Kaj Munk, Courageous Saint
In 1982, I was developing a new course for North Park College called Scandinavian Cinema. During research to develop a list of films to be shown to the class, I came across a Danish film directed by Carl Dreyer, Ordet, [The Word] based on the play by Kaj Munk. While reading about the film, Dreyer, and Munk, I soon became more interested in Munk than in Dreyer.
Kaj Munk was a priest in the Church of Denmark, a poet, a dramatist, and a newspaper columnist during the Nazi occupation of Denmark He served one of the smallest parishes in Denmark, Vederso, near the sand dunes of the North Sea coast of Jutland. It would have been easy for Pastor Munk to live quietly and safely during the German occupation. Resistance was not expected from such an out of the way parish. But from the pulpit of this small church, the congregation was urged to throw off the oppressive yoke of Nazi occupation and to refuse to accept the racial hatred of the Nazi philosophy. It would have been easy to remain quiet. From his pulpit and the study in his home, Kaj Munk answered Christ's call, "Follow me." In sermons, poetry, plays, and newspaper articles, Munk advocated faith in God, love for all humankind, and a rejection of the spiritual and physical subjugation of Hitler's evil regime.
My wife and I visited Denmark in search of Kaj Munk We arrived in Vederso, visited the church he served, his grave in the church yard, and went looking for the museum in his honor. There was no museum, but the local general store owner asked if we wanted to meet his widow Li who still lived on the parish farm. He called her up and found out that she was at home celebrating her birthday. We were welcome to visit.
Since then, we have returned several times and have met all five of the children and their families. Lise and her daughter Solveig visited us in Chicago one summer. In 1988 our son was born. We named him Kaj.
I have collected quite a few of his plays, sermons, and other writings in addition to his autobiography and several biographies. Through his writings, I have found a hero and a model for what it means to be an authentic Christian in my time.
Because he would not keep quiet as so many others did, Pastor Munk became the most dangerous man in all of Denmark. Because he chose to follow Christ, he paid with his life. At first he was attracted by the strong leadership shown by Hitler and Mussohni (as many were in Europe and in the United States). But when Munk learned that the fascists were deporting Jews to concentration camps for extermination, he wrote a personal letter to Mussolini asking him to persuade Hitler to stop, Munk's writings and sermons were essential to the Danish resistance movement.
During the evening of January 4, 1944, Kaj Munk was taken from his home and killed by the Gestapo on the direct orders of Adolph Hitler. His body was found alongside the road the next morning. He was an authentic Christian in his time. He was honest to his faith and his calling. Because of this, he is my hero, in an age when most heroes are mere marketing successes from pop culture (i.e., film stars, athletes, or popular singers).
Kaj Munk's plays attract sold out performances in Copenhagen and Oslo even today. The Norwegian National Theater production of Ordet a few years ago inspired the performers and audiences to explore the meaning of faith in their otherwise secularized lives. Munk's first play, The Idealist, enjoyed a long and successful run at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen in the fall of 1996. The Idealist explored the dilemma of greatness faced by King Herod.
Munk's sermons during 1941, from Palm Sunday through the 14th Sunday after Trinity, and the harvest festival sermon are collected in a volume entitled By the Streams of Babylon: Danish Sermons, 1941 by Kaj Munk, published by Nyt Nordisk Forlag, Arnold Busck, Copenhagen in 1944.
It is a pleasure to introduce Kaj Munk to Pietisten readers who have not yet encountered him. A future issue will feature an English translation of one of his sermons.