More than a century ago, the Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard issued a sober assessment of his own society, a warning that’s even more potent today: “Present–day Christendom really lives as if the situation were as follows: Christ is the great hero and benefactor who has once and for all secured salvation for us; now we must merely be happy and delighted with the innocent goods of earthly life and leave the rest to him. But Christ is essentially the exemplar, that is we are to resemble him, not merely profit from him.”