The Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses (Danish: Opbyggelige Taler), sometimes called the Eighteen Edifying Discourses, is a collection of discourses produced by Søren Kierkegaard in 1843 and 1844.[1] Although he published some of his works using pseudonyms, these discourses were signed. His discourses stress love, joy, faith, gratitude, thanksgiving, peace, adversity, impartiality, and equality before God and recommend them to the single individual.
Kierkegaard was not a preacher or a teacher at the beginning of his discourses, but by the end he removed the word, teacher.[2] Later in Practice in Christianity he stated the problem he had with the modern sermon. "The Christian sermon today has become mainly observations. 'To observe' can mean in one sense to come very close to something, namely, to what one wishes to observe; in another sense, it signifies keeping very distant, infinitely distant, that is, personally." Practice in Christianity.[3]