ABSTRACT
Bradley R. Dewey’s book, The New Obedience: Kierkegaard on Imitating Christ , was published by Corpus Books in 1968. The Foreword is written by his mentor at Yale Divinity School, Paul L. Holmer. He completed the book while a professor at Franklin and Marshall College, where an award for outstanding scholarship bears his name. Previously, little had been published in the United States on Kierkegaard’s Christian thought. For this reason, Dewey’s work contributed significantly to Kierkegaard studies at the time. The book is for both scholars and general readers interested in what it means to follow Christ in a contemporary context. As Kierkegaard emphasizes imitation so strongly, the title of Christian is reserved for those who willingly face the “terror of the demands.” Kierkegaard’s Christian imitation maintains the tension between joy and suffering, attraction and repulsion, almost till it breaks.
