Why This Text Matters | Fear and Trembling | William Schweiker

Religious studies courses can feature a broad range and variety of texts, including anything from The Daodejing, to The Mishnah, to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, to Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger, to Said’s Orientalism. The Marty Center partnered with the Undergraduate Religious Studies Program to design “Why This Text Matters” as a series of videos to help faculty prepare for courses, their students, and anyone generally curious about important texts in the study of religion. In the space of about 30 minutes, viewers can gain a deeper understanding of the context, themes, and significance of texts taught by experts at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
About the Text: In this video, I seek to introduce one of the most profound inquiries in Western thought into the relation between religious faith and morality. Soren Kierkegaard's work Fear and Trembling examines the figure of Abraham, the supposed Father of faith, in light of God's command to sacrifice his son, Isaac (Genesis 22:1-14). With searing analysis, at times poetic and at others philosophical, the text confronts each of us with the deepest questions about existence in our relation to the sacred and to ourselves and others. No better modern guide to the nagging questions of life can be found than the texts of Kierkegaard.