Noting the difficulties involved in unqualifiedly identifying Kierkegaard as a philosopher, the paper presents him as a writer, an approach that enables us to take the whole Kierkegaard into view. Such an approach is in keeping with his own comments about his work and is seen to resonate with new understandings of being a writer that emerge in Europe in his time. This new writerly identity typically involves the promotion of a particular world-view with a significant moral element that addresses the perceived situation of the writer’s world. In this regard the writer also assumes the role of pedagogue, a role that brings him or her into a relation to philosophy. In the case of Kierkegaard it is shown that particular writing effects serve to subvert readers’ experience of time and, by inviting them to ‚weigh over‘ (Dan. overveie) the issues addressed in the text serves as a pedagogy of freedom. Time-experience and freedom are, however, issues of central concern to philosophy of religion so that ‚Kierkegaard the writer‘ also contributes in his way to the development of philosophy, especially when this is understood as involving a way of life.