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the ethics of dag hammarskjöld
his ‘This I believe’-speech embraces as the heritage to which
he wants to to remain faithful, tends to confirm in his thorough
interpretation of Vägmärken (Dag Hammarskjölds bitbok.
Tvivel och tro i ‘Vägmärken’, 1970) the validity of Hammarskjöld’s
own assessment and generally finds his theological
ideas to be consistent with mainstream (Swedish) Lutheran
spirituality. Henry van Dusen on the other hand, in his
study Dag Hammarskjöld – the Statesman published in 1967,
maintains that Hammarskjöld’s understanding of the Christian
tradition is remarkably unorthodox and almost without
any features of real influence from the spiritual heritage
he wanted to be loyal to. To me, Aulén’s assessment seems
more plausible than van Dusen’s. ‘Orthodox’ is among the
most ambiguous terms circulating in theological discourse.
The validity of judgments on the supposed degree of orthodoxy
of theological statements obviously depends on
how the term is defined as well as the ideological context
in which it occurs. To van Dusen, to be ‘unorthodox’ is the
more commendable attitude in matters of religion, simply
because the contrasting term ‘orthodox’ is popularly, but
rather narrowly and superficially associated with the literal
reproduction of authorised creeds and doctrinal statements.
Admittedly, such statements scarcely occur in Vägmärken and
in Hammarskjöld’s public speeches, but that does not mean
that the interpreter is free to draw far-reaching conclusions
on the basis of silence. Only in contexts where the absence
of ‘orthodox’ statements is striking might the reader have a
good reason to miss them. I can hardly see that it is reasonable
to deal with Hammarskjöld’s works as if they belonged
to that kind of setting. To me it seems more reasonable to
expect that the author of such works would be eager to avoid
reproducing doctrinal formulas.
As far as I can see, Hammarskjöld, in his understanding of
the central elements of the Christian tradition, is as orthodox
as anyone could rightly wish for. A passage from Vägmärken
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