Godly Diversions and Gifted Teachers: Learning Joyful Stewardship from the Birds and the Lilies with Søren Kierkegaard

Abstract

In Matthew 6 and Luke 12, Christ instructs his listeners to consider the “birds of the air” and “lilies of the field.” For Martin Luther, this instruction essentially amounts to a reprimand: as human beings are naturally dominant over non-rational animals, Christ’s instruction to learn from these creatures is intended to elicit guilt and shame. Against this backdrop, I explore a fundamentally different interpretation in Søren Kierkegaard’s “Godly,” “Upbuilding,” and “Christian” discourses with normative implications for humanity’s reciprocity with other animals.