Jason A. Mahn

Jason A. Mahn is Professor of Religion, Director of the Presidential Center for Faith and Learning, and the Conrad Bergendoff Professor in the Humanities at Augustana College. He is the author of Fortunate Fallibility: Kierkegaard and the Power of Sin (Oxford University Press, 2011); Becoming a Christian in Christendom: Radical Discipleship and the Way of the Cross in America’s “Christian” Culture (Fortress, 2016); and Neighbor Love through Fearful Days: Finding Purpose and Meaning in a Time of Crisis (Fortress, 2021).

Article

Purpose and Meaning in a Time of Crisis

Volume 1 | June 6, 2022

Jason A. Mahn, Author

Theme: Pedagogy, Suffering and Death, Vocation

Discipline: Religious Studies, Theology

In his profound and troubling book, Fear and Trembling, the Danish religious writer Søren Kierkegaard remythologizes the story of the binding of Isaac from Genesis 22. I say “remythologizes” rather than “analyzes” or “understands” because Kierkegaard takes pains to attend to all the unthinkable components of the story—to the narrative elements that resist translation into takeaway ethical lessons or airtight conceptual categories.