Using Illusions to Destroy the Illusion of Counterfeit Christianity – the Aesthetic and Religious in Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author
by Sabrina Dawkins
In the Introduction of The Point of View for My Work as An Author, Kierkegaard (1962) explained, “the whole of my work as an author is related to Christianity, to the problem ‘of becoming a Christian,’ with a direct or indirect polemic against the monstrous illusion we call Christendom, or against the illusion that in such a land as ours, all are Christians of a sort” (pp. 5–6).
I was raised in a Christian church: I thought I was a Christian. Therefore, when I rejected Christianity because it did not answer my questions adequately and could not cure me of my animal nature, I thought I had rejected actual Christianity.
I remember sitting in the pastor’s office, interviewing him for a high school assignment. I asked him, “Who wrote the Bible?” His answer was “men led by the Holy Spirit.” A smile was frozen on his face as he gave the seemingly canned response. At the time, that answer did not satisfy me. In fact, it seemed empty and disingenuous. I had been passively raised in a segment of American Christendom: the black Baptist church. Each Sunday, I heard a sermon, good music, and often attended Sunday school. One problem was that the books of the Bible were not taught in order. At no time was I told to read the Bible from cover to cover; instead, I became a “true Christian” upon being dunked underwater by the pastor. However, I felt no different afterward: I continued to struggle with sin; and the Bible continued to be confusing—after all, I was only given random bits and pieces of it. Church was just a weekly routine, and I was a “Christian” because I was born into a culture of Christianity—it being the most popular religion in America.
I was 17 when I moved two hours away to attend college. There, I was freed from the weekly routine of waking up early every Sunday morning to attend church. And there was a vast library on campus in which I could get answers to my philosophical questions, or so I thought. I searched the books for answers and became an atheist. As an upperclassman, however, I leaned more toward New Age spirituality.
I continued my search for knowledge in graduate school, going to Barnes & Noble to buy novels, New Age books, African-American history books, supposedly channeled books, and philosophy books.
Kierkegaard’s goal was to reach those trapped in Christendom who believed they were Christians, but were not. I had already abandoned what I thought was Christianity when I came across Soren Kierkegaard on that Barnes & Noble bookshelf. So, instead of taking away my illusion that I was a Christian, he gave me a representation of what true Christianity was, and his intelligence impressed me. I would not have found him if he had been shelved in the Christian section of the bookstore because I was not a Christian; his books were in the philosophy section. I also bought Fyodor Dostoevsky books at Barnes & Noble, only because an atheist philosopher I had studied mentioned him as an influence.
Kierkegaard (1962) said that “an illusion is not an easy thing to dispel,” and that it “can never be destroyed directly, and only by indirect means can it be radically removed” (p. 24) because “a direct attack only strengthens a person in his illusion, and at the same time embitters him” (p. 25). My illusion was the counterfeit Christianity I had received and rejected. I thought that the Christianity I had left behind when I went off to college was the real version of Christianity; therefore, there was no reason for me to circle back to a belief system I had already rejected. Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky cracked that door open again that I had closed on Christianity. It would be several years before I started studying Christianity seriously, but Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky were the dormant seed, along with Nat Turner and Malcolm X. I also came across Nat Turner during that time in graduate school while writing my thesis; I remember trying to downplay his Christianity in reflecting on his heroic effort to free the slaves.
Kierkegaard spoke with the voice of a philosopher, and Dostoevsky produced atheistic and nihilistic characters so accurately that it was as if he had access to my thoughts while he wrote. The illusion that had been pulled over my eyes was the counterfeit Christianity, the Christendom that I had been inundated with from a young age. And Kierkegaard (1962) found that an illusion could not be conquered by the truth—but by another illusion. According to Kierkegaard (1962), it would have been different had I been “an empty vessel which [was] to be filled or a blank sheet of paper upon which something [was] to be written” (Kierkegaard 1962, p. 40)—then I could have been taught the truth plainly. But because I had already been filled with false information, that false information had to be carefully taken away before I would even be able to consider the truth.
God reached me by taking on the voice of a fiction writer and a philosopher. I had rejected Christianity and was looking to philosophers and New Age thinkers to potentially enlighten me. He even employed the voices of fictional characters on TV and in books to nudge me toward the Christianity I thought I had rightly rejected. I saw a mirror of my pitiful atheistic self in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and the fate that awaited me on that path. Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment revealed to me the mind of the person who rejects God. And I saw a smart philosopher who sprinkled in a little Christianity—but not too much—in Kierkegaard. I was dazzled by Kierkegaard’s poetic philosophical writings and Dostoevsky’s fictional characters—these illusions helped to weaken my counterfeit Christianity illusion.
Because I had chosen to read philosophy, New Age books, and fiction, God made appearances therein, sprinkling in Christianity and the realistic fate of the nonbeliever. I remember watching the Lost TV series and witnessing the deceptive behavior of the Devil, depicted by a character named Jacob. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard and Notes from Underground and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky were also briefly shown in the TV series, after I had already been introduced to the writers. Maybe the appearances of the books were meant to be subconscious nudges to remind me of a more Christian illusion, because I was not even thinking about reading the Bible at that time, despite having read Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nat Turner. I did not even realize Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky were mentioned in the series until a few years ago, in rewatching some of the shows. Like a child, I gravitated toward aesthetics: shiny objects that pleased my senses. I loved to figure out the word puzzles that various clever philosophers (all but Kierkegaard were godless) created. I liked TV shows and movies that were entertaining and godless, pernicious music that sounded good. The only way to sneak Christianity to me was to put some of it in the junk I was consuming.
Kierkegaard (1962) said “that if real success is to attend the effort to bring a man to a definite position, one must first of all take pains to find him where he is and begin there”; he explained, “In order to help another effectively, I must understand more than he—yet first of all, surely I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him” (p. 27). God found me in the muck of filthy modern culture and entertainment and drip-fed me in my stupor. “If you can do that, if you can find exactly the place where the other is and begin there, you may perhaps have the luck to lead him to the place where you are” (Kierkegaard, 1962, p. 29). In my case, God used the aesthetics that I was interested in to introduce true religion, which I had not known: “How may this illusion be dispelled? … by the simultaneous achievement of aesthetic and religious production” (Kierkegaard, 1962, p. 31), hence God’s reliance on television, fiction, and philosophy to introduce bits of biblical truths. Kierkegaard (1962) said that “one begins thus: Let us talk about aesthetics. The deception consists in the fact that one talks thus merely to get to the religious theme” (p. 41). Concerning his own work, Kierkegaard (1962) said, “The whole of the aesthetic work, viewed in relation to the work as a whole, is a deception” (p. 39). Furthermore, “One can deceive a person into the truth. Indeed, it is only by this means, i.e. by deceiving him, that it is possible to bring into the truth one who is in an illusion” (Kierkegaard, 1962, pp. 39–40).
My change was not right away. I held these small nuggets of truth in my mind for years before I was born again at age 30, while relatively isolated from other people and seemingly shortly after a dream which showed me similarities between myself and one of Dostoevsky’s godless characters. I had been considering Kierkegaard again as well shortly before being born again. Only God can bring a person to spiritual life, but his messengers can explain to people why their way is wrong and that they are in need of new life. Kierkegaard (1962) explained, “In all eternity it is impossible for me to compel a person to accept an opinion, conviction, a belief. But one thing I can do: I can compel him to take notice” (p. 35). When I was around 11 years old, I remember watching the 1992 film Malcolm X and hearing Denzel Washington (who played Malcolm) saying in the prison debate with the priest that Jesus was not white (despite him being depicted as such in American Christendom).
Malcolm X was the “caustic fluid” (Kierkegaard, 1962, p. 40) used to help reveal the text underneath the counterfeit Christian Catholic Church text and interpretation of the Bible—with its white depictions of the Messiah and its pagan holidays. Kierkegaard (1962) explained his method of deceiving the deceived in order to remove the illusion thus: “Assuming then that a person is the victim of an illusion, and that in order to communicate the truth to him the first task, rightly understood, is to remove the illusion—if I do not begin by deceiving him, I just begin with direct communication. But direct communication presupposes that the receiver’s ability to receive is undisturbed. But here such is not the case; an illusion stands in the way. That is to say, one must first of all use the caustic fluid” (p. 40). At age 11, to me, Malcolm X was Denzel Washington, a famous, attractive, and likeable celebrity on the screen—aesthetic appeal. The movie was fiction—aesthetic appeal. The nugget of truth and religion that was slipped into a fiction film about a famous black Muslim was that I did not know the Messiah I thought I had known.
It is not hard for God to sneak truth into fiction, facts into illusions, and the religious into the aesthetic work: “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27). An example of God’s immense power can be seen in Gideon’s victory: “And it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said unto him, Arise, get thee down unto the host; for I have delivered it into thine hand” (Judges 7:9). “And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host…” (Judges 7:11). “And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host. And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian” (Judges 7:12–15).
For the above to have worked, God had to give the dream to the man, make sure the man told the dream right when Gideon arrived, and make sure the interpreter had the immediate interpretation while Gideon was still there spying. Likewise, it is not difficult for God to inspire authors, philosophers, and filmmakers—even the most popular ones—in order to introduce truth into illusions.
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Malcolm X film on Gruv: https://www.jdoqocy.com/click-101832173-15735954?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgruv.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dmalcolm%2520x
Soren Kierkegaard on Books-A-Million: https://www.jdoqocy.com/click-101832173-42121?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booksamillion.com%2Fsearch%3Fquery%3Dsoren%2Bkierkegaard
Fyodor Dostoevsky / Dostoyevsky on Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/126317/9781250788450
References
Bible Hub: Online Bible Study Suite. (n.d.). https://biblehub.com/
Dictionary.com. (1995, May 14). Meanings & definitions of English words | Dictionary.com. Retrieved July 31, 2026, from https://www.dictionary.com/
Kierkegaard, S. (1962). The point of view for my work as an author: A report to history, and related writings (B. Nelson, Ed.; W. Lowrie, Trans.). Harper & Row.
Lee, S. (Director). (1992). Malcolm X [Digital movie]. Warner Bros. https://www.amazon.com/Malcolm-X-Denzel-Washington/dp/B0097JUG86/