ABSTRACT
One of the most significant discussion partners for Søren Kierkegaard was Bishop Jakob Peter Mynster (1775-1854). Mynster was the central figure in the church in Denmark in the middle of the nineteenth century. He was the architect behind the transformation from the State Church to the People’s Church and thus left his stamp on the Danish People’s Church. The same is true of his reconciliatory theology. Mynster had a central place in the church in his opposition to rationalism, which was his real intellectual challenge. On the other side stood the Pietistic pastors and preachers, who together with the pastor N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872), constituted a threat to the church’s institutional unity and existence. From his childhood home Mynster was vaccinated against Pietism, which his stepfather had given him a strained introduction to. Mynster’s theology strived for a consensus, which sought to contain both rationalists and pietists within the framework of the church. It is the thesis of this article that Kierkegaard attempts, throughout his authorship, to direct a criticism against this consensus.
