Human First and then Christian: Grundtvig’s Anthropology as a Pluralist Alternative

In this article, I would like to suggest that the anthropological proposal of Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, the famous nineteenth-century Danish author, offers a model that maintains and affirms religious diversity, recognizing its place in the life of the community, but without having to resort to the separation of the religious and the public, the typical response of liberalism that has been generally adopted in the modern world. Grundtvig’s proposal – an ordained pastor of the Danish Church, but deeply influenced by English liberal ideas – represents an intriguing middle ground between secularization and pluralism. He understood that, in the new modern world, it was necessary to recognize not only the members of the official Church, but also the practitioners of other religions and even non-believers. The voice of the Church was just one among many. However, he also resisted excluding religion from public life, as is the case in traditional secularism.