"Dr Rudelbach og jeg. Vi kommer aldrig til at forstaae hinanden," hedder det i Kierkegaards dagbog fra 1851. Da havde de ellers haft en del år til det. Rudelbach kom nemlig i det kierkegaardske hjem på Nytorv, hvor han sammen med især P. C. Kierkegaard diskuterede Grundtvigs kristendomsforståelse, som de begge endte med at tilslutte sig. Da Rudelbach i 1851 under debatten om det borgerlige ægteskab, tog Kierkegaard til indtægt for en adskillelse mellem den sande kirke og statskristendommen, erklærede Kierkegaard, at han rigtignok var en "Hader af Vane-Christendommen", men ikke ønskede reformer i det ydre, kun i det indre.

"Dr. Rudelbach and I. We will never come to understand each other," wrote Kierkegaard in his diary in 1851. And at that point they had had a number of years in which to do so. Rudelbach visited in the Kierkegaard home on Nytorv, where, especially with P. C. Kierkegaard, he had discussed Grundtvig's understanding of Christianity, which the two of them both affiliated themselves with in the end. When Rudelbach in 1851, during the debate on civil marriage, cited Kierkegaard in support of a separation between the true church and state Christianity, Kierkegaard declared that though he indeed was a "hater of the Christianity of habit," he did not desire reforms in externals, only in the inward.

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