Actually
Kierkegaard's view sounds disturbingly familiar with a conservative
evangelical belief about what happens when a person
comes to Christ. For a person to accept
Christianity, we say, the person must come face-to-face with his or her sin and the eternal, literally damning consequence of it. Only once a person is aware of his or her sin and the eternal separation from God that results from it can a person accept
Christ's
forgiveness and
love which God provides. Without that realisation, there is no need for Christ. He wasn't the only one to teach '
treat others like you want to be treated' (though possibly the first, excluding
negative formulations like "don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you"); He was, we believe, the only one to provide real redemption from sin.
It's funny hearing the 'Christian viewpoint on existentialism' discussed. Actually Kierkegaard's
Christian existentialism is the origin and basis for all other existential philosophies, so maybe would make more sense to speak of "the secular view of
existentialism" as distinct from the original.
Kierkegaard thought that Christianity could only be discovered to be true when one actually experiences it. I wonder if he ever realised, as all the later existentialists did, that the experiential, existential approach is true for any lifestyle - not just Christianity?