thesis involves two parts. Part I identifies what constitutes and/or comprises a 30 One passage that many Bible scholars use to justify this position is Jude 3 which, in the King James Version of the Bible (The New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982), says, “ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Morgan translates the verse using the understanding of pistis at that time as “to encourage you to strive for the covenant that was once for all handed down to the holy ones (Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, 344).”. 10 New Testament life of faith. It contemplates the life of faith of George Müller as viewed through the lens of Søren Kierkegaard’s knight of faith, which he articulated in Fear and Trembling. Part II consists of a small group workbook that holds up George Müller as a generational mentor for a group of twenty-first-century Christians utilizing Kierkegaard’s knight of faith as the criterion. To accomplish this goal for Part I, I begin with a discussion of the methodology. I first explore the concept of generational mentoring. An analogy for what generational mentoring entails might be the “See It Be It” initiative of Cannes Lions,31 whose premise is that it is tough to aim for a goal without a picture of what that looks like. Generational mentoring involves studying faithful Christian disciples from the past and looking closely at their actions, behaviors, and the beliefs that undergird them in an attempt to emulate their faith. This sets the stage to examine Kierkegaard’s idealistic construct of the knight of faith in his book Fear and Trembling, and how Kierkegaard distinguishes this figure from his other idealized figure, the knight of infinite resignation. Once properly understood, I take the template for such a knight of faith and carefully overlay it on the life of faith of George Müller, which was carefully documented by himself and others. Since Müller stands so far removed from us in time, I carefully lay out the broader German pietistic movement to which Müller and Kierkegaard belonged. Within the historic pietistic movement was the use of small group studies, which converges well with the direction of 31 Lions, An Ascential Company. n.d. “See It, Be It.” Accessed on June 1, 2022. https://www.lionscreativity.com/see-it-be-it-hub 11 this study. While Kierkegaard’s paradigm for his knight of faith is Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac at Mt. Moriah (the Akedah), this thesis is neither an exercise in biblical studies nor a discussion of the history of interpretation of the Akedah. I will limit considerations of Abraham to what Kierkegaard says about him as a knight of faith. This thesis is also not a philosophical exercise focused on the broader context of Kierkegaard’s writings, or even more specifically, on Fear and Trembling. I am not concerned about offering some new reading of Fear and Trembling. With Müller as a depiction of faith, the deliberation then shifts from theory to practice. Part II, the small group study itself, is then the pragmatic and practical culmination of this effort to live a life as Jesus described it, free from anxiety. It is the attempt to translate from theory to praxis and apply these concepts in a ministry context. This application draws on work I have already done regarding George Müller that translates his life from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century in my book published in 2021 titled Let the Children Come: The Life of George Müller. 12 CHAPTER 1: THE METHODOLOGY This study builds upon the framework developed by Gregory Scott Massey in his 2019 dissertation. Massey identified what appears to be a hitherto undefined spiritual discipline that he labeled generational mentoring. The succinct definition Massey articulates to describe generational mentoring is: “using past saints as present examples.”32 Although Massey’s contribution, i.e., thinking about generational mentoring as a spiritual discipline, is certainly new, the general idea of looking up to saints as models of living faith has been part of the Christian tradition for centuries. Massey even shows a biblical mandate for using past saints as present examples.33 Even during the Protestant Reformation, when the movement railed against the veneration of the saints and their use as intercessors, on individual saints’ festivals, Lutheran preachers encouraged their listeners to take a leaf out of these exemplars of faith.34 Massey’s work reminds the contemporary church of this tradition along with its value and importance, which lies in the potential to evoke actual behavioral change in believers. But for actual behavioral change to occur, Massey’s construct is missing something. There is a growing body of literature in neuroscience that narrative storytelling is one of the best ways to affect behavior change in adults.35 It is not just 32 Gregory Scott Massey, Generational Mentoring: Using Past Saints as Present Examples (Ph.D. diss., Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 2019), vii. 33 Massey, Generational Mentoring, 2. 34 Robert Kolb, “Festivals of the Saints in Late Reformation Lutheran Preaching,” The Historian 52, no. 4 (1990), 613. 35 Paul J. Zak, “Cerebrum,” National Center for Biotechnology Information, February 2015, accessed August 12, 2021, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/issues/253438/ 13 biographical details from the life of a Christian, whose life and faith were inspiring, that is effective. In Massey"s approach to generational mentoring, one key aspect is identifying a specific spiritual quality from that saint that the mentee wants to imitate. Massey mentions George Müller as the first name that comes to mind for a generational mentor.36 It is in defining the spiritual quality that Müller so aptly represents where Kierkegaard comes into play. Kierkegaard’s category of knight of faith provides a linguistic denomination and a conceptual framework to understand the nature of the spiritual quality that Müller exhibits so clearly. Kierkegaard adds depth and nuance to how one understands Müller and talks about him. Finally, the fact that Massey"s own study involved small groups, which is also the goal of this thesis, makes this methodology ideal for this study. 1.1 Generational Mentoring Massey defines generational mentoring as follows, “Generational mentoring, then, is an area of spiritual formation, based on Hebrews 13:7 and other texts, by which God does not merely give us permission but gives an admonition to have spiritual heroes in much the same way as we are admonished to pray.”37 Massey believes that looking back into history and identifying individuals as a source of spiritual guidance for twenty- first-century Christians is long overdue. He places generational mentoring in the same class of spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, Bible reading, etc. However, he prefers to use the phrase “means of grace” rather than “spiritual discipline” because of a 36 Massey, Generational Mentoring, 14. 37 Ibid., 13. 14 perceived negative connotation in some Christians’ minds. According to Massey, it is crucial to use generational mentoring of exemplars who have died.38 That way, it can be determined if their life ended well also— “how they lived and died.” Indeed, Hebrews 11 lists believers who have died and exemplify a faith experience that we should imitate.39 This is not to exclude living exemplars such as a current pastor or Christian leader, just as a living example should not negate the spiritual discipline of looking at past examples in Christian history to strengthen our faith. Massey admits that other disciplines look back at past saints, but again, this is not what he means by generational mentoring. He is not striving for inspiration, as in meditation or reading a devotional, but for “direct imitation.” He further says, “I am looking for a means of grace [spiritual discipline] that average Christians can place in their quiver of arrows while remaining in their normal place of family and society.”40 He also warns that generational mentoring should not lead to the veneration of the example, “but the ultimate aim is to see the glory of Christ, not to lift up a fellow pilgrim.”41 Massey recommends identifying one spiritual trait in the spiritual father or mother one wants to emulate and imitate. This study focuses on the spiritual trait of faith. But to do that, a clear definition and understanding of that spiritual trait— of faith— is necessary. Rather than trying to develop a definition of faith whole cloth for this study, I 38 He also believes the exemplars in Hebrew 13:7 refer to believers who have passed from this life. 39 See also Hebrew 12:1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…” 40 Massey, Generational Mentoring, 25. 41 Massey, Generational Mentoring, 20. 15 have opted to bootstrap Kierkegaard’s definition of the paradox of faith. 1.1.1 Wide Lens Massey further says about generational mentoring, “With its wide lens, it looks at the overall life of a spiritual father or mother of the past and is able to say, ‘I desire to be like that, to follow her/him insomuch as they have followed Christ.”’42 Thus, he suggests that specific individuals exemplified one spiritual attribute in a profound way, regardless of any significant flaws or difficulties in other areas of their life. In this respect, one of the examples Massey uses is Robert Lewis Dabney (1820– 1898), who supported slavery of black Africans, seeing them as inferior beings and in need of whipping from time to time. Massey looked at his physical and spiritual blindness, more specifically because he “was an all-out racist of the highest degree.”43 At the same time, Massey believed, though, that Dabney had other spiritual qualities worth emulating. Massey gives other examples of character flaws in past saints’ lives but looks only at the good attributes in his model of generational mentoring. A further reason why I chose Müller"s life in this study is that it is hard to find a negative characteristic or lived experience that anyone, even today would criticize. For that reason, I feel more confident in using Müller as an example of faith. 1.1.2 Narrow Lens Massey also describes a narrow lens that takes a specific trait of a mentor’s life and seeks to imitate it. Generational mentoring finds its primary justification in Hebrews 13:7, which says, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider 42 Massey, Generational Mentoring, 14. 43 Massey, Generational Mentoring, 50. 16 the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”44 I agree with Massey"s inclusion of The New Century Version of Hebrews 13:7, which translates the verse a bit more directly, “Remember how they lived and died, and copy their faith.” This thesis focuses on the narrow lens of Müller’s faith experience. The word for “imitate” or “copy” in Greek is μιμέομαι, which is translated as “to use as a model, imitate, emulate, follow.”45 I feel especially justified in using George Müller as the exemplar because of his faith. It is appropriate to “copy” his faith. We could use many other examples, but George Müller certainly looms large. Kierkegaard gives us the lens through which to determine if George Müller’s faith is truly one that we can imitate as an example as we would practice the spiritual discipline of generational mentoring. As Kierkegaard saw the faith of Abraham as faith to model, inspecting and dissecting the faith of George Müller is one of the bold ways at hand for us to determine if we should be imitating his faith. I will show that looking back at the life of George Müller is truly apropos for the twenty-first-century Christian and appropriate for the subject of this thesis. 1.2 The Use of Narrative Storytelling I am a firm believer in the capacity of narrative and storytelling to communicate biblical truths and change the way a believer would understand faith. Indeed, my own experience in faith is largely a result of storytelling— Jesus’ parable in Luke 14:7–11, which I call “arranging the chairs.” In this parable, Jesus advises choosing the lowest seat 44 New American Standard Bible (La Habra, CA: Foundation Press Publications, 1971). 45 Walter Baur, Frederick W. Danker, William Frederick Arndt, and Felix Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2021), 577, s.v. μιμέομαι. 17 at a wedding feast so that when the host sees the guest sitting in the place of low esteem, he will move them up to a place of honor in front of everyone. In contrast, the one who jostled for a seat of honor will be forced back to the lowest seat. The end of this parable states, “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted (Luk 14:11).” Because of the use of the word “humble,” many commentators thought Jesus was teaching about humility. However, I became convinced that the parable was teaching about faith. It is when we resign from the seat of honor and trust God to do, as Kierkegaard would say, “the absurd,” i.e., be moved to the best seat at the banquet, God arranges the chairs differently from human effort, logic, and reasoning. My friend and business partner at the time of my understanding of the parable in Luke 14 changed our business practices to reflect Jesus’ teaching on faith in this parable. It was a very exciting period as we saw God “arrange the chairs” at our work. This idea of the importance of storytelling and the dramatic arc dovetails nicely with the assertions of Narrative Theology as espoused by Richard Niebuhr, among others.46 Niebuhr highlighted the embodied nature of the Christian message. All embodied, lived theology is embedded within a specific historical, socio-political, and faith community context. George Müller is no exception. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge and recognize his place in nineteenth-century history and his faith community. Without detracting from that, in my book, Let the Children Come, I have made a choice to tell the story of George Müller within a twenty-first-century setting. My goal 46 H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (New York, NY: The MacMillan Company, 1960), 33. 18 was to make him feel contemporary with the reader. Indeed, one of the shortcomings of Massey"s generational mentoring is that the examples the author of Hebrews is referring to are believers who have died but were known to the living.47 My George Müller becomes someone the reader knows and can relate to, and therefore makes a towering generational mentor. By bringing George Müller into the twenty-first century and giving him all the accouterments and paraphernalia of our modern society (such as a smartphone, PayPal account, email, website, etc.), I believe that he now becomes a “real person” that a Christian could emulate in faith. Through storytelling, I have taken many of the actual events that happened in the nineteenth century and modernized them in a dramatic way for effect. According to Peter Andrew Churn, recent neuroscientific research using functional MRI scans “demonstrates that, when we hear a story, more areas of our brain are active than when hearing facts or simple instructions.”48 Based on studies at the Hasson Lab in Princeton, “By telling patients stories, we have the means to more effectively transfer information and to improve retention of this information.”49 Paul Zak states, “Narratives that cause us to pay attention and also involve us emotionally are the stories that move us to action.”50 And indeed, the goal of generational mentoring is to move us to action to imitate the faith of past saints. Through 47 I am interpreting the Hebrew 13:7 leaders not to be the saints of Hebrew 11, but Christian leaders of faith that the readers would be familiar with as they would have a recent memory of them. 48 Peter Andrew Churn, “Neuroscientific Narrative Consulting: How to Engage Our Patients,” British Journal of General Practice 68, no. 675 (2018), 484. 49 Ibid. 50 Paul J. Zak, “How Stories Change the Brain,” Greater Good, December 17, 2013, Accessed August 12, 2021, http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_stories_change_brain 19 my book, my goal was to motivate the reader to trust in Jesus Christ more fully. A further goal that I want to accomplish through my workbook is to encourage the students to be involved in serving “the least of these,” as found in Mat 25:40, 45. Zak tells us that, according to narrative theorists, there is a universal structure called the “dramatic arc” for a story to be engaging. He says, It starts with something new and surprising, and increases tension with difficulties that the characters must overcome, often because of some failure or crisis in their past, and then leads to a climax where the characters must look deep inside themselves to overcome the looming crisis, and once this transformation occurs, the story resolves itself.51 My book Let the Children Come starts out with young George Müller at his mother’s funeral. He missed her dying moments because of being drunk and partying with friends. The story keeps climbing the arc from there. It includes multiple dramatic situations and powerful dialogue. Then, the characters trust God, and the situation resolves itself. I think that I have successfully developed the dramatic arc in my book Let the Children Come. A companion small group workbook is an ideal mechanism to turn the received dramatic arc into action, which will cause the reader to be motivated to live by faith and turn that trust in God into actionable charity. The workbook tries to direct the behavior change made possible by the dramatic arc in a particular way: there are many faith actions people reading the book could take in response to it. The workbook is designed to walk the reader through Massey’s idea of using Müller as a generational 51 Zak, “How Stories Change the Brain.” 20 model for faith. 1.2.1 Biblical Narrative I agree with Johann Baptist Metz, who says, #Are they [the non-Jesus People in contrast to the Jesus People] not remembering that Christians do not primarily form an argumentative and reasoning community, but a story-telling community, and that the exchange of experiences of faith, like that of any ‘new’ experience, takes a narrative form?”52 Metz goes on to say, “For too long, we have tried to suppress the narrative potential of Christianity and have confined it to credulous children and old people.”53 By combining my book’s narrative and the workbook, I am incorporating both narrative and reasoning. After all, the account, story, and narrative of Abraham and Isaac was told and retold orally for centuries before it was written down. It was this story element that Kierkegaard focused on in his retelling of the story to define faith for the people of Denmark who had lost sight of what it really means to live by faith. “In the areas of Christian life and service, the cognitive and practical dimensions of the faith are more clearly recognized, while the role of emotion, the more affective dimensions of the faith, tends to be more elusive”54 writes Gino Pasquariello. He is referring to the emotions of “hope, love, joy, gratitude, compassion, grief and sorrow.”55 52 Johann Baptist Metz, “A Short Apology of Narrative,” in Why Narrative?: Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas, L. Gregory Jones (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997): 255. 53 Ibid. 54 Gino Pasquariello, Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 788. 55 Ibid. 21 Incorporating these emotions within narrative storytelling is effective in communicating a faith lived out. 1.2.2 The Neurochemical Response Research has identified oxytocin as the neurochemical that generates empathy, which is known as the “moral molecule.” Studies show that people are more trustworthy, generous, charitable, and compassionate when the brain synthesizes oxytocin. Lenny Moss says, “A spike in oxytocin is not necessarily a sufficient basis for acting morally, nor is the capacity to respond to an oxytocin spike in an empathetic fashion independent of one’s life history.”56 Paul Zak confirms that engaging narratives change brain chemistry.57 Thus, the reason for writing my book, Let the Children Come, is to cause the engaging narrative to influence the way we charter our life. Instead of talking about Müller and his life in the way of the things he did, i.e., built and operated orphanages, did not ask for money, did not take a salary (which is all fascinating information), I wanted to engage our emotions. I wanted to tell a narrative that would illicit a neurochemical response. 1.2.3 The Dramatic Arc A dramatic arc58 in literature is made up of five elements that create the story’s structure. These elements are: (i) a character with a problem, (ii) complications in solving the problem, (iii) a crisis that reaches a climax, (iv) a resolution of the problem, and (v) 56 Lenny Moss, “Moral Molecules, Modern Selves, and Our 'Inner Tribe,'” The Hedgehog Review 15 no. 1 (2013): 23. 57 Zak, “How Stories Change the Brain.” 58 Matt McKible, “The Dramatic Arc,” Matt’s Gamer Blog, September 10, 2010, accessed April 2, 2022, https://mmckible.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/the-dramatic- arc/#:~:text=The%20Dramatic%20Arc%20is%20defined%20as%20the%20structure,exposition%2C%20ri sing%20action%2C%20climax%2C%20falling%20action%2C%20and%20resolution 22 the character learns something about self or life.59 In this important 2013 study, Paul Zak and his team presented two different stories about a boy suffering from cancer and his father.60 The first had a traditional dramatic arc and tugged at the viewer’s heartstrings. The second portrayed just a day at the zoo between this boy suffering from cancer and his father without any overarching narrative or storytelling art. Despite exposure to the same individuals and the same applicable elements of their life, behavior change only occurred in those subjects who viewed the video with the dramatic arc that told a story. These relatively recent discoveries in neuroscience dovetail nicely with the emphasis that narrative theologians have placed on the primacy of narrative in the Christian tradition and theology in general.61 As such, the hagiographic nature of the stories about George Müller is actually a benefit rather than a liability.62 All of this focus on narrative highlights why the book that I recently published, Let the Children Come: The Life of George Müller, is so crucial to this overall project. Simply identifying Müller as a generational mentor is insufficient to elicit behavioral change. However, introducing Müller to Christians through a narrative arc dramatically increases the likely effectiveness of this generational mentoring. 1.3 Small Group Implementation I have demonstrated above that the dramatic arc makes a profound difference in 59 Ray Foy, “The Dramatic Arc,” The Petigru Review, July 17, 2019, accessed April 2, 2022, https://thepetigrureview.com/2019/07/17/the-dramatic-arc/ 60 Ibid. 61 Wentzel Van Huyssteen, Theology and the Justification of Faith: Constructing Theories in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989). 62 Darin Duane Lenz, Strengthening the Faith of the Children of God: Pietism, Print, and Prayer in the Making of a World Evangelical Hero, George Müller of Bristol (1805–1898) (Ph.D. diss., 2010). 23 the impact of a message. Consequently, the question is how a small group leader communicates this arc to the group. My observation of the curriculum in the marketplace today is two-fold. In the first case, a small paragraph or two about a pericope is followed by a series of questions. In the second case, the small group is assigned a book to read, and, over a couple of months, the members read a section of the book each week before attending the meeting. Then, the assigned reading is discussed by the group. My solution is a two-pronged approach. First, the book assigned to read is Let the Children Come. It is meant to be read either in its entirety before the initial small group meeting. Or it may likely not be read prior to the meeting, so I have also assigned consecutive chapters that would correspond to the lesson from the workbook. Nevertheless, reading the book entirely gives continuity to the story, thus enhancing the dramatic arc. Consequently, when the group meets, all the members can reinforce the positive message of George Müller’s life of faith. Then, in the group meeting, each week, a more in-depth study of faith is taught and discussed in the workbook. This discussion gives the students the tools to live by the faith George Müller exhibited. And, hopefully, it also gives them enough faith, as Kierkegaard shows us on the next chapter that they can relinquish what is most dear to them and then take the movement to faith to accomplish great things for the kingdom of God for their fellow humans. 24 CHAPTER 2: SØREN KIERKEGAARD’S DEFINITION OF FAITH The Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) published the book Fear and Trembling in October 1843, at the age of 30. He had already published the book Either/Or in February of the same year. He later wrote in his diary, “Ah, some day after I am dead, Fear and Trembling alone will be enough to immortalize my name as an author. Then it will be read and translated into foreign languages. People will practically shudder at the frightful emotion in the book.”63 His prediction came true. Kierkegaard published the book Fear and Trembling under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio, which is Latin for “John of the silent,” or “John of silence,” or “John the silent one.” In using a pseudonym, we must be careful not to attribute certain statements in the book as coming directly from Kierkegaard, since a pseudonym allows the author to create a unique perspective. Johannes describes Abraham’s faith in beautiful prose, but he admits he is personally unable to understand his faith. Kierkegaard’s writing is indeed hard to understand to the point that, according to the translator Bruce H. Kirmmse, even the Danes acknowledge its difficulty, often preferring the English translation. Kirmmse goes on to say, Kierkegaard presents serious challenges to his readers (and his translators), owing not only to his use of language— both his enormous vocabulary and his syntax, which can seem contorted— but also to his ideas, which are designed to push the reader to the limit and often succeed in doing so.64 63 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 43. 64 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, xxvii. Kierkegaard’s writing was influenced by philosophers like Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. 25 Kierkegaard’s categories of knight of infinite resignation and knight of faith65 are among the best modern descriptors of the paradox of faith. Kierkegaard wrote other books that enlarged or more fully explained his understanding of the Christian faith. However, the focus of this thesis is not on Kierkegaard’s entire body of writing. Still, it is on whether George Müller was living by the type of faith outlined in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and then how to distill the practice of that faith through small groups. However, while Abraham at Mount Moriah constituted the quintessential paradigm of a knight of faith, Kierkegaard found no contemporary exemplar of that faith in his own day. In the absence of an exemplar, Kierkegaard imagined what such a knight of faith would look like in his own day without grounding in an actual individual’s life. Kierkegaard did not know that there was a contemporary who embodied the features of a knight of faith in flesh and blood, only he lived across the North Sea, in England, rather than in Denmark. This person was George Müller. 2.1 Overview of the Knights In this section, I want to take a deeper dive into what Kierkegaard meant by the categories of knight of infinite resignation and knight of faith. Most Christians have heard the story of Abraham and Isaac from a very young age. But Kierkegaard wants us to move away from the Sunday school point of view and embrace the disturbing nature of this biblical episode. He would say that Abraham and Isaac’s story should make us sleepless because philosophy has no answer for us on the grounds that it cannot account 65 It is interesting to note that when knighthood became a religious event, beginning around 1200 AD, the knight would take an oath to protect widows, orphans, and the poor. 26 for faith. Philosophy cannot take us any further than to the doorstep of faith. 2.1.1 The Knight of Infinite Resignation Before examining the knight of faith, there are two other categories of people whom Johannes de silentio introduces. The first one is the hero and the second one is the knight of infinite resignation. Let us consider the hero first. Johannes gives us three examples. The first hero is the Greek King during the Trojan War, Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to satisfy the gods and provide a favorable wind to sail against Troy. The second is Jephthah, who sacrificed his daughter because of a vow he made to God to gain a military victory (Judges 11). The third is Lucius Junius Brutus of Rome, who executed his own sons because they conspired to destroy the Republic and restore the Monarchy. These three characters did the same action that Abraham was called to do. Their contemporaries found these actions so commendable and laudable that they praised these individuals as heroes in their time. They were revered and honored. But Abraham was not a hero; he was a murderer. The second category is the knight of infinite resignation. It is a strange phrase, and I will unpack the meaning. But first, I need to lay the groundwork. According to Kierkegaard, resignation is not only a significant, but also an essential element of faith. In fact, he goes as far as saying that, without infinite resignation, one cannot have faith. It takes both “movements.”66 It is the final stage before faith. The knight of infinite resignation is not a stoic who does not attach feelings to anything so as to never be hurt. No, attachment is central— he must renounce (resign) 66 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 55. 27 those things that are most dear and precious to him, those things to which he is attached. “And what distinguishes him from the supporters of non-attachment is that in doing so, his attachment is transformed – infinitised, eternalised, transcendentalized [sic].”67 Johannes makes the distinction also that this movement is willed by himself with no outside help. He says, “Through resignation, I renounce everything, I make this movement by myself, and if I do not make it, it is because I am cowardly and soft and without enthusiasm.”68 Agamemnon, Jephthah, and Brutus did not have faith, yet they were heroes and knights of infinite resignation. They did not have faith even though they renounced those who were most dear and precious to them. Only Abraham had faith. So, Johannes is differentiating their heroic acts for the good of others, the universal, from what Abraham did— in faith (as the single individual). It is also central to the knight of infinite resignation category that people do not need any divine intervention or assistance to accomplish this movement. They can do this by themselves in their own strength. And if they move to a monastery, they still do not have faith. “The act of resigning does not require faith, for what I gain in resignation is my ‘eternal consciousness,’ and that is a purely philosophical movement which I take comfort in making when required and which I can discipline myself to do.”69 To become knights of faith, they need one more movement. Johannes uses the illustration of a lad who falls in love with a Princess to explain 67 John Lippitt, The Routledge Guidebook to Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (London/New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), 53. 68 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 58. 69 Paul Martens, Reading Kierkegaard I: Fear and Trembling (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), 25. 28 infinite resignation and, later in his text, to show the second movement of faith. Let us look at his illustration. The lad has fallen in love with an improbable recipient of his love, a Princess. She is in a different social class, and she will never stoop down to him, so say the realists, whom Johannes describes as “the slaves of wretchedness, the frogs in the swamp of life.”70 They try to persuade him to drop this fantasy, but he thinks, “Let them go on croaking in the swamp, undisturbed.”71 Johannes likens these individuals to capitalists who risk on more than one venture, so that if they lose on one, they can make it up on another. As a capitalist myself, I understand Johannes’s illustration. They consider the lad’s love a poor risk. Nevertheless, the lad’s love is unconditional and is self-consuming of his identity. He has determined that this is not a phase of mere infatuation, but it is true love. The lad has thought it through and determined that his love for the Princess is real and genuine. But the story is not a fairy tale. They do not marry, nor do they live happily ever after. Although his love is central to who he is, the lad eventually realizes that he will never “get the girl.” And he renounces his love in resignation. I need to quote Lippitt now because he succinctly describes this change in the lad. In other words, he “resigns” that which is most precious to him in the finite world. In doing so, a significant change takes place, which Johannes describes as his gaining an “eternal consciousness:” in renouncing something finite, he gains something infinite. This particular love for a particular finite being becomes transformed. In other words, the love becomes “eternalized:” transformed and channelled [sic] into love for “the eternal being” – God. This transcendentalizing [sic] move is accompanied by a certain comfort (“in infinite resignation, there is peace and repose and consolation in the pain”) and an alteration in the lad’s self- relation.72 70 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 50. 71 Ibid. 72 Lippitt, The Routledge Guidebook, 51–2. 29 The lad is no longer focused on the finite— the Princess, but on the infinite— God. This is what gives him peace and repose. His focus is now on something/someone greater than a mere princess. He has assigned no value to the finite or immanent and has given all the value to the infinite or transcendental. Now he does not even care if the Princess marries a Prince. He no longer cares for the finite. 2.1.2 The Knight of Faith The knight of faith differs from the knight of infinite resignation. First, the knight of infinite resignation does not have faith. Second, the movement of faith is not possible without the movement of infinite resignation. Johannes gives a second illustration of the lad. This time, the lad has infinitely resigned his love for the Princess, but a strange thing happens as he transitions to faith. He now believes in the “strength of the absurd”73 that he will have the princess. And now, instead of peace and repose in pain, the lad lives joyfully and happily with her every day. Because of his faith, he can see the finite world, which he first relinquished, as a gift from God to appreciate and enjoy (1 Tim 6:17). It is essential to understand what Johannes means by “the absurd.” “The absurd is not among the distinctions that lie within the proper limits of the understanding. It is not identical to the improbable, the unforeseen, or the unanticipated. When he resigned, the knight was convinced of the impossibility, humanly speaking.”74 The lad winning the heart of the Princess was impossible, humanly speaking. If an action or result is 73 Kirmmse used the word “virtue.” Alastair Hannay uses the word “strength” instead of “virtue.” John Lippitt uses both, but predominantly the word “strength.” 74 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 58. 30 something one could accomplish by her own achievements or efforts, even though difficult, there would be no need for God. There would be nothing absurd about it. And it would not be faith. To be a knight of faith, one must also make the next movement, which is the “movement of faith by virtue of the absurd.”75 It is absurd prima facie, “but with God, all things are possible (Mat 19:26).” The movement of faith does not require one to renounce anything (infinite resignation does, though), but through faith, one receives everything that was already renounced. This is that faith that moves mountains. Therefore, the second lad does the same thing as the first; he finitely resigns the Princess and turns his love into eternity, the infinite. But he says one more thing: “And yet I have faith that I will get her— namely, by virtue of the absurd, by virtue of the fact that for God, all things are possible.”76 In this respect, Martens says, The knight of faith is the only happy person and heir to the finite, while the knight of resignation is a stranger and a foreigner. To get the princess in this way… so as to live joyfully and happily every moment by virtue of the absurd, every moment to see the sword hanging over the beloved"s head and yet to find, not rest in the pain of resignation, but joy by virtue of the absurd— that is miraculous.77 Abraham did the same. He relinquishes Isaac and turns his love for him into an eternal love of God. But in that exact moment, Abraham makes the movement of faith, by virtue of the absurd, believing that he will “receive Isaac back with joy, qua divine gift.”78 For this reason, Johannes says that he can describe and admire Abraham, but 75 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 143. 76 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 56. 77 Martens, Reading Kierkegaard I, 26–7. 78 Lippitt, The Routledge Guidebook, 47. 31 Johannes neither can perform his same movements of faith nor can he understand him. Kierkegaard introduces another word that we must look at, i.e., paradox. “Faith, therefore, is no aesthetic emotion, but something much higher, precisely because it has resignation as its presupposition. It is not the immediate inclination of the heart, but is the paradox of existence.”79 So, Kierkegaard calls faith “the paradox of existence.”80 To understand the concept of paradox, this sentence, repeated several times in the book, helps, “Faith, indeed, is this paradox: that the single individual is higher than the universal.”81 Here, Kierkegaard is taking a swipe at Hegel’s philosophy which places the universal or ethical, that is, social morality, as higher than the single individual with faith.82 One of the most consistent features of heroes across cultures is their ability to treat the ethical, the universal, as higher than the single individual's actions. But this is not the case when faith is involved. Through “agony and anxiety,”83 Abraham embodied that paradox when, by virtue of the absurd, the murder of a single individual turned into an act of faith greater than the universal. “Thus, then, my intention in telling the story of Abraham is … that we might see what an enormous paradox faith is, a paradox that is capable of turning a murder into a holy act that is well-pleasing to God, a paradox that restores Isaac to Abraham, because faith begins precisely at the point where thinking 79 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 56–7. 80 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 56. 81 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 66. 82 Ibid. 83 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 79. 32 leaves off.”84 The paradox is not the same as an individual who in the universal “feels an impulse to assert himself in his particularity, he (that person) is in a state of spiritual trial, and he can work his way out of it only by penitently surrendering himself, as an individual, to the universal.”85 A spiritual trial does not involve a paradox and is not faith.86 Johannes also describes the paradox of faith in his argument that there is an absolute duty to God: “the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal and as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.”87 And if this is not true, faith does not exist because it has always existed, Abraham is lost,88 and the absolute commitment to God is whitewashed. 2.1.3 The Leap Kierkegaard talks about a leap, and I think it is worth understanding what he means by that.89 The leap is a movement. It is not a reflection or a thought. He refers to it as a passion, something that generates an activity. Both the knight of infinite resignation and the knight of faith make the leap or movement. One stumbles and falls while the 84 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 64. It is important to point out that Kierkegaard’s understanding of this comment is not the same as the Pietistic understanding, which is that the end of thinking would be the aesthetic (in Kierkegaard’s terminology) or joy, peace, happiness, etc. But for Kierkegaard the end of thinking is not the aesthetic, but the “religious.” 85 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 65–6. 86 Kierkegaard talks about the difference between a spiritual trial and faith. However, I have decided not to comment on what he means by a spiritual trial since it is not germane to this discussion of faith. 87 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 97–8. 88 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 66, 68, 98, 100. 89 According to Martens, Reading Kierkegaard I, 30, “For much of the twentieth century, Kierkegaard was identified with an existential ‘leap of faith,’ irrationalism, and the celebration of the absurd. The range of agreement on this matter was tremendously diverse, from Francis Schaeffer, on the one hand, to Jean-Paul Sartre, on the other.” 33 other continues the leap, and it morphs into a marvelous sight if one were to observe it. Johannes used the illustration of a dancer, no doubt a ballet dancer. I know very little about ballet, so I will substitute Simone Biles90 for the ballet dancer. Perhaps, I know even less about the triple-twisting double-tucked somersault on the floor exercise,91 but the image is so seared into our minds that it will work. As Simone is on the exercise mat, she raises her arms and begins a short dance; she then runs and leaps into the air, does her twists and somersaults, lands again squarely on the mat, extending her arms, and performs another short dance. It looks so easy. Maybe I should try it. But it is precisely this “dance/leap/movement” that Johannes uses to distinguish between the knight of infinite resignation and the knight of faith. After going through all the motions, the knight of infinite resignation falls and cannot land on their feet. They look clumsy. However, the knight of faith goes through the same motions of resigning but continues through the triple and double, lands on their feet, and continues the dance, as if it were as natural as a walk in the park. Johannes describes the movement he cannot make: “I cannot shut my eyes and hurl myself confidently into the absurd.”92 Simone does hurl herself with great elegance. She leaps and we all think she is performing the impossible. Concerning the attitude of the knight of faith, Johannes put it this way, “He infinitely resigned everything, and then he grasped it again by virtue of the absurd.”93 I 90 With her seven Olympic medals, Simone Biles is considered one of the greatest gymnasts of all time, https://simonebiles.com, accessed May 30, 2022. 91 NBC Sports, “Simone Biles flies right off floor surface during qualifying routine | Tokyo Olympics,” June 26, 2021, video of performance, 4:09, accessed May 30, 2022, https://youtu.be/HG6hsTTLWMg 92 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 49. 93 Ibid. 34 want to continue this metaphor to help explain this “grasp” of faith. Kierkegaard does not say much about that moment of transition. Maybe, there is not much that can explain what happens at the moment in which faith takes over. I have consciously experienced that moment of transition on several occasions, when I trusted God for the impossible. So, I know it exists, but perhaps it is unexplainable. Let us continue with Simone Biles. The first time Simone did a somersault, she did it the same way I would have done it in my youth. She did it with the help of a person who stood there and aided her body so that she did not land on her head and permanently injure herself. Let us assume that the person who assisted is named Grace. Grace is there for us as we begin the leap into the air, entering an unnatural environment. It took courage for Simone. It was scary as she left the earth. But Grace was there to guide her, protect her, and correct her from any errors she was making in her leap. And because of Grace, she landed on her feet. Everyone noticed the joy on her face and the exhilaration in her soul. It was wonderful, amazing, fabulous, and she wanted to do it again. And soon, it was totally natural. She forgot that Grace was there, even though she never left her alone. After that, she walked around with confidence, knowing that she had grasped something out of this world, even divine. Johannes describes that person who took the leap in faith as follows, “He is easygoing and is as carefree as if he were a frivolous do-nothing, and yet every moment of his life he purchases the opportune moment at the highest price, for he does not do the least thing except by virtue of the absurd.”94 This is the righteous person who lives 94 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 49. 35 (continually) by faith (Rom 1:17). One final thought on the leap to faith is that Kierkegaard distinguishes in other writings between the leap being quantitative and qualitative.95 In other words, faith is not a transition where the quantity is greater, but rather the leap is from one quality to another. In Simone’s case, it is from the ground to the air. There is no similarity between the two. They are of a different genus just as faith is of a different genus from doubt or unbelief. 2.1.4 Going Further and Passion Two other concepts will be helpful to examine as we understand Kierkegaard’s definition of faith. The first is “going further.” Johannes uses this phrase in several different ways, but he tries to make the point that there is nothing further than faith in every instance. It is the telos. In a derogatory way, he says this about his own Christian culture, “our times do not remain standing at faith, with its miracle of turning water into wine: they go further, they turn wine into water.”96 This is so apropos of our culture as well. We turn the magnificent into the mundane.97 Of Abraham, Johannes said, “he shall never forget that in 130 years [the length of time Abraham lived], you got no further than faith.”98 We can travel a lifetime and even get to infinite resignation, and it is at that point 95 In a Journal entry (JP I 110) Kierkegaard asks the question, “Can there be a transition from quantitative qualification to a qualitative one without a leap? And does not the whole of life rest in that?” M. Jamie Ferreira, The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007), chap. 8, par. 1. 96 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 45. 97 An example may be that we turn God’s provision for “our daily bread” into a “get rich quick” scheme. 98 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 28. 36 we must go further— further to faith. And once we achieve faith, there is no further to go. I wish to close this section with a beautiful summary of faith as a passion in life. “By one’s own strength, one can become a tragic hero, but not a knight of faith. No one can counsel, no one can understand, the person who walks the narrow way of faith. Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it, for all human life is united in passion, and faith is a passion.”99 99 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 80–1. 37 CHAPTER 3: GEORGE MÜLLER This chapter is split into two parts. First, I look at George Müller’s life and offer a selection of some of the most significant highlights of his life. In the second part, I zoom in to see how different words and actions dovetail with Kierkegaard’s faith discussion in Fear and Trembling. 3.1 Summary of Müller’s Life George Müller (1805–1898), whom I am identifying as a knight of faith, was a pastor and philanthropist who, among other things, built five orphanage buildings to accommodate over 2,000 orphans from all over England. More than 10,000 orphans went through the orphanage during Müller’s lifetime. In the 1830s, when George Müller started his orphanage and Charles Dickens wrote his Oliver Twist serial and books (1837–1839), orphans roamed the streets and filled jails throughout England. Only a couple of private orphanages existed, and they would take only orphans from the upper-class families who could pay for their care. But Müller opened his orphanage to children in need without requiring continuing compensation. His example of faith in God and unconditionally caring for the orphan set a precedent for many other individuals and institutions to build similar faith-based orphanages throughout the world. Dickens, after personally visiting the orphanage, writes glowingly about Müller. He says, “George Müller takes thought of the orphans and has accomplished in his own way a substantial work that must secure for him the respect of 38 all good men, whatever may be the form of their religious faith.”100 In addition to providing a home for the orphans, Müller also fed, clothed, educated, and cared for them without ever directly or indirectly asking anyone for money or services.101 If someone asked him how much money or the extent to which services were needed, he would not tell them, but instead would invite them to ask God how much they should give.102 When a physical need arose, as it often did, he prayed to God, in faith, that God would provide for that need. As a result, God did provide, even though there may not have been any food, as the children sat down to give thanks for the meal. However, by the time the prayer was over, God had met the need miraculously.103 Thus, God always answered his prayer of faith, and the children were constantly fed, clothed, educated, and cared for physically and spiritually.104 August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) and his orphanage were an inspiration to Müller, who wanted to imitate the faith his predecessor possessed to meet all the orphans’ physical needs. Just like Francke, Müller had to face the criticism of some skeptics who had argued against the construction of another orphanage building because, according to them, it would go into foreclosure at his death. But Müller was able to use the successful example of Francke’s orphanage, which had survived long after its founder’s death, as an 100 Charles Dickens, “Brother Müller and His Orphan-Work,” Household Words 16, no. 398 (1857): 433. 101 Müller was very conscious of not giving the impression that he was soliciting money. Nonetheless, it was impossible to avoid all indirect solicitation since people obviously knew of the need to care for so many orphans. 102 Müller did announce when he was planning to build a new building, for example, but the announcement was not seen as a solicitation by the public or the giving community. 103 In the early years of the orphanage ministry, they experienced prolonged periods when funds were scarce, and they arrived just in time to pay for the need. 104 Müller did not commonly use prayers for “faith healing.” Children did get sick, and some died. However, on occasion, Müller praised God those pandemics affected the orphans less than the general population. 39 argument to justify the construction of another building.105 Müller says about Francke, He trusted in God alone. He went on trusting in God alone. And God helped him throughout abundantly. Simply by trust in the living God, the Institutions, resembling a large street rather than a house, were erected, and about two thousand children instructed in them.106 Thus, we see how the faith of one inspires another to believe. Müller’s life should continue to inspire our generation to do great things by faith alone. George Müller authored books as well as an autobiography.107 Still, most of his publications were “Annual Reports” of the giving to his ministries and the answers to prayer that the orphanage experienced. An example of Müller’s absolute desire to make sure God received all the credit is the auditor’s report from 1860. This report showed that 18,000 copies of the “Annual Report” were printed in that year for £179 3s and that the revenue from these reports was only £173 18s. Some simple math tells us that the reports were sold basically “at cost,” and there was no real profit to be made directly from their sales. This is so unlike today’s preachers, who receive huge profits from book sales and accumulate great wealth. It is unclear what profit, if any, came from Müller’s own publications.108 George Müller regarded the most crucial factor in publishing the reports as the Church's benefit from his faith. In this respect, these reports constituted tangible evidence that, if Christians had trust in God as he had, God would provide them with their “daily 105 The work George Müller started continues today. The website https://www.georgemuller.org offers an insight into the ongoing ministry today. 106 Müller, The Life of Trust, 380. 107 An example from just one year would be: George Müller, Brief Narrative of Facts Relative to the New Orphan House of Ashley Down, Bristol, and the Other Objects of the Scripture Knowledge Institute, Etc. (London: James Nisbet & Co, 1857). 108 Some evidence comes from the cover of Müller’s Jehovah Magnified (London, UK: James Nisbet & Co., 1876), stamped with “under cost” next to the price, while his Sermons and Addresses (London, UK: W.F. Mack & Co., 1898) brought no income, being published in the year of his death. 40 bread,” exactly like he providentially did for Müller’s orphanage. One year, Müller delayed printing the report on purpose, as he thought that such a delay would benefit the church but would be a detriment to receiving funds for the orphanage. Indeed, he did not want anyone to believe that the report's timing was for the benefit of raising money. He said, Naturally we should have been, of course, as glad as anyone to have exposed our poverty at that time; but spiritually we were enabled to delight even then in the prospect of the increased benefit that might be derived by the church at large from our acting as we did.109 George Müller accomplished many other remarkable things during his life, including: i. Securing the total or partial financial support for approximately 125 foreign missionaries through his Scriptural Knowledge Institute (SKI); ii. Opening adult and youth schools that educated over 122,000 students; iii. Circulating over 100,000,000 tracts, pamphlets, and books; and iv. Preaching in forty-two nations of the world, including China, the U.S, India, Russia, Canada, Europe, and Turkey traveling over 200,000 miles. Royalty and presidents welcomed him, as well as crowds that numbered in the thousands when he preached. His constant message was to encourage Christians to have faith in Jesus Christ, just as Jesus set the example in trusting his Father in heaven. 3.2 George Müller’s Example of Kierkegaard’s Faith We now examine if George Müller’s practice of living by faith fits the description Kierkegaard makes in his book Fear and Trembling when he portrays the lived faith of 109 Müller, The Life of Trust, 213. 41 Abraham. I believe he unmistakably embodies that description of faith. 3.2.1 Knight of Infinite Resignation If there was a question about whether George Müller resigned that which was most precious to him, we need only to look at his own words. He said, There was a day when I died, utterly died; died to George Müller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will— died to the world, its approval or censure— died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends— and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.110 In Müller’s early life of faith, he relinquished a few things that were of utmost importance to him. It perhaps started when his father cut him off financially because of his desire to serve God as a missionary. He said, “though I wanted more money than at any previous period of my life, as I had to remain two years longer in the university, I determined never to take any more from him.”111 After relinquishing all support, he said: “Thus did the Lord richly make up to me the little which I had relinquished for his sake.”112 The same could be said about his decision to forsake a salary (guaranteed from pew rents) and trust in God only for his temporal needs. He said, “At the same time, it appeared to me right that henceforth I should ask no man, not even my beloved brethren and sisters, to help me… as my expenses… were too great to be met by my usual income.”113 Not only had George and his wife decided not to take a guaranteed salary, but if extra needs arose, he would not ask anyone for help. After one year of living just 110 Arthur T. Pierson, George Müller of Bristol: His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God (London, UK: James Nisbet & Co., 1899), 41. 111 Müller, The Life of Trust, 41. 112 Müller, The Life of Trust, 42. 113 Müller, The Life of Trust, 67. 42 from offerings given freely to the Müllers, he was able to say, “For had I had my regular salary, humanly speaking, I should not have had nearly as much.”114 Four years after he first began to forego his guaranteed salary of one hundred pounds per year, he received one hundred thirty pounds, thirty percent more than he gave up. When he did this, he had only five pounds to his name. Yet he said, “The Lord greatly honored this little sacrifice, and he gave me, in return, not only as much as I had given up, but considerably more.”115 Though he relinquished that which was very dear and important to him, God provided more through faith than he would have had without faith. The rest of his life and ministry were further examples of relinquishing and receiving it all back and more. He says, “this way of living, so far from leading to anxiety, is rather the means of keeping from it.”116 He also refused to let someone set up a retirement fund for him because he would not have to trust God even in his later years. 3.2.2 Knight of Faith In looking back over his life, which is always illuminating, George Müller acknowledges that his faith in the living God made all his work possible, even when it seemed impossible: We continued meeting for prayer morning by morning for fifteen days, but not a single donation came in, yet my heart was not discouraged. The more I prayed, the more assured I was that the Lord would give the means. Yea, as fully assured was I that the Lord would do so, as if I had already seen the new premises actually before me.117 He had given up the struggle to raise money for the new building but literally 114 Müller, The Life of Trust, 75. 115 Müller, The Life of Trust, 92. 116 Müller, The Life of Trust, 72. 117 Müller, The Life of Trust, 302. 43 visualized the facility in the finite. Müller also ponders the question of what would have happened “if.” If he had said, The two charity schools are enough, I must not go any further; then the work would have stopped there. Or, if I had had a little more trust in my exertions or my friends, I might have taken at the utmost one or two steps further. Instead of this, however, I looked in no degree whatever at things according to my natural fallen reason, and I trusted not in the circle of my Christian friends, but in the living God; and the result has been that there have been since 1834 ten thousand souls under our instruction in the various day schools, Sunday schools, and adult schools.118 The movement to faith was far superior in bringing about his achievements than what he could have achieved if he followed the ways of this world. “Should this fall into the hands of any who have had such thoughts, let them remember that it is the very time for faith to work, when sight ceases.”119 The end of everything we can see and do is where faith begins (2 Cor 5:7). 3.2.3 Mediation Johannes describes Abraham's silence during the almost four days to Mt. Moriah. Abraham's silence is Johannes's means to illustrate his three outlooks, aesthetic, ethical, and religious. Language is the mediation tool in the ethical or universal (society or culture of a group of people). There is no language in the aesthetic or religious. Silence is a remedy that allows us to establish communication with a God who speaks to us.120 In Fear and Trembling, Johannes uses the phrase “single individual” eighty-nine times. A single individual does not need language. Sometimes Johannes uses the single 118 Müller, The Life of Trust, 378. 119 Müller, The Life of Trust, 325. 120 Michelle Kosch, “What Abraham Couldn't Say,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, no. 82 (2008). 44 individual as an aesthetic, and sometimes “as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute [God].”121 Therefore, an element of the knight of faith is the inability to use language. Similarly, Müller prayed for the orphans’ needs in silence. Regarding the ongoing needs, he said, “There are about twenty pounds in hand, and in a few days thirty pounds, at least, will be needed; but I purposely avoided saying anything about our present necessities, and spoke only to the praise of God.”122 He made this statement when deciding to open another house: “I therefore gave myself to prayer. I prayed day after day without saying anything to any human being. I prayed two and twenty days without even mentioning it to my dear wife.”123 There is no language or mediation in faith. It was not until much later in his ministry that he decided that others should have the privilege of seeing answers to prayer. He then invited the teachers to join him in prayer. 3.2.4 By Virtue of the Absurd George Müller does not ask anyone for money, yet he has set about to build another building for more orphans. It is totally ridiculous to embark on the venture. Yet, by virtue of the absurd, he has faith, and the money comes. Here he says, But whilst thus, naturally, I have no hope of succeeding, I am not in the least discouraged spiritually; for by faith in the living God I say this: He has the power to give me this thirty-five thousand pounds, and much more were it needed; and he has the power, in the meantime, to give me also all the large sums required, week after week, for meeting the current expenses for the present state of the work.124 In this lengthier quote, you can see that George Müller is well aware of the 121 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 97. 122 Müller, The Life of Trust, 142. 123 Müller, The Life of Trust, 256. 124 Müller, The Life of Trust, 376. 45 absurdity of what he is attempting. But he does believe that God is the God of the impossible. To others, it is absurd. Yet, Müller has faith that God will give him the financial capability to help the orphans and strengthen the faith of Christians still weak in their faith. Suppose, now, you were even to succeed in getting this large Orphan House built, how will you be able to provide for seven hundred other orphans? Answer: There is much weight in this objection, looking at it naturally. I am too much a man of business, and too much a person of calm, quiet, cool calculation, not to feel its force. And indeed, were I only to look at the thing naturally, I should at once be ready to own that I am going too far; for the increase of expenditure for the support of these seven hundred other orphans could not be less than eight thousand pounds a year more, so that the current expenses of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, reckoning its present state, and including those eight thousand pounds, would be about fifteen thousand pounds a year. Now I am free to own that I have no human prospect of obtaining such a sum year by year. But while matters stand thus, looking at them naturally, I see no difficulty at all in them spiritually. If according to the will of God I am enabled to go about this intended second Orphan House; and if, under his help, I shall be enabled to finish it; he will surely provide for those who are gathered together in it as long as he shall be pleased to enable me to trust in him for supplies.125 Müller took the position that, even if he were asked how much was needed for the orphans, he would not say. A friend argued with him that if asked, he should tell. But Müller refused, saying, Whilst I thank you for your love, and whilst I agree with you, that, in general, there is a difference between asking for money and answering when asked, nevertheless in our case I feel not at liberty to speak about the state of our funds, as the primary object of the work in my hands is to lead those who are weak in faith to see that there is reality in dealing with God alone.126 Rather absurd, isn’t it! Müller wanted to make sure that the faith of those around him was strengthened by them seeing God perform the absurd/miraculous because all 125 Müller, The Life of Trust, 376–7. 126 Müller, The Life of Trust, 183. 46 things are possible with God. Later, Müller records that the man gave one hundred pounds when the orphanage had nothing. Doing the impossible, absurd as it may seem, is what Müller believed. He says, “we must understand him [God] to have asserted that things impossible by the ordinary laws of material causation are possible by faith in God.”127 This is the strength of the absurd. 3.2.5 Timing The timing of the ram provided by God to Abraham is salient to Kierkegaard’s narrative. Likewise, the timing of money received by Müller is so germane to his testimony to faith. He relates a story about being unable to pay the teachers at two o’clock. Again, he trusts God to supply, which God does, and he says, “just at the moment when it was needed, we were helped through this day.”128 Another time, he talks of God's perfect timing for the twenty pounds needed for coal and clothing in the cold weather. He states, I was sure of help, but we were indeed straitened. The brother had called twice while I was gone to the Orphan Houses, and had I now been one half minute later I should have missed him. But the Lord knew our need, and therefore allowed me to meet him.129 This perfect timing occurred time after time. Seldom in the early days of the orphanage did they have cash available for all their needs. 3.2.6 Anxiety An anxiety-free life is the nature of what describes the heart and soul of a knight of faith. Müller testifies that he was not anxious about God’s timing since he believed 127 Müller, The Life of Trust, xviii. 128 Müller, The Life of Trust, 154. 129 Müller, The Life of Trust, 159. 47 God would provide, just as he had said in his Word. He commented, It is a point of great importance in the divine life not to be anxiously reckoning about the morrow, nor dealing out sparingly on account of possible future wants which never may come; but to consider that the present moment to serve the Lord only is ours, and that the morrow may never come to us.130 Müller understood that not all Christians were to start orphanages, yet all were to trust Jesus for their “daily bread” without being anxious. He says, “yet all believers, according to the will of God concerning them in Christ Jesus, may cast, and ought to cast, all their care upon him who careth for them, and need not be anxiously concerned about anything.”131 3.2.8 Emotion As Johannes clearly states, faith is not an emotion, a feeling, or a will. Müller would echo the same. He writes about praying for fifteen days without receiving a single donation for the orphanage. Yet he says, “fully assured was I that the Lord would do so, as if I had already seen the new premises actually before me. This assurance arose not from some vague, enthusiastical feeling, the mere excitement of the moment.”132 Müller’s primary goal was to strengthen the faith of God’s children. He wanted them to have the same faith he had and that indeed “faith in God is more than a mere notion, and that there is indeed a reality in Christianity.”133 He also made the point that for himself, his “heart is 130 Müller, The Life of Trust, 390. 131 Müller, The Life of Trust, 212. 132 Müller, The Life of Trust, 302. 133 Müller, The Life of Trust, 227. 48 not under a fleshly excitement.”134 3.2.9 Abraham Abraham’s faith was a test by God. Obviously, God had some reason to doubt Abraham’s faith. Müller was tested too. He writes, “Wherever God has given faith, it is given, among other reasons, for the very purpose of being tried.”135 Johannes’ narrative condenses Abraham’s journey up Mount Moriah in a concise passage encapsulating four days of walking, praying, and believing in silence. Müller experienced the long road to faith many times. Here is what he says about one such period, Eleven hundred and ninety-five days it is since I began asking the Lord for means for the building and fitting up of an Orphan House. Day by day have I, by his grace, since that time, continued to bring this matter before him. [A]s sure have I been from the beginning that he would do so, as if I had already had all the means in hand for it, or as if the house had been actually before me, occupied by the children.136 Just as Abraham knew that he would enjoy Isaac— that by renouncing Isaac, he actually received him back with joy through the absurdity of faith— Müller envisioned an orphanage occupied by children and received it also with joy. Concluding with another similarity between Abraham and Müller, James D. G. Dunn expresses such when he defines Abraham’s faith. He says, “His [Abraham’s] faith and faithfulness were two sides of the same coin; it was the same word,137 and the same 134 Müller, The Life of Trust, 370. 135 Müller, The Life of Trust, 237. 136 Ibid., 360. 137 Dunn is talking about the root Hebrew word for faith and believe. He is making the point that the Hebrew word for “believe” he’emin and the Hebrew word for faith (usually translated “truth”) ‘emet have the same root in Hebrew so they are closely related. I think this is an important point (not theologically, but practically in the lives of Abraham and Müller) because as Morgan says a relationship is formed of trust and faithfulness— two sides. Hence, they become the two sides of the same coin. 49 attitude and action expressed by that word.”138 Müller was both full of faith and faithful as Abraham was. 3.2.10 Enjoying the Finite as the Knight of Faith According to Johannes, one of the primary characteristics of the knight of faith is the fact that he enjoys the finite after he has relinquished what is most precious to him. We know about George Müller’s prayers of faith for the financial provisions of the orphanage. Probably because of our own experience, we might assume that it must have been very hard on him to be so close to failure constantly. But that is not his testimony. This is a rather long quote, but it is worth understanding this knight of faith better. There have often been weeks when my demands have been several hundred pounds a week, and it can therefore easily be supposed that, even if large donations come in, they do not last long. But whilst I allow this, I desire that the Christian reader may keep in mind that there are other necessities, and even greater ones than those connected with money. Should, however, the reader say that he thinks “I must find this a very trying life, and that I must be tired of it,” I beg to state that he is entirely mistaken. I do not find the life in connection with this work a trying life, but a very happy one. It is impossible to describe the abundance of peace and heavenly joy that often has flowed into my soul by means of the fresh answers which I have obtained from God, after waiting upon him for help and blessing; and the longer I have had to wait upon him, or the greater my need was, the greater the enjoyment when at last the answer came, which has often been in a very remarkable way, in order to make the hand of God the more manifest. I do therefore solemnly declare that I do not find this life a trying life, but a very happy one, and I am consequently not in the least tired of it.139 138 James D. G. Dunn, The New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007), 409. 139 Müller, The Life of Trust, 334–5. 50 CHAPTER 4: KIERKEGAARD AND MÜLLER’S PIETISM In this chapter, I want to show the common spiritual heritage Müller and Kierkegaard have in their pietistic background. They both were molded in their theology and practice in the German Lutheran Pietistic movement originating from Philipp Jakob Spener and August Francke. The catalyst of the movement was the small group Bible meeting which I have incorporated into this thesis. I also want to show that a very spiritual and faith movement can develop worldwide and provide for “the least of these, (Mat 25:40)” when small groups of believers gather to study the scriptures. Justo L. Gonzalez says, “Pietism was a response to the dogmatism of the theologians and the rationalism of the philosophers, both of which it contrasted with the living faith that is at the heart of Christianity, and to the Thirty Years’ War, which led many to see greater value in personal devotion and religious experience.”140 Pietism emphasized the Lutheran doctrine which minimizes the difference between clergy and laity with the expectation of more intense biblical study and devotion to the needs of others. 4.1 Definition of Pietism Pietism is harder to define than one would assume because it is not a single branch of Protestantism or Christianity. Instead, it is found among all expressions of Christianity and at every age since the reformation. Justin Davis gives the simplest definition of Pietism “as the experiential strand of Protestantism, or more precisely, as 140 Justo L. Gonzalez, Story of Christianity, Second, vol. 2 (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010), 252. 51 those Protestants who prioritize experience over scholasticism and rationalism.”141 However, I reject this definition for two primary reasons: (i), there is much more to Pietism than simply experience; and (ii), the early beginnings of Pietism by Francke emphasized scholasticism and rationalism.142 Peter James Yoder gives a more robust definition of Pietism when he says, (1) a “richer” use of Scripture in the daily lives of individuals, (2) the practice of the spiritual priesthood of all believers, (3) a renewed emphasis on the practice of Christianity, (4) a restraining from polemics within the church, (5) a reform of theological studies, and (6) a turn from verbose, theologically obtuse preaching toward a simpler form that emphasized faith and its fruits.143 Søren Kierkegaard wrote the following definition of Pietism in his journal in 1850–– although it will not be useful in the frame of this study: Yes, indeed, pietism (properly understood, not simply in the sense of abstaining from dancing and such externals, no, in the sense of witnessing for the truth and suffering for it, together with the understanding that suffering in this world belongs to being a Christian, and that a shrewd and secular conformity with this world is unchristian) - yes, indeed, pietism is the one and only consequence of Christianity.144 Gino Pasquariello, in characterizing spirituality in the United States, comes close to also defining pietism of which there is also a rich history in the United States.145 He says, “These various expressions of spirituality have many themes in common, such as the use of scripture, the place of prayer, corporate gatherings for worship and community, 141 Justin A. Davies, Pietism and the Foundations of the Modern World (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2019), 1. 142 See Kelly Joan Whitmer, The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015). 143 Peter J. Yoder, Pietism and the Sacraments: The Life and Theology of August Hermann Francke (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2022), 4. 144 Christopher B. Barnett, Kierkegaard: Pietism and Holiness (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011), 4. 145 Gino Pasquariello is writing an article in The Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States on the subject of “Spirituality” and is not writing about pietism. But the similarity between the two is very striking. 52 personal relationship and interaction with God, formation and development of the Christian life, and service to others.”146 One might think the word piety was used in a sense of endearment, but that would be false. The name was used derogatorily by the movement’s enemies, and there were many enemies. There is a misconception about the Pietistic movement in that they were “outsiders” by choice. In my study, everything points to the fact that they were made outsiders by others, i.e., the church and the state, even though they taught abstinence from worldly affairs. Being an outsider was not their goal— reforming the individual and the church was their goal. One of the characteristics of Pietism, which needs some clarification, is that they rejected intellectualism and rationalism. This thought is reflected in Will Willimon’s statement that, Pietism also stressed a personal, conscious, experiential conversion experience as the only normal method of entrance into the kingdom of God-a belief which sometimes led them into anti-intellectualism intellectualism or condemnation of those who failed to duplicate Pietistic conversion patterns.147 The “exception to the rule” would be August Francke. Thomas Howard says, “It would be wrong . . . to judge Francke as anti-intellectual.”148 Nonetheless, Pietism was most often infused with mysticism, and this frequently meant choosing dependence on God over rationalism. As early as the second century, 146 Gino Pasquariello, Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 2180. 147 William H. Willimon. Word, Water, Wine, and Bread: How Worship Has Changed Over the Years (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1980), 96. 148 Howard, Thomas Albert. Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 94 n. 187. 53 monasteries were formed for monks and nuns to have an “intimate personal and fundamentally mystical experience with the divine.”149 The desire for mysticism has permeated the Pietistic movement ever since. 4.2 The Connections of Kierkegaard and Müller to Pietism In his autobiography, George Müller says, “This evening I took tea at a sister's house, where I found Francke’s life. I have frequently, for a long time, thought of laboring in a similar way, on a much smaller scale; not to imitate Francke, but in reliance upon the Lord.”150 While a university student at Halle, Müller, due to being cut off financially from his father, had to board at the orphanage Francke had built in the early eighteenth century. Before Müller had started his own orphanage, he was just a young man who, while reading about a man of faith who lived 100 years before him, felt the desire to imitate Francke’s faith. This is unquestionably a perfect example of generational mentoring. The trail of Müller’s experience with Francke at the University of Halle starts with Philip Jakob Spener (1635–1705). Spener is most often “credited as the father of Pietism because of his formation of the collegia pietatis (groups of piety) and the publication of Pia Desideria151 [in 1675].”152 The collegia or collegia pietatis are small groups “usually called to study the Scriptures and promote holiness and good works.”153 149 Ibid., 10. 150 Müller, The Life of Trust, 112. 151 Or Heartfelt Desires for an Improvement of the True Evangelical Church Pleasing to God, “which was about the importance of verifying faith through actions that were visible, noticeable.” Philip Jacob Spener, Pia Desideria, trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1964). 152 Davis, Pietism and the Foundations of the Modern World, 3. 153 Peter Bunton, Cell Groups and House Churches: What History Teaches Us (Ephrata, PA: House to House, 2001), 21. 54 Eventually, Spener’s third contribution to Pietism was founding the University of Halle in 1694, during his pastorate in Berlin. Indeed, in the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, the University of Halle became a prominent center for Pietism within Prussia. But all this did not come out of a vacuum. Spener was inspired by a book by (perhaps the grandfather of Pietism) Johann Arndt (1555–1621) named True Christianity (1605–1610) which had a focus on the Christian experience and mysticism from the influence of Thomas à Kempis, Johannes Tauler, Angela da Foligno, and Valentine Weigel. The establishment of the University at Halle by Spener, followed by August Hermann Francke’s (1663–1727) appointment as the professor of Greek and oriental languages first, and later as the head of the Theology department, was the turning point for the Pietistic movement, as it was legitimized and given an intellectual and theological base. Under Francke’s leadership, the University of Halle became well known for pietistic theology and philosophy as the result of the Enlightenment. Francke had studied biblical languages as a young boy and was highly proficient in them. He studied at several universities across Germany, was ordained, and started holding collegia. Yet he was not experiential in his faith. One day, when he was preparing for a sermon, he recognized his emptiness and got on his knees to pray. When he rose, his whole life changed as he had now been “born-again.” Francke made the conversion experience part of his teaching, seeking to have all in the Pietistic movement 55 come into a born-again relationship with God.154 After his conversion experience, Francke pastored in two communities where he started his small group meetings. They caused such enormous controversy that he was taken to court and was forced to leave the towns. Eventually, upon his professorship in Halle, he was assigned the post as the Pastor of St. Georges Church in Glaucha, the slums outside of Halle. All the citizens of Glaucha could distill and sell alcohol. The town had two hundred dwelling units and thirty-seven taverns, hence its description as a “sin resort.” The pastor before Francke was removed for committing adultery— in the confessional, no less. Infidelity was extremely rampant. And one would think Pietism could never exist in Glaucha, but it did as Francke persisted in holding his collegia meetings. As Francke observed the distress of the orphans in Glaucha, he decided, out of practical concern, to do something about it. Thus, in 1695 he started the orphanage and a top-notch educational system in Glaucha, enabling the orphans to rise out of poverty. Francke saw the orphanage as both help to those in need and a training model for others to give financially. In the beginning, the orphanage was supported by the free-will giving of benefactors. Francke would say that he depended upon God through faith for sustaining the orphanage. As Carter Lindberg 155 summarizes, The growth of the Halle institutions is legendary. The “Franckean Institutions” included an orphanage, training schools for teachers and pastors, various schools 154 Yoder, Pietism and the Sacraments, 119. 155 Lindberg, Carter, The Pietist Theologians. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 56 for different levels and classes of students, a collegium orientale for Scripture study and translation, publishing house, science laboratory and apothecary.156 One of the individuals who studied at the University of Halle was Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), Spener’s godson. Because of his intellectual ability and his pietistic lifestyle, Count Nicholas was a frequent diner at the Francke home. In 1722, ten persecuted Christian men arrived at the Zinzendorf’s property and were given refuge. Within four years, the community grew to three hundred, and a decade later, there were over six hundred. This was the beginning of Herrnhut, the commune that fostered the Moravian missionary movement throughout the world: “The Moravians were some of the most successful missionaries in the eighteenth century.”157 Willimon agrees by saying, “One of the most notable products of German Pietism was the Moravians, a group of dedicated separatists who became noted for their missionary zeal and their hymnody.”158 There are many more exciting and important accounts in Zinzendorf’s life that would do a thesis by itself, but I present him at this point to introduce Søren Kierkegaard to the story. In 1536, the Danish Crown sided with Luther’s reformation and took control of the church, up to the point that telling the difference between church orthodoxy and absolute monarchy became impossible. Pietism started to take hold in Denmark in the latter half of the seventeenth century, but by 1706 the Pietist conventicles were banned. “The Danish absolute monarchy's reaction was characterized by duplicity. On the one hand, it saw in Pietism a menace to the state church’s unity and the authority of the 156 Carter Lindberg, introduction to The Pietist Theologians. An Introduction to Theology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2005), 9. 157 Davis, Pietism and the Foundations of the Modern World, 123. 158 Willimon, Word, Water, Wine, and Bread, 95. 57 individual parish priest. On the other hand, both Frederik IV and Christian VI personally were gripped by Pietism.”159 Frederik IV was drawn to Francke’s educational system, his work to better the poor (the first orphanage in Copenhagen was started in this era), and his acceptance of the state-church apparatus. This is where the Pietism of Halle enters the picture. Toward the end of Frederik IV’s reign, certain conventicles advocated separatism, which the monarchy feared. This opened the way to a newer form of Pietism, i.e., Zinzendorf’s Moravian Herrnhutism (Zinzendorf was related to the Danish royal family). The two forms of Pietism, Halle and Herrnhut, continued in Denmark for several years under Christian VI. “On 14 September 1739, a Brødresocietet [a Moravian piety society] was established in Copenhagen, the very society/community that Søren Kierkegaard was to attend as a youth.”160 In 1746, Frederik V, who was not inclined toward Pietism, assumed the throne after his father’s death. The upper class also displayed apathy toward Pietism, and eventually, a religious indifference pervaded the country. As time went on, the Moravians were more adept at fitting into the Danish social structure. Their form of Pietism grew until Søren Kierkegaard’s father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard (1756– 1838), took his family to the Brødresocietet meetings. Thus, as we can see, both Kierkegaard and Müller trace their pietistic heritage to August Francke. 4.3 Small Groups 159 Barnett, Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness, quotes Henrik Becker-Christensen, Ole Feldbaek: Den lange fred: 1700–1800 (Copenhagen, Denmark: Gyldendal og Politiken, 1990), 37. 160 Barnett, Kierkegaard: Pietism and Holiness, 43. 58 In his book Cell Groups and House Churches: What History Teaches Us, Peter Bunton looks at the history of the small group movement since the time of the reformation.161 Small groups have existed since the beginning of the Christian church. Acts 2 gives the first insight into what the early believers did in the temple courts and private homes: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42).” Over the centuries, those who have lobbied for and conducted small groups have seen them as a way of returning to the early/New Testament church, sometimes called “primitivism.” I will show that, since the Reformation, it is precisely small groups such as these that have brought about a revival in Christendom and/or denominations when they lack the passion for God and the goodwill to aid their fellow brothers and sisters. For this thesis, I adopt Paul Hare’s definition of small groups that Bunton cites, …[a] more or less cohesive collection of individuals who relate to each other personally and at intervals in more or less patterned ways because they share certain beliefs, values, affections, motives, norms, and roles and have a common goal.162 Martin Luther embraced the small group movement in his Preface to the German Mass (1526). However, even though he had advocated for the small groups, he never formed any, even after twenty years of writing the Preface. His reason was that he was unable to find an adequate leader. “Spener and those who followed him used Luther’s 161 Peter Bunton, Cell Groups and House Churches: What History Teaches Us (Ephrata, PA: House to House, 2001). 162 Alexander Paul Hare, Handbook of Small Group Research (Glencoe, IL: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), 1. 59 ‘Preface’ to connect the regeneration of the inner person to a new life expressed.”163 The first significant movement of small groups started as a protest in Zurich in 1525 after the city council banned them. In the demonstration, a group of about twelve men (re)baptized each other and gave birth to the Anabaptist movement. The small group movement was a primary factor in their missionary strategy. The Puritans of England were initially dissatisfied with the Anglican church’s spiritual life (or purity). This dissatisfaction led to small group meetings, which were called “conventicles.” In these conventicles, they would “pray, and sing, and repeat sermons, and confer together about the things of God.”164 Eventually, a group led mainly by George Fox (1624-1691) became dissatisfied with the Puritans and broke away, forming their small groups in homes for prayer and Bible study. This led to him founding the Religious Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers or Friends. Philip Jakob Spener began his small groups in Frankfort in 1670 while he was a pastor there. “Spener was the first major theologian to give it [small groups] such renewed prominence.”165 By 1675, his small group had grown to about 50 members because he could not find another leader to split the group. Eventually, he closed the collegia out of opposition from church leadership. One of the primary impetuses to Spener’s collegia was his understanding of the priesthood of all believers. He recognized that the work of God could not be carried out by paid ministers of the Lutheran church 163 Yoder, Pietism and the Sacraments, 6. 164 Bunton, Cell Groups, 16. 165 Yoder, Pietism and the Sacraments, 5. 60 alone. Laity was vital for the Lord’s work to be accomplished on earth. It was August Herrmann Francke who succeeded at forming small groups at both the University of Leipzig and Halle. One of the unique and differentiating aspects of Francke’s collegia is the added dimension of the teaching of faith both from scriptures and examples. The study of scripture was not conducted through the dry and academic approach common at the time. “Instead, they studied the Scriptures to raise faith, hope and love, primarily through the use of three chief questions when approaching the text: what does it teach, what does it command, what promise or hope is given.”166 The Moravians were the next movement that utilized small groups. Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf successfully formed several small groups before forming Herrnhut. At Herrnhut, the first cell groups were called Bandem or bands. Initially, they were just two or three people, but later they encompassed five to nine people. “John Wesley, on his visit in 1738, wrote in his journal that he found ‘about ninety bands, each of which meets twice at least, but most of them three times a week, to confess their faults one to another, and pray for one another, that they may be healed.’”167 Eventually, the bands were prohibited (technically not at Herrnhut). Still, with Zinzendorf being absent for an extended time, they faded away. Nonetheless, the Moravians exported the small group structure everywhere they went throughout the world on their evangelistic missions and successfully accomplished their goals utilizing them. Undoubtedly, John Wesley (1703–1791), i.e., the founder of the Methodist movement, was the master of groups, including small groups. There were, in fact, five 166 Bunton, Cell Groups, 36. 167 Bunton, Cell Groups, 49. 61 types of groups that Wesley organized: (i) societies, (ii) select societies, (iii) penitent bands, (iv) classes, and (v) bands. The classes and bands most closely resemble the small group study of scripture of previous small groups analyzed here. They did have an emphasis, though, on holiness, which included naming sins and temptations, and discussing the deliverance from them. Wesley was a prime example of Bunton’s premise that, “Cells flourished when there was a key leader who could communicate vision and articulate the purposes of the movement.”168 Bunton also makes a salient point when he says, “Linked with the previous point is the importance of publishing. All the movements benefited when their ideals and methods could be written and disseminated through publication.”169 I would agree with Bunton when he concludes that, for a cell group to grow, it must have core values. Within the history of cell groups, those core values have been: (i) the priesthood of all believers, (ii) the desire to pursue God’s holiness, (iii) the strength of having others walk with you, (iv) accountability and openness, and (v) a desire to reach the lost. Bunton goes on to say, “Without such underlying values, cell groups become another organizational or management tool.”170 I agree with Burton that “Merely organizing one’s church into cell groups for organizational or other purposes misses the point.”171 In conclusion, Bunton makes a point of the universality of small groups. He says, This study shows that small groups appeared in different historical settings, cultures, denominations, and social strata. Bucer attempted small groups in the 16th century, the Pietists and Puritans in the 17th, the Moravians and Methodists 168 Bunton, Cell Groups, 84. 169 Bunton, Cell Groups, 85 170 Bunton, Cell Groups, 81. 171 Ibid. 62 in the 18th. Small groups flourished in Holland, Switzerland, the Baltic states, England, Germany, France, and Scandinavia. They are to be found among the Reformed, Lutherans, and Moravians. Pietist collegia flourished in prosperous trading towns as well as among peasants. Methodist groups did well among the growing working classes of the early industrial revolution.172 ! 172 Bunton, Cell Groups, 99. 63 CONCLUSION In this thesis, I have attempted to show that American Christians have a distorted and relatively uninformed view of what faith is as it was taught and lived by Jesus, the apostles, and the disciples during the first two centuries of the church. Much of the distortion surrounds the use and accumulation of money. I have taken the definition of faith that Søren Kierkegaard extrapolated from the Akedah, which was also validated by the authors of Hebrews and James. However, Kierkegaard admitted that he could not find a man with such a faith. But he says, …if I knew where a knight of faith lived, I would walk there on foot, for that marvel engages me absolutely. I would not let go of him for an instant; at every moment I would observe how he made the movements; I would view myself as provided for in life and would divide my time between observing him and practicing the exercises myself, and in this way devote all my time to venerating him.173 I was fortunate enough to find such a man who lived contemporaneously with Kierkegaard in Bristol, England, by the name of George Müller. And like Kierkegaard I marvel at him, watch his every movement, and practice faith as he does. I made him come alive in the twenty-first century when I wrote the book, Let the Children Come: The Life of George Müller. I used the methodology of generational mentoring developed by Gregory Scott Massey to create a small group workbook on understanding and living by faith using Kierkegaard’s definition and Müller’s example, both the nineteenth and the twenty-first- 173 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 46. 64 century Müller. I also showed that the small group study was used highly effectively by the Pietistic movements throughout the world and with varying denominations and groups to bring change in an otherwise spiritually cold church from the seventeenth through the twentieth century. That success pattern gives hope that this small group study curriculum developed for this thesis can and will do the same for the American church with its impoverished view of faith that the collegia did for the advancement of Pietism. ! 65 BIBLIOGRAPHY Barna, George. “American Worldview Inventory 2021. Release #4. 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Accessed April 2, 2022. https://mmckible.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/the-dramatic- arc/#:~:text=The%20Dramatic%20Arc%20is%20defined%20as%20the%20struc ture,exposition%2C%20rising%20action%2C%20climax%2C%20falling%20acti on%2C%20and%20resolution 70 Metz, Johann Baptist. “A Short Apology of Narrative,” in Why Narrative?: Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas, and L. Gregory Jones. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997. 251–62. Morgan, Teresa. Roman Faith and Christian Faith: PISTIS and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Churches. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017. Moss, Lenny. “Moral Molecules, Modern Selves, and Our 'Inner Tribe.'” The Hedgehog Review 15 no. 1 (2013). 19–33. Müller, George. Brief Narrative of Facts Relative to the New Orphan House of Ashley Down, Bristol, and the Other Objects of the Scripture Knowledge Institute, Etc. London, UK: James Nisbet & Co. 1857. ––––. The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord’s Dealings With George Müller. Boston, MA: Gould and Lincoln. 1861. ––––. Jehovah Magnified. London, UK: James Nisbet & Co. 1876. ––––. Sermons and Addresses. London, UK: W.F. Mack & Co. 1898 NBC Sports. n.d. “Simone Biles flies right off floor surface during qualifying routine | Tokyo Olympics.” June 26, 2021. Video of the performance, 4:09. https://youtu.be/HG6hsTTLWMg New American Standard Bible. 1971. La Habra, CA: Foundation Press Publications. New Century Version Bible. 2005. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. Niebuhr, H. Richard, The Meaning of REVELATION. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company, 1960. O’Donnell, Douglas Sean. “O Woman, Great Is Your Faith!”: Faith in the Gospel of Matthew. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2021. Onward Christian Magazine. n.d. “Prosperity Preachers Enjoy a Lavish Lifestyle at the Expense of the Poor.” Accessed March 29, 2022. 71 https://www.onwardchristianmagazine.com/prosperity-preachers-enjoy-a-lavish- lifestyle-at-the-expense-of-the-poor/ Pasquariello, Gino. Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). Pierson, Arthur T. George Müller of Bristol: His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God. London, UK: James Nisbet & Co., 1899. Silva, Moisés. New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014). Smietana, Bob. “Most Churchgoers Say God Wants Them to Prosper Financially.” Lifeway Research. July 31, 2018. Accessed March 29, 2022. https://research.lifeway.com/2018/07/31/most-churchgoers-say-god-wants-them- to-prosper-financially/ Smith, Christian, Michael O. Emerson, and Patricia Snell. Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008. Spener, Philip Jacob. Pia Desideria, trans. Theodore G. Tappert. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1964. The New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. 1982. Whitmer, Kelly Joan. The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Willimon, William H. Word, Water, Wine, and Bread: How Worship Has Changed Over the Years. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press. 1980. Van Huyssteen, Wentzel. Theology and the Justification of Faith: Constructing Theories in Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989. 72 Yoder, Peter J. Pietism and the Sacraments: The Life and Theology of August Hermann Francke (Pietist, Moravian, and Anabaptist Studies). University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2022. Zak, Paul J. “How Stories Change the Brain.” Greater Good. December 17, 2013. Accessed August 12, 2021. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_stories_change_brain. ––––. “Cerebrum.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. February 2015. Accessed August 12, 2021. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/issues/253438/ 73 CHAPTER 5: TRANSITION: THE WORKBOOK 5.1 Going Forward The balance of this thesis is the outworking— putting the theoretical into practice. I am reminded repeatedly of the question Jesus asks, When I return, “will I find faith (Luk 18:8)?” For most of my life I thought this question was superfluous and surely a hyperbole. But now I take the question very seriously. Consequently, I also take seriously the importance of this finished product. I have made every effort to make it readable and practical to the average adult reader. The attached study guide has five chapters which fully explains Søren Kierkegaard’s definition of faith in his book Fear and Trembling. The five chapters take the work of the above academic portion of this thesis and digest it for a small group of lay people. I have interwoven the life of George Müller, both the real nineteenth century Müller and my twenty-first century fictional Müller, with Abraham as viewed through the lens of Søren Kierkegaard’s knight of faith. In this workbook I have made the attempt to portray George Müller as a generational mentor to the group— a man who exhibited a life of faith for all to imitate. 5.2 Text of Workbook The following chapter contains the text of the workbook that the student would read before attending the small group meeting. The next chapter does not include the following portions of the small group study workbook: directions of how to use the study, introductory remarks, discussion questions, quotations, memory verses, etc. That 74 additional material is included in the exhibit attached at the end of this thesis. I have described the study in terms of a race based on the verse in 1 Corinthians 9:24 which reads, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” So instead of dividing the workbook into chapters, I have a divided it by the student running a race. Each race has three “laps” of approximately the same length. A race would be equivalent to each time the group meets—weekly or monthly. Frankly, the reason each race is divided into three laps is because I had someone tell me that “millenniums don’t have that long of an attention span.” In keeping with the motif of a race the structure, the workbook is divided into three parts. I have labeled the three parts “ready, set, go” which are common terms in a race. The “ready” portion is the preparation the student does prior to the meeting. This includes reading the three laps and answering the reflection questions about faith. The “set” is the actual meeting itself. This section has six to eight discussion questions that the leader of the small group would use to further teach the lesson. The final section is the “go.” This is where they leave the group praying for the requests that came forward during the meeting. It also includes a memory verse. A fuller description is found in the beginning of the workbook attached. I have also tried to make the workbook inviting by using color, icons, inviting layout, and quotations from George Müller. 5.3 Small Group Workbook Audience Who is the audience for the workbook? A broad answer would be “for all Christians who want to grow in their faith.” But that is much too broad a category to write to such an audience. As I was writing, I had a specific person in mind. He or she 75 were educated, probably in college, or college educated, possibly with a bachelor’s degree or higher. That is not at the exclusion of someone without a college education but still is widely read with an inquisitive mind. Within the above category is the person who says, “I just don’t get enough out of the sermons or small groups of my church.” They don’t want to change churches, but there is too much “fluff” for them to grow in their faith as they desire. They typically don’t know what they want, but they want more. This person is frequently looking outside of their church for an organization that will give them much deeper spiritual understanding of the scriptures. These people are from all branches of Christendom from fundamentalist to mainline denominations. They are perhaps looking to an organization like Bible Study Fellowship,174 The Navigators,175 or Ligonier.176 I am not recommending or endorsing these organizations but illustrating the desire of certain church members to learn more about their faith and are willing to go outside their church to accomplish their goals. This study is designed to fill that need without them having to search for an outside organization. The study is not designed for non-Christians or perhaps even “seekers.” Time will tell though if I am wrong, and the workbook is a tool to introduce people to faith in Jesus Christ. I am uncertain if the prosperity gospel adherents will enjoy the study. I realize this is a large segment of Christendom in America, and it is my hope that they could come to 174 https://www.bsfinternational.org 175 https://www.navigators.org/about/ 176 https://www.ligonier.org 76 a more accurate meaning of living by faith through this workbook. One of the limitations of the workbook is that it most likely requires a leader who has experienced being a knight of infinite resignation and a knight of faith as outlined in the workbook, and not just someone knowledgeable about them. In other words, it will take someone who has experienced faith as Abraham or George Müller did. That is not to say there are not thousands (1 Kings 19:18) who have already become knights of faith— I am sure there are. They will resonate with the message and want to pass it on. Given the narrower audience, it may be that in the beginning, the workbook is only used by myself as I teach Christians from it at seminars, retreats, revivals, and sermon series until leaders are found who can also teach it. The lessons also become the foundation for blogs and podcasts which should identify leaders and bring them forward. The good news is that small group studies historically have been a major vehicle to bring about change within the church. There is no reason to believe culturally that this will not continue long into the twenty-first century. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that God will not speak to his church about faith. I pray my workbook will be one of the key tools to help Christians understand faith and live by it exclusively. The reader will also notice a change in tone from the academic portion of the thesis. I have purposefully written to a different audience. I have made it more personal and have removed many of the footnotes that I could have utilized. 5.4 Online I assume that some sort of online tutorial will be necessary to aid group leaders in conducting the study. I also envision that a large portion of the academic part of the thesis will be modified and uploaded online for students and leaders to read, download if 77 desired, and study. The nature of online is such that it can constantly change and added as the need arises. There will probably be a discussion or comment board also. However, this thesis does not include an online element. It is also possible that the entire study will be online and downloadable at no cost—given free for a valid email. This will not require a publisher in the typical sense. I may self-publish through Amazon and give the free download for anyone who wants to print their own copy. Nonetheless, this thesis and workbook will form the basis of my future ministry in teaching about and living by faith. 5.5 Sample Workbook Exhibit The following workbook entitled Unconditional Faith is in a publication format. This layout invites the reader to achieve a greater appreciation for the content. This is probably not the final product but a good faith approximation. There will be words I will want to change, add, and subtract. Also, the publisher will have the final say as to the exact content and layout, but I have done my best to present what I believe will be the finished product. The publisher on the title page, Coast Publishing, Inc. is a placeholder, and the actual publisher has not yet been determined. I have also already made slight changes into the wording for publication but have not made those changes in this document since it is still a work in progress. Nonetheless, the text that follows fully represents the final published product. 78 79 CHAPTER 6. SMALL GROUP STUDY GUIDE WORKBOOK Race # 1 Lap 1: What is Faith? The word faith is perceived much differently today than it was in Jesus’ time and in the early church. It is not uncommon for words to change their meaning over time. Think of the word awful. It originally meant full of awe, as in splendor— the exact opposite of what it means today. Has the word faith taken on a meaning that the authors of the New Testament wouldn’t recognize today? Is the faith that the righteous are called to live by simply a proposition or belief system? Teresa Morgan, in her ground-breaking book, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, explains that sometime around the end of the second century AD, the word “faith” took on a new meaning that did not exist in the New Testament. This new meaning is what we term “the faith,” and refers to a set of beliefs or doctrines such as “the Christian faith” or perhaps even “the Catholic faith” or “the Hindu faith”. This type of faith is reduced to a cognitive state, i.e., what someone believes about God. The New Testament authors had no concept of “the faith” in their vocabulary. When you read the word “faith” in the New Testament, it is not referring to a set of beliefs. Rather, faith was an action: a way of life, a relationship based around trusting in the God of creation for life’s most essential needs—food, clothing, shelter, hope, and salvation. Kierkegaard was not the first to use the illustration of Abraham sacrificing/murdering his son Isaac as found in Genesis 20 to define faith. James, the 80 brother of Jesus, recalls this same event when defining faith in James 2—as does the author of Hebrews in chapter 11. Abraham’s faith has always been considered the model for God’s people. (Romans 4 and Galatians 3). In Kierkegaard day, the Danish church had grown spiritually dead and being a Christian only meant that you were born in Denmark and subscribed to a particular theology. His culture was very secular, not unlike today. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard stated that he had never actually met anyone who had faith as epitomized by Abraham. Despite having a brilliant mind, Kierkegaard was not well-traveled; thus, he had not heard of a man across the North Sea in Bristol, England, who did, in fact, live by faith like Abraham. This man was Kierkegaard’s contemporary George Müller of Bristol England. In this study, we will examine Kierkegaard’s definition of faith, using the illustration of Abraham and the example of George Müller—both the historical George Müller of the nineteenth century, and the fictional character George Müller (based on the real man) found in my book Let the Children Come: The Life of George Müller. Over the next several weeks, we will dig deep into the essence of faith. Let’s pray our eyes may be opened, and our heart unlocked to grasp a new or deeper understanding of faith—a faith that Jesus Himself claimed could feed us, clothe us, and move mountains (Matthew 6:25-34, 17:20). We will see how one man proved it to be true. Søren Kierkegaard wrote about the “knight of faith”—a person who places complete and utter trust in the Lord; a person whose behaviors and actions are altogether separate and distinct from those of the world; a person whose actions are “absurd,” or “paradoxical.” What would this kind of faith genuinely look like if you personified it in 81 your life today? Lap 2: Background of George Müller’s Life George Müller lived by faith. When Jesus said, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well [food, clothing, and shelter] (Matthew 6:33) Müller believed it. Toward the end of his life, Müller summarized and highlighted the scope of his life’s work. Here is my paraphrase of what he said. You can find his exact words in the Epilogue of my book: God has led me to the founding of 117 schools, and in them, there have been educated 122,000 young people. Out of the 9,750 orphans that I have been enabled to receive, between 4,000–5,000 have been brought to the knowledge of the Lord. Regarding the Holy Scriptures, 279,000 Bibles, in various languages, and 1,440,000 New Testaments have been circulated to His glory. As to missionary operations, through the goodness of God, sums amounting to £258,000 [close to $40,000,000 adjusted for inflation] have been sent out to the 400–500 missionaries. God has granted me to circulate 109,000,000 books, pamphlets, and tracts. In addition to the accomplishments listed above, George and his second wife Susanna spent seventeen years traveling more than 200,000 miles across the globe— preaching and sharing their testimony with crowds of thousands. They met with dignitaries from around the world, including the Queen of England and the President of the United States. When George Müller died tragically of heart failure in 1898, thousands attended Müller's funeral, and people all around the world mourned his death. What was it that allowed him to become such a man of faith? How was he different from us? Or was his faith different from ours because he lived in a unique time and place? Why don’t we see this kind of faith exemplified in today’s world—or do we? It’s important to remember several things about George Müller’s life. First, he 82 never asked anyone for money for the orphans, the missionaries, or himself personally. And if someone asked him how much the ministry needed, he would not tell them. They were to ask God how much to give, not him. Over his lifetime, the donations to his ministries are estimated to have been between 150 to 250 million dollars in today’s currency! Second, he never enriched himself from the gospel. He never made money from his book sales. He lived a modest lifestyle. He refused to set money aside for retirement because that would mean he didn’t have faith that God would provide even in his old age. He was also very meticulous in keeping track of every donation and donor, and he published this record for all to see. He was determined to be “above reproach” in all things. Third, he claimed that he did not have any special gift of faith. Any Christian could do the same as him if they took God at his word. Müller grew up in Prussia (now a part of Germany) in the early 1800s, where the state church was Lutheran. As a young man, George was on the educational track to become a Lutheran minister which was the same essentially as a civil servant. His motivations and career goals seemed to parallel the current success-centered ideals many of us live for today. In Müller’s youth, drinking and drunkenness were a mainstay in his life. Stealing, lying, and conning other people came naturally to him. He was not exactly the kind of person you would expect to become an example of mighty faith. But he was exactly the kind of person who God often uses. You see, God had not given up on reaching Müller’s heart. As portrayed in my book (as well as in real life), George had a friend named Beta who invited George to a small group Bible study—perhaps like the one you’re in now. It 83 was there that God’s word began to take hold of Müller’s heart and life. In real life, George’s decision to become an authentic Christian came quicker than it did in my book. In my modern interpretation, it was important to emphasize the importance of taking time in the search for answers to life’s existential questions. Once George decided to put his faith in Jesus Christ as his Savior, life changed for him, but not in the sense that his life suddenly became easy. When he shared with his father his decision to become a missionary instead of a state-funded minister, George was immediately cut off from financial and familial support. His father made it clear to George that this was a complete waste of money and his life. Lap 3: Expanding the Definition of Faith Many theologians lament the fact that modern-day Christianity has been made too easy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the most vocal who coined the term “cheap grace.” Many evangelists use spiritual jargon such as “just invite Jesus into your heart,” and then they are mystified when there is no actual change or spiritual commitment in someone’s life. In the New Testament, conversion to follow Jesus was not made lightly. Rather, choosing to follow Christ was an existential choice often between life or death. Abraham had a long experience of faith in God which peaks in his sacrifice (or murder) of his promised son, Isaac. The record of Abraham’s life is found in Genesis 11- 23. It is a very interesting read, I recommend it. But Abraham’s life was not always one of faith. Twice he passed off his wife as his sister so that other Kings would not kill him and take his wife for themselves because she was very beautiful (Genesis 12 and 20). In like manner, George’s decision to read the Bible and pray daily didn’t bring total transformation in his life immediately. God began to transform Müller’s life right 84 away, but not all his bad habits and sins disappeared immediately. For example, Müller had to work hard to keep himself from lying— a habit that was second nature to him before he had faith. Yet each time he committed this offense, he felt convicted and made the difficult decision to confess it. Yet it did take a while. George never heard an audible or spiritual voice from heaven telling him what to do next. He sought out many different paths—planning more than once to do missions work for God. To Müller’s confusion, the door to each of these paths was slammed shut. Still, George was intent on serving God, and eventually he became the pastor of a small church in England. What he didn’t yet know was that God was about to use him in that role for something much bigger than he could have ever hoped or imagined at the time. There is another similarity between Abraham and George Müller. When Abraham had won a battle over a neighboring king, an ally king wanted to split the spoils of war with him. But Abraham said, “I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich’” (Genesis 14:23). Müller was meticulous about making sure it was God that got the glory. That was why he would not ask anyone for contributions. Perhaps someone would say that it was Müller’s persuasive personality. It is also why he wouldn’t go into debt. That meant he was trusting the creditor rather than God. This was also the reason he would not set up a retirement account. That would mean that he didn’t have to trust in God in his old age. Whether or not we have a retirement account is not the issue. The issue is whether we are letting God do things in our life that only the miraculous action of faith can do. Or put another way, in our own lives, do we really need God? What in our life can we say 85 that happened only because of God through our faith? We need to ask ourselves this question, not out of guilt, but out of desire to live by faith. God may be calling us to trust in Him for the provision of our physical needs as George did. Perhaps we need the miraculous in emotional, family, or physical needs. Or perhaps it is to significantly change our lifestyle in order to align with God. This mighty salvation compels a faith in Jesus that is tangibly lived out because faith is an action. And that is the faith that saves! Race # 2: The Knight of Infinite Resignation Lap 1: Introducing Kierkegaard Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and a trained Christian theologian. You may be thinking, “Why are we talking about a philosopher from Denmark who wrote a book in 1843? How is that relevant today?” But before you dismiss Kierkegaard completely, how about a line from the 1992 film, Wayne’s World? (Party on!) Wayne Campbell (played by Mike Myers), one of the lead characters from the suburban town of Aurora Illinois, says, “Was it Kierkegaard or Dick Van Patten who said, ‘If you label me, you negate me?’” It was, indeed, Kierkegaard. And if Wayne can study and quote Kierkegaard, I think we can too! Kierkegaard is considered one of the fathers of existentialism; he was concerned with “the individual, the experience of choice, and the absence of rational understanding of the universe with a consequent dread or sense of absurdity in human life.”177 And although he didn’t coin the phrase,“ leap of faith,” the 177 Blackburn, Simon. “existentialism.” In The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. : Oxford University Press, 2008. https://www-oxfordreference- com.proxy.lib.duke.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199541430.001.0001/acref-9780199541430-e-1185. 86 phrase is often attributed to him. The existential writings of Søren Kierkegaard have captivated academic philosophers and theologians for over a century. His work is unquestionably deep and complex; but it is also pragmatic, as he calls us to act on the words of God (and not merely know them in a superficial, cerebral sense). In other words, the writings of Kierkegaard call us to think deeply about faith and the Scriptures, and to act on this knowledge. In this way, Kierkegaard’s writings reinforce the teachings of Christ. Kierkegaard saw faith not as a set of doctrines, nor as a simple concept to be followed in obedience, but rather as a complex paradox. Nevertheless, he considered faith to be both definable and attainable. Abraham’s experience with the impending sacrifice of Isaac (in Gen 22, commonly known as the Akedah) exemplified Kierkegaard’s understanding of faith as a paradox. Kierkegaard defined Abraham’s faith as a “double movement.” According to Kierkegaard, Abraham accomplished two movements simultaneously and in balance which I explain later: 1) The movement of infinite resignation, and 2) the movement of faith. Kierkegaard calls the people who make these movements “knights” perhaps because when knighthood became a religious event, beginning around 1200 AD, the knight would take an oath to protect widows, orphans, and the poor. Let’s start with the movement of infinite resignation. My hope is that through this inquiry, you will begin to understand the reasons why genuine faith in God, as demonstrated by Abraham, is attainable and pleasing to God. Kierkegaard considers the 87 first movement a precondition—and a requirement—of faith, namely, the movement of infinite resignation. This movement is the act of relinquishing the things we hold dear in our lives. The best way to describe the knight of infinite resignation is to use the same example that Kierkegaard uses, which is that of a young lad who falls in love with a princess. This princess though is in a social class that is far above his and to which he will never attain. She will not stoop down to reciprocate his love. Nevertheless, the lad’s love is unconditional, and it is self-consuming of his identity. He is in love with a princess. And he has determined that this is not a phase of mere infatuation, but it is a true love on his part. The lad has thought it through and determined that his love for the Princess is real and genuine. But the story is not a fairy tale. The princess does not respond to his love. They do not marry, nor do they live happily ever after. Although his love is central to who he is, the lad eventually realizes that he will never “get the girl.” And he renounces his love for the princess in resignation. The lad abandons his love for the princess, that which was most precious to him in the finite world, and he transfers that love over to God where he gains an “eternal consciousness.” It is transformed into love for the eternal being, God. So, what was once finite is now infinite—it has transcended. Kierkegaard describes the lad now as having a “peace and repose and consolation in the pain.”178 I know this is a hard concept to follow. The lad is no longer focused on the finite, but on the infinite—God. That is where his conscience abides. That is what gives him the 178 Kirmmse, Fear and Trembling, 55. 88 peace and repose. There is a comfort and consolation in his pain because renouncing that which is most dear is painful. The knight of infinite resignation is not a stoic who does not attach feelings to anything so as to never be hurt. No, attachment is central—he or she must renounce (resign) those things that are most dear and precious to them. It is only by being strongly attached can that attachment be transformed. This movement is willed by themselves with no outside help. Kierkegaard says, “Through resignation, I renounce everything, I make this movement by myself, and if I do not make it, it is because I am cowardly and soft and without enthusiasm.”179 It is also central to the category of knight of infinite resignation that people do not need any divine intervention or assistance to accomplish this movement. They can do this by themselves in their own strength. And if they move to a monastery, they still do not have faith. “The act of resigning does not require faith, for what I gain in resignation is my eternal consciousness, and that is a purely philosophical movement which I take comfort in making when required and which I can discipline myself to do.”180 To become knights of faith they need one more movement. Lap 2: Abraham I think it well to look closer at Abraham. He is, after all, the father of three religious “faiths,” Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The Apostle Paul references Abraham a total of eight times in Romans chapter four. There he attributes to Abraham the father of our Christian faith. However, Paul does not use the Akedah as proof of Abraham’s faith. Instead, he uses the illustration of God promising to make him the 179 Kirmmse, 58. 180 Martens, Reading Kierkegaard I, 25. 89 father of many nations in Genesis fifteen. Abraham is 75 years old and childless. Nonetheless as Genesis 15:6 says, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” It is this verse that Paul applies Abraham’s faith to all who trusts in God when he says, “to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4:5).” Paul makes a similar point of Abraham’s faith in Galatians Chapter 3. It is nice and pleasant to talk about Abraham as the father of faith. He was a man who loved God to such an extreme that he was willing to sacrifice his son to prove it. But if this is our view of Abraham, we have surely misread the account. Instead of admiration should we not rather be astonished or amazed or perhaps fear would be a better outlook. For indeed was not Abraham really a murderer? We would find him despicable in today’s society. In the past there have been other individuals who have become heroes by sacrificing their children. Kierkegaard gives the examples of three of them, Agamemnon, Jephthah, and Brutus. The Greek king Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, so that the gods would provide the favorable winds for his fleet to sail against Troy. You may recall the story of Jephthah found in Judges eleven who killed his daughter to fulfill a vow made to God to ensure a victory over the Ammonites. Brutus executed his two sons who were conspiring to return Rome to a monarchy. These three individuals all became heroes even though they murdered their children. They did it for the state—the good of all the people. They were recognized in their day as individuals who relinquished those that were most dear to them. They did it for the better good of society. They became heroes for what they did. They were knights of infinite resignation—but they had 90 no faith. Abraham was no hero. He was not sacrificing/murdering his son for the better good of society. It’s clear to us as spectators that Isaac was a very important person and love in Abraham’s life. To Abraham, Isaac represented his legacy—his reason for existence. Isaac was the son God had “miraculously” given Abraham, for through Isaac God promised to make Abraham’s descendants as numerous as “the stars in the sky” and “the sand on the seashore” (Gen 22:17). Furthermore, through Isaac, God promised that all the nations would be blessed (Gen 22:18). Yet Abraham relinquished his love for Isaac to murder him. He was a knight of infinite resignation. We will pick up this theme of Abraham later, but Kierkegaard wanted us to see the gravity of what Abraham was about to do. And frankly, by now you may be asking yourself what others have asked, “What kind of God would ask a father to murder his beloved child just to test his faith? Is that a God I want to worship?” Lap 3: George Müller’s Example In the book Fear and Trembling there is point made about the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30), who if he had given all his wealth to the poor (which he didn’t), he still would not have come close to resigning anything in the same league that Abraham was called to resign, his own flesh and blood—the promised son. In my own life, I have never had to do what Abraham did. But Abraham started out with a much smaller act of faith by leaving his country for a promised land. He relinquished that which was safe, secure, and comfortable. George Müller was a knight of infinite resignation. His infinite resignation began right after his conversion when his father cut him off financially when he made the 91 decision to become a missionary. This also changed their personal relationship too. And as we follow George’s life, we see this continual resigning of things that are extremely meaningful to him. Müller is quoted as saying, “There was a day when I died, utterly died; died to George Müller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will—died to the world, its approval or censure—died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends.”181 This statement also indicates he was a knight of infinite resignation. George Müller’s brother-in-law was a successful dentist making an income about ten to fifteen times what George was making. He gave up his practice and the prestige that went with it and moved his whole family to the mission field, first in Iraq and then India. Anthony Groves was a knight of infinite resignation. Anthony’s example inspired George to make that first movement. Müller was newly married, and by the grace of God he and his wife, Mary, gave up the guaranteed income he had from his church. (I relate this in my book too). At that time, George was making 100 pounds a year (about the equivalent of $12–15,000 today). That was not much, but by managing his money diligently and carefully and without kids, it was barely a livable income for them. He took the step and resigned his salary, thereby giving up the security of a guaranteed income. He decided to rely solely on the money each church member felt called to donate—if they felt called at all, rather than depending on the guaranteed income from pew rents (Church members actually paid monthly rent for the pew they sat in. The richer people paid more to sit up front so all could see them). 181 Arthur T. Pierson, George Müller of Bristol: His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1899), 367. 92 This was an act of infinite resignation. Infinite resignation is real and tangible giving up and not just a heart attitude. Anthony Groves gave up his dental practice. Müller gave up his guaranteed salary. Kierkegaard writes much about breaking up with his fiancée, Regina Olson. They were engaged for about a year, and he broke it off in a very messy way.182 In a real way, he relinquished her. In seeking to show that even the most earnest desires or emotions don’t get someone to infinite resignation, Kierkegaard gives the illustration of a young girl who has a conviction about something with such certitude that it even ennobles her and gives her an almost “supernatural dimension” which makes even the “stones weep.” Nonetheless he says, she has not made the movement of infinite resignation. I’m reminded of the song made famous by Dionne Warwick. The lyrics go like this: “Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’—plannin’ and dreamin’ each night of his charms. That won't get you into—” infinite resignation. Wishing, hoping, thinking, praying, planning, and dreaming are not relinquishing anything, and by themselves they don’t lead to faith. There is so much more that could be said about infinite resignation, but we will save that for a future lesson. To Kierkegaard’s point, it does not take faith to be a knight of infinite resignation (he is not talking about salvation when he makes this point). Becoming a knight of faith is something we do on our own, with our own strength—and doubtless, it does take strength and courage, but not faith (faith is required for the second 182 There is much written about this, but for our discussion here my goal is to just emphasize that infinite resignation is not just thinking or a heart desire, it is a real tangible action or movement. 93 movement). Race # 3: The Virtue of the Absurd Lap 1: What is the Virtue of the Absurd? After discussing the movement of infinite resignation in the previous chapter, we’re now ready to explore the second aspect of faith. Remember that in the movement of infinite resignation the person relinquished that which they were attached to and held most dear. They resigned it and transferred that love of the person, thing, or object to the infinite/eternal God. Kierkegaard describes the movement of faith being accomplished by virtue or strength of the absurd. There are really two sides of the same coin for the absurd. It is important to understand them both. What is so absurd about faith is that we receive back that which we gave up. Abraham abnegated Isaac but through faith received him back. (See Hebrews 11:19). When you think about it, it is totally absurd to receive back something you just gave up. Why give it up in the first place? The other side of the coin of absurdity is that when we have faith, we comprehend that with God all things are possible, even the things our reason may deem as absurd. God is able to accomplish through faith those things that seem to us to be totally absurd, because with God nothing is impossible. There are two passages in Matthew that talk about God and the impossible. Both of these passages bear our reflection. In Matthew 17, the disciples were unable to cast a demon from a young boy. When they brought the boy to Jesus, He was able to cast out the demon. The disciples went to Jesus later and asked why they could not do it, but Jesus could. Jesus told them why in verse 20, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, 94 if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Again, think of the absurdity that just by faith (and not very much at that) we can move a mountain. In Matthew 19 we see the rich young ruler who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. After a brief conversation Jesus said to sell all his possessions and follow him. He could not relinquish his fortune and become a knight of infinite resignation. Jesus then tells the disciples how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus replied something that has stuck in our language for over two thousand years, he said “it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God (Matthews 19:20).” The disciples were perplexed and asked, “Who then can be saved?” And it is here that Jesus points out the absurdity found in faith. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).” Let’s dwell on this question a bit more, “Who then can be saved?” We must clearly understand that it is impossible to do any deed, no matter how wonderful, that would motivate God to save us. Even if we were a knight of infinite resignation and had given up our greatest love and transcended that love to the almighty God, we still would not be saved. We need that second movement by virtue of the absurd because “without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).” Kierkegaard takes another look at the rich young ruler which is worthwhile for us to consider too. “That rich young man should have given away everything by virtue of resignation; then the knight of faith should have said to him: ‘By virtue of the absurd, you 95 will regain every penny, you can believe that!’”183 Lap 2: Abraham in the Absurd As we read the ancient story of Abraham, many of us may see God’s command for him to sacrifice his son Isaac as ludicrous—as we should. The fact that Abraham would even entertain the idea of killing his beloved son may strike us as illogical, or even as insane! I’m sure you’ve asked yourself at least once just why did God ask Abraham to do this gut-wrenching perverse act. However, by asking this question, you completely miss the point of the story! God is not on trial in Genesis 22. The sacrifice itself isn’t even the focus of the passage. This story has little to do with God’s intentions and everything to do with Abraham’s faith! Abraham was not naïve to the vast promises God had made to him, nor was he ignorant of what God required him to do in faith. Abraham grasped the full gravity, the complete cost, and the irreversible impact of what was being asked of him in his test of faith. Yet, despite all of this, Abraham chose to trust God and to take Him at His word, namely that it was through Isaac that all the nations would be blessed, and his decedents would be like the sand on the sea and the stars in heaven. Abraham was told to literally sacrifice the one person he loved deeply and from Abraham’s perspective destroy the only thing that could fulfill the impossible promises God had made to him. With these certainties surely at the forefront of Abraham’s mind, he chose to live out his faith in 183 Kirmmse, 59. 96 active obedience to God regardless of the cost. Kierkegaard expounds upon the story of Abraham, saying: But a paradoxical and humble courage is required in order then to grasp the whole of temporality by virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith. It was not through faith that Abraham renounced Isaac, but it was through faith that Abraham received Isaac. 184 Let’s recap what Kierkegaard is saying. Abraham did not have faith to sacrifice Isaac, he could and was going to do that on his own. It was through the absurdity of faith that he received him back. The absurdity of Abraham’s faith was that he believed he would get Isaac back after the sacrifice. We know this to be true because the author of Hebrews tells us, “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death (Hebrews 11:19).” You see, the absurdity is that the things we give up in our own strength in faith will be returned to us later by faith because of the goodness of God. This truth is rooted in the teaching of Christ. Lap 3: Talk About Being Absurd Strange, isn’t it? The very thing we give up we get back. We can also sense the tension between believing in the absurd and living by faith throughout the Müllers’ early ministry. George and Mary sensed God calling them to start an orphanage, build a school, and support missionaries. But here was the kicker—they had no money, no resources, and no support behind them. After giving up their ministry salary, the Müllers had nothing in 184 Kirmmse, 58-9. 97 the way of finances to suggest they would be able to accomplish these goals. They trusted in their calling from God so much, however, that they began to plan, build, and make arrangements as though God had already provided them with the necessary resources. And so, with next to nothing, George and Mary marched ahead as though they had everything they needed. In fact, they did have everything they needed, yet only in a profoundly paradoxical, absurd kind of way. The following story—which is one of my favorites—illustrates George Müller’s faith in the absurd provision of God. One morning George woke to find the orphanage cupboards completely bare. The children were getting ready for breakfast, oblivious to the issue at hand, while the chefs panicked over what they should do. “Have the children sit at the tables as usual,” George said to the cooks. “I will say grace for the breakfast God will provide.” Soon after praying and giving thanks, there was a knock at the door. George opened it to reveal the local baker. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” the baker blurted out. “I felt such a burden in my heart to bake this bread for the children.” The chefs looked at each other in amazement. A short while later came another unexpected knock. This time it was the milkman. His truck had broken down in front of the orphanage and he asked to leave all the milk for the children before it spoiled in the heat. What an enigma! How absurd! A vacant kitchen, hungry bellies, and empty plates—and George gave thanks for a breakfast that wasn’t there. Friends, when the movement of infinite resignation meets the movement of faith in the God of the absurd, it leads to “faith-in-action.” This is the kind of faith that can deliver food and nourishment to children, indeed, a faith that can do much more than that! George truly believed Jesus when He said, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be 98 given to you as well (Matt 6:33).” You are probably familiar with courses and the myriad number of books that promote ways to help you get out of debt. The basic premise is that having personal debt is a bad/non-Christian situation. And there are Bible verses that would suggest that is true. One such verse is in Romans 13:8 which says in the King James Version “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another.” The New International Version is slightly different, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.” These courses/books have one thing in common, they show you how to cut your expenses so that you can pay off your debt. They show you how to spend less money. And this is not a negative thing—it may even be necessary, but it also has nothing to do with faith. It is probably a good thing to relinquish the love that we have for worldly things and transfer that love to God. But that is not faith. George Müller’s approach was totally absurd—trust God to supply more money instead of cutting your expenses. He literally writes about the example of visiting one of his church members and asking him why he was not spending more time in prayer, Bible study, and church. The man answered that he had to work too many hours that when he could finally go home, he had no energy to read God’s word, or pray, or go to church. If truth be told, this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Müller responded with Matthew 6:31-34 to the man. Müller’s response was too absurd—trust God for more income. But the man couldn’t make the movement of faith. 99 George quoted: So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. How absurd to seek God’s kingdom and righteousness first and then all the material things will be given to us. Maybe so, but that is the how faith works—by strength of the absurd. Race # 4: The Knight of Faith Lap 1: The Paradox of Faith In this chapter we will explore more the nature of faith. We have already seen that a prerequisite to faith is infinite resignation. And we have seen that we move into faith by virtue of the absurd. There is one more characteristic that Kierkegaard uses to describe faith and it is a paradox, or more precisely it is an “enormous paradox.” He says that faith “is capable of turning a murder into a holy act that is well-pleasing to God, a paradox that restores Isaac to Abraham, which no thinking can master, because faith begins precisely at the point where thinking leaves off.”185 Such a faith is not an emotional activity. Nor is it something that we can conjure up by ourselves. We cannot wish or will it into being either. Our emotion or will is what 185 Kirmmse, 64. 100 Kierkegaard and other philosophers categorize as “aesthetics.” It is something a single individual “feels” which may be pain, sorrow, pleasure, or joy. These are inner emotions which don’t require a language. For example, just try to explain with words the love you have for another person. Words are never adequate. “Aesthetics” is in contrast to the “ethical” which relates to morality and the mutual obligations humans universally have toward each other in a community. We commonly call this culture or society. The “ethical” has a shared medium of language which is directed either toward self or others. Kierkegaard adds another dimension or realm besides aesthetics and ethical and that is the “religious.” The religious can be either toward God or demonic. I bring up these three categories (aesthetics, ethical, and religious) to be able to understand more fully the paradox of faith. In the opening paragraph I said that faith is capable of turning a murder into a holy act that is well-pleasing to God. Kierkegaard goes onto say, “Faith, indeed, is this paradox: that the single individual is higher than the universal.”186 Let’s think about that for a moment. In real life, the single individual is never higher than the universal. For example, if I go to a bank to make a deposit and there is a long line, I wait my turn because within society I have mutual obligations with the other patrons of the bank, e.g., they won’t go to the front of the line when I am the next customer to be served. There are protocols for the way our society interacts with each other. We don’t have the right to murder people we don’t like. There are laws and protocols that we abide by in order to live peacefully in the society, so no one will murder 186 Kirmmse, 66. 101 us. We submit our own wills and actions to the good of the entire community. “Kierkegaard sees this stage… [as] obedience to an absolute moral law. [T]he moral law is universal, an obligation to do what is right for all men, refusing to follow one’s individual inclination.”187 But faith is different. With faith, we are the “single individual.” We remove ourselves from the community (the universal or ethical) and stand outside of it or better said, above it. That’s the paradox about faith. That is what Abraham did. Within the ethical/universal there was no way he could justify murdering his son. If he did murder his son (without faith) he would have been a sinner and criminal before God and a disgusting human being within his own tribe. And before you say, “Yes, but…” remember that by faith what he relinquished he would receive back. And he knew he would receive Isaac back. He knew it because Abraham had faith. We know he knew it because the book of Hebrews records that he knew it. “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death (11:19).” Lap 2: Don’t Tell Anyone In community, or the “ethical” as Kierkegaard defines it, we have language to mediate and communicate between each other. But in the aesthetic, which is the single individual according to Kierkegaard, there is no language and no mediation. Faith is that paradox that the single individual is above or greater than the universal or “ethical.” That 187 John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: PetR Publishing, 2015), 316. 102 is why Abraham on his three-to-four-day trip to the top of Mt. Moriah says nothing. He has not told Sarah his wife why he is going, nor any of his servants. The only communication he has with Isaac is a little semantic deception about why they didn’t bring with them the lamb to sacrifice. Abraham’s only words were, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Kierkegaard says, “Faith is this paradox, and the single individual is absolutely unable to make himself understood by anyone.”188 Jesus puts it so well in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven (Mat 6:1).” In Chapter six, Jesus is speaking about three things of faith, providing for the needy (1-6), prayer (5-14), and fasting (16-18). He says to tell no one what you are doing. Go into a closet and pray where no one will know you are praying. Jesus said not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing when you help others. Why? Because faith has no language to communicate with others. It is in the realm above the universal that there is language/communication. That is the paradox. If you communicate, then you are showing you are not a “single individual” standing outside of society. And if you are not communicating only with God, then there is no faith involved. Let's think back again to Abraham. Let's assume that he could speak. What would he say that would be accepted? If he told Sarah that he was going to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice Isaac, would she have blessed him? No! She would have cursed him. Would Isaac even have traveled with him for the three days? No! Abraham had no language. 188 Kirmmse, 86. 103 Faith was only between himself and God. I am sure this discussion may have caused some confusion in your mind because we tend to make our faith so very public. We don’t pray in our closet; we try to gather multitudes around us (Mat 18:20). We watch TV and see throngs of people being “healed” by faith. We take prayer requests at church and pray for people and things. Instead of giving an answer to these questions I ask you to think about moments of faith in your own life. My greatest times of faith have simply been between myself and God with no communication with anyone else. If those have not been your times also, keep studying faith. On the other hand, once my faith has been proven, I can hardly stop talking about it, both to God and others. This is the witness to faith. This is what we shout from the rooftops. This is the bonfire on a hill that we light. Lap 3: George Didn’t Tell Kierkegaard said, “faith begins precisely at the point where thinking leaves off.” Well, if anyone heard George Müller was going to start an orphanage where he would not have any subscriptions, nor would he ask anyone for money, they surely would have said that he lost his mind! But that is where faith begins—when we lose our rational expectations. Faith is what George Müller had. Talk about a paradox! I need to make a stronger point on this fact that Müller did not ask anyone for money to feed or care for the children (or for his own personal needs either). Here is what he said in his own words, “the first and primary object of the work was (and still is), that God might be magnified by the fact, that the Orphans under my care are provided with all they need, only by prayer and faith, without any one being asked by me or my fellow- 104 labourers, whereby it may be seen, that God is FAITHFUL STILL, and HEARS PRAYER STILL.” (See 1 Peter 5:7, Philippians 4:6, Matthew 6:25–34) And that is exactly what happened. Never once did George Müller directly or even indirectly ask anyone for money.189 There were several other indications about the paradox of faith for Müller. First, he refused to go into debt or be indebted to any vendor. Several of the vendors he bought from didn’t want to be paid each time they brought provisions, but George insisted that they be paid each time, just in case there was no money at the end of the week or month. So frequently they had nothing and only received provisions by prayer of faith. All the money for the buildings (five in all) was in hand before they started construction, they only spent what they had, never borrowing. And Müller took this attitude because he felt taking on debt was proof that there was no faith—and he lived by faith alone. There was an instance when a man asked him how much he needed that day/week for the orphans. But George wouldn’t tell him. He told the man to ask God how much he should give. If he told the man, it wouldn’t be of faith. By the way, God did speak to the man and the need at the orphanage was averted. On another occasion when the funds were exhausted at the orphanage Müller held off printing the annual report lest it would appear that he was using the report to solicit funds. Once God had supplied their needs, he then printed the report. There is no language for faith, as Kierkegaard said “Faith, indeed, is this paradox: that the single 189 Note, it was announced that he was building another building from time to time, but never was a solicitation attached to it. 105 individual is higher than the universal.”190 Müller talked about trusting God in older age. At his time, he noticed that older people were trusting God less for their needs. He assumed that when you are older, you will have had many experiences of faith where you observed God providing for you while you were younger and that it would continue into old age. But instead, he found that many older people were more worried and anxious as they grew older. He said that should not be. A group of Christians who loved George Müller set about to provide a retirement account for him when he got older. He refused it. He said that if he allowed that he would not be trusting God for his daily needs. Another interesting thing about George Müller is that for most of the early stage of the orphanage ministry he prayed by himself and didn’t share prayer requests. It was his faith that was sufficient for God to answer. There was no more power in a roomful than the power of faith in the closet. Later on, he did share with a few more people including the staff at the orphanage so that they could witness the power of God also and praise Him. During the time Müller was praying for a need at the orphanage he was silent like Abraham climbing Mt. Moriah. But once God provided, he wasn’t shy about letting others know. My guess is that as Abraham and Isaac descended the mount, they both talked non-stop. “Did you see the angel?” “Yes, and …” George Müller wanted to live solely by faith so that other Christians would be encouraged to do the same. He even published a report of every donation that came into his ministry. He listed the amount, the 190 Kirmmse, 66. 106 date, the donor (usually by initials), and sometimes even the circumstances. But that was after the result of his faith. Race # 5: The Leap to Faith Lap 1: What is the Leap? The phrase “leap of faith” has made its way into our modern vernacular and is sometimes attributed to Kierkegaard, even though he never used the exact phrase. Kierkegaard actually used the idea of “leap” to describe the development of faith, which is not the same as blindly jumping into the abyss. The words “leap” and “faith” do belong together but are not connected by the preposition “of.” There is indeed a “faith leap,” but not in a blind, ignorant way. Kierkegaard uses the illustration of a dancer, no doubt a ballet dancer, to describe the leap. I know so very little about ballet, so I am going to substitute Simone Biles for the ballet dancer. Perhaps, I know even less about the triple-twisting double-tucked somersault on the floor exercise,191 but the image is so seared into our minds it will work. As Simone is on the exercise mat (watch the YouTube link in the footnote), she raises her arms and begins a short dance, she then runs and leaps into the air, does her twists and somersaults, and lands again on the mat, extends her arms, and performs another short dance. It looks so easy. Maybe we should try it too. But it is exactly this “dance/leap” that Kierkegaard uses to make the distinction between the knight of infinite resignation and the knight of faith. After going through all the motions, the knight of infinite resignation falls and is not able to land on his or her 191 NBC Sports, “Simone Biles flies right off floor surface during qualifying routine | Tokyo Olympics,” June 26, 2021, video of performance, 4:09, https://youtu.be/HG6hsTTLWMg 107 feet. They look clumsy and ill at ease. However, the knight of faith goes through the same triple and double, lands on their feet, and continue the dance, as if it were as natural as a walk in the park. Kierkegaard put it this way, “He (the dancer) infinitely resigned everything, and then he grasped it again by virtue of the absurd.”192 That leap is to faith. Faith gives us that which we infinitely resigned, we grasp it back. And when we grasp that which we infinitely resigned we land on our feet and continue the dance. Kierkegaard does not say much about that moment of transition between being on the ground and being in the air. He did say though that the leap is not a matter of quantity but of quality. By that he means that the leap to faith is not a gradual accumulation of facts or information, but that in the leap you leave one genre and land on another genre. In other words, unbelief does not somehow transform itself to faith. There is a leap in which unbelief is left behind and life is transformed when we land on faith. It may be hard to explain what happens in the moment in which we make the leap. You may have consciously experienced that moment of transition; I know I have. So, I know it exists, but perhaps it is unexplainable. Just because the leap to faith is hard to describe and codify, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or that it is ineffective. Take love for example. Some people describe meeting a spouse and saying, “It was love at first sight!” That leap to love compelled them to marry, have children and grandchildren, grow old together, and so on. For others it may take a bit longer to “fall in love” but when they do, a whole series of events take 192 Kirmmse, 49. 108 place that radically changes their lives. Let us continue with the Simone Biles illustration. The first time Simone did a somersault, she did it the same way I would have done it in my youth. She did it with the help of a person who stood there and aided her body so that she did not land on her head and be permanently injured. Let us assume that the person’s name was Grace. Grace is there for us as we begin the leap into the air, entering an unnatural environment for us. It took courage for both Simone and for me. It was scary as we left the earth. But Grace was there to guide us, protect us, and correct us from any errors we were making in our leap. And because of Grace, we landed on our feet. Everyone noticed the joy on our face and the exhilaration in our soul. It was wonderful, amazing, fabulous. We immediately wanted to do it again. Soon, it was totally natural. We forgot that Grace was there, even though she never left us alone. We walked around after that with confidence, knowing that we had grasped something out of this world, even divine. Lap 2: Take the Leap There is one amazing and crystal-clear description in the gospels about taking the leap to faith. It is the account of the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had sent the disciples ahead while he went to pray. After a while the winds came and created a storm that gave them fear and anxiety. Then they look up and see Jesus walking on the lake. Naturally they couldn’t believe their eyes thinking they were actually seeing a ghost. But Jesus yelled to them, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid (Mat 14:27).” Here Jesus is repeating a common refrain in the Word of God: Fear not! Peter took the lead and saying, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the 109 water (14:28).” Jesus said, “Come (14:28).” This is where the “leap” takes place. Peter is standing on the floor of the boat. It is designed and built by man to float. He leaves that physical dimension and obeys Jesus’ command to “come.” He literally gets out of the boat and begins to walk on the water to Jesus. That is the leap to faith (or the movement of faith). That is the impossible. That is the virtue of the absurd. I mean, who walks on water? The person of faith leaps from the boat and walks on the water to Jesus. But then the things of the world got in the way. Peter took his eyes off Jesus and looked around and saw the wind. It was at that point that he no longer believed. And he began to sink into the sea. Then he cried out, “Lord, save me!” (14:30). Jesus reached out and pulled him out of the water. Abraham’s leap was a bit different. From the time God told him to sacrifice his promised son as a burnt offering he had faith. He took the leap immediately. For four days he had faith climbing up Mt. Moriah. Theoretically God could have said to him at any time, “Abraham, you have passed the test.” But God didn’t stop him. Maybe God could have stopped him while he was making the altar or putting the wood for the burnt offering on the alter, or maybe as he restrains Isaac and places him on the alter. But no, it wasn’t until he made that final leap, drew the sword, and lifted it above his head to thrust into Isaac’s heart. Peter sank into the lake, but Abraham became the father of faith. When Peter cried out to be rescued, Matthew tells us, “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?’” Little faith! Interesting, he didn’t say no faith, just little faith. So apparently faith does grow. 110 We saw how Peter’s faith grew. Abraham’s faith grew too. We tend to forget the two accounts of Abraham where he also had no faith because he looked at his circumstances and decided not to trust God in his promises. They are found in Genesis 12 and 20. On these two occasions Abraham passes his wife Sarah off as his sister to let a foreign king do what he wanted to her, so that he would not be killed. Not much of a leap there. Lap 3: It Didn’t Bother George In Chapter 21 of my book, Let the Children Come, I tell the story about the time a windstorm came and blew off shingles and part of the roof on the academy building. It exposed the children to harm. Because the storm covered a large area in the community, they were not able to get any workers for two nights and three days. And yet another storm was on the way the next day. The children would not be safe if the storm continued—the predictions were that it was intensifying. I realize that not every prayer for safety ends in some glorious provision. Christians do die from church shootings, tornados, and other natural and freak disasters. But there are times when God does intervene and override nature. George Müller was reminded of the story in the Bible about Elijah praying that it would not rain. Because of Elijah’s prayer it did not rain for three and a half years. James 5:16-18 says this, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.” Well, George was a righteous man also, and he prayed that for just three and a half days that it would not rain. God heard his prayer and answered it. We have two choices. We can doubt like Peter did after he began to walk on 111 the water. Or we can believe even when the storm clouds are all around us. To continue the metaphor of Peter and George, when Jesus and Peter got into the boat the winds stilled and the sea became calm. The winds also calmed when Jesus and George got together. Both George and Elijah’s prayers were effective they were seldom about themselves. George Müller was never out to enrich himself from preaching the Word of God. There was no trickery in his faith. He wanted safety and benefit for the children. We must remember that a leap is a movement. This is what Kierkegaard meant when he talked about the leap. It was a total continuous movement, like a dance is a movement—from one step into another. Simone Bile’s leap is a continuous movement as soon as she leaves the mat. What am I saying? Faith is not thinking, hoping, and praying. It is getting out of the boat. It is leaving the mat. It is sticking out your hand, moving forward, and grasping the hand of God. 112