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You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
You are what you love. But you might not love what you think.
In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.
Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas presented in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.
In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.
Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas presented in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published April 5, 2016
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March 3, 2017
I mostly loved this book. I have read a few other books by James K.A. Smith and was pleased to find that Smith had done an excellent job adapting his more niche, academic work for a broader audience and toward wider applications.
What I liked:
-A great argument for liturgy from a reformed perspective
-An insightful argument for the way that the liturgies (Christian and secular) shape our ontology, which shapes what we love, which shapes who we are
-Nice ideas for choosing to shape our minds by Christian narratives
Critiques:
-Smith rightly points out that teaching pastors have the responsibility to identify and critique the secular liturgies that are mis-leading the direction of our love. He unwittingly demonstrates a pitfall of looking to a single teacher, rather than a community of teachers, for these criticisms: the two most extended explications of secular liturgies that he describes are shopping malls and wedding planning. He was quite correct in what he said about these liturgies, but didn't acknowledge that the main participants these two liturgies are young women. Young women are traditionally the group that has their virtue most scrutinized while being the group of least power in the church. I wish he had been a bit more self-reflective (perhaps looking at the university) rather than choosing both of these examples.
-Smith presents a beautiful argument for the use of traditional church liturgy. I am personally in broad agreement with what he says about liturgical services. Her rightly points out that using the liturgy practiced by the church for centuries, we are telling ourselves and each other trustworthy stories about God and ourselves without falling prey to theological or cultural fads. However, it ends up feeling like such a hagiography of traditional liturgy without acknowledgement that the book of common prayer and even the creeds come from cultural contexts that had blind spots too--overemphasizing some themes and under emphasizing others.
I do highly recommend this book, and James K.A. Smith's work in general.
What I liked:
-A great argument for liturgy from a reformed perspective
-An insightful argument for the way that the liturgies (Christian and secular) shape our ontology, which shapes what we love, which shapes who we are
-Nice ideas for choosing to shape our minds by Christian narratives
Critiques:
-Smith rightly points out that teaching pastors have the responsibility to identify and critique the secular liturgies that are mis-leading the direction of our love. He unwittingly demonstrates a pitfall of looking to a single teacher, rather than a community of teachers, for these criticisms: the two most extended explications of secular liturgies that he describes are shopping malls and wedding planning. He was quite correct in what he said about these liturgies, but didn't acknowledge that the main participants these two liturgies are young women. Young women are traditionally the group that has their virtue most scrutinized while being the group of least power in the church. I wish he had been a bit more self-reflective (perhaps looking at the university) rather than choosing both of these examples.
-Smith presents a beautiful argument for the use of traditional church liturgy. I am personally in broad agreement with what he says about liturgical services. Her rightly points out that using the liturgy practiced by the church for centuries, we are telling ourselves and each other trustworthy stories about God and ourselves without falling prey to theological or cultural fads. However, it ends up feeling like such a hagiography of traditional liturgy without acknowledgement that the book of common prayer and even the creeds come from cultural contexts that had blind spots too--overemphasizing some themes and under emphasizing others.
I do highly recommend this book, and James K.A. Smith's work in general.
April 20, 2016
You are what you love, not what you think, Smith says. What you think is, rather, a fruit of what you love. So far so good. If I may say so, I felt like Smith was summarizing my dissertation (though with fewer Scripture proofs) at this point in his argument (largely the first chapter).
But then he went in a direction I've been watching him go in for some years and have not yet quite known what to do with, his idea of "cultural liturgies." I'm attracted to this idea, precisely because my own conversion away from "thinking-thingism" has left me with a practical problem: if my heart and not my intellect is the key to my transformation into the image of Christ, then how, day by day, do I go about changing my heart? My answer had been I can't change my heart; only Jesus can, through the New Covenant. And Smith doesn't deny this. But he moves over into sanctification and suggests that there is a spiritual power in habit which God means to be heart-shaping. This seems undoubtedly true, to me at least, on the cultural level. As Smith shows, the mall is full of "cultural liturgies" which shape those who enter it. (It was quite funny to hear the story of Smith's teenage son saying, "Dad, can you take me to the temple?" He knew his dad: he meant the mall.) And Smith adduces other examples, though not as many as I had hoped for.
I think Smith is at his best when critiquing:
Instead of asking contemporary seekers and Christians to inhabit old, stodgy, positively medieval practices that are foreign and strange, we retool worship by adopting contemporary practices that can be easily entered precisely because they are so familiar. Rather than the daunting, spooky ambience of the Gothic cathedral, we invite people to worship in the ethos of the coffee shop, the concert, or the mall. Confident in the form/content distinction, we believe we can distill the gospel content and embed it in these new forms, since the various practices are effectively neutral: just temporal containers for an eternal message. We distill “Jesus” out of the inherited, ancient forms of historic worship (which we’ll discard as “traditional”) in order to freshly present Jesus in forms that are both fresh and familiar: come meet Jesus in the sanctified experience of a coffee shop; come hear the gospel in a place that should feel familiar since we’ve modeled it after the mall. The problem, of course, is that these “forms” are not just neutral containers or discardable conduits for a message. As we’ve seen already, what are embraced as merely fresh forms are, in fact, practices that are already oriented to a certain telos, a tacit vision of the good life. Indeed, I’ve tried to show that these cultural practices are liturgies in their own right precisely because they are oriented to a telos and are bent on shaping my loves and longings. The forms themselves are pedagogies of desire that teach me to construe and relate to the world in a loaded way. So when I distill the gospel message and embed it in the form of the mall, while I might think I am finding a fresh way for people to encounter Christ, in fact the very form of the practice is already loaded with a way of construing the world. The liturgy of the mall is a heart-level education in consumerism that construes everything as a commodity available to make me happy. When I encounter “Jesus” in such a liturgy, rather than encountering the living Lord of history, I am implicitly being taught that Jesus is one more commodity available to make me happy. And while I might eagerly want to add him to my shelf of stuff, we shouldn’t confuse this appropriation with discipleship.
I'm still not ready, however, to sign on to his liturgical program for sanctification. He's a philosopher; I believe him when he says he doesn't intend to diminish the importance of thinking or of the heavily cognitive work of Bible study. But the Bible didn't play a strong role in his book, I'd say, only a supportive one. And maybe it's my dyed-in-the-wool evangelical Protestantism, but I just believe too strongly in the importance of the preached word. I've seen it work. The churches which have been more self-conscious about liturgy do attract me to some degree, but not, finally, if they end up diminishing that preached word. In my admittedly limited experience, that's what I've seen. I feel like I need more help from Smith to know what all this looks like before I can adopt some of the practices he commends. I'm going to give four stars because I'm hopeful. I've dug a bit into his other works, of which this is apparently a popularization.
July 6, 2023
I reviewed this book in Christianity & Literature. Preview videos here. Conversation with Justin Taylor here. Interview with Eric Metaxas here. Starred review here.
vii: quotes from Prov. 4:23, Augustine's Confessions, Hans Urs von Balthasar, John Updike, and Winnie the Pooh
Preface
xi: discovering God's sovereignty over all things can be invigorating—people are drawn to the language of culture-making and social justice; "This book articulates a spirituality for culture-makers"; this book is about discipleship; worship as an "imagination station"
xii: "you need to invest in the formation of your imagination"
Chapter 1: You Are What You Love: To Worship Is Human
1: "What do you want?" (desire)
2: Jesus both informs our intellect and forms our loves [Smith stresses the latter and disparages lectures]
2-3: lots of emphasis on our assumptions about human beings as "thinking things" (Smith blames Descartes)
3-4: bell hooks and Paulo Freire call this a "banking" model of education
4: don't ignore the power of habit; Smith concedes that we need to develop our minds; irony of anti-intellectual Christians
5: gap between knowledge and action; extremes of intellectualism and emotionalism/relativism
6: by acknowledging limits to knowledge, Smith is not rejecting thinking (but we need to be more holistic)
6-7: Paul's prayer in Philippians: love —> knowledge
7-8: return to ancient voices such as Augustine's voice in Confessions; Augustine talks about our design/purpose/telos and our heart as the seat of longings (more like hunger than curiosity)
9-10: we're erotic creatures (moved by desire)—don't set up a false dichotomy between eros and agape
10: Augustine's third point: rightly ordered loves; Pascal's wager (and you have to wager)
11: Hugo's Les Mis; definition of God's kingdom (should/ought); flourishing
13-14: love is like gravity
15-16: subconscious desire (orientation/inclination)
16: clothing metaphor (put on virtues); virtues are moral habits
16-18: Aquinas on virtue (internal disposition); Aristotle and "second nature"; virtues (and vices) acquired affectively; imitation and practice
20: rival gods/kingdoms
20-21: regular calibrations of our cravings; pedagogies of desire
21: faulty (but attractive) maps of the good life
22: cultural practices/rituals/liturgies do something to us
23: Calvin and "idol factories"
23-24: David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College speech ("Everybody worships"); life truths are codified in myths
Scripture in Ch. 1: 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 14, 16, 18, 24 (also vii and xi)
Chapter 2: You Might Not Love What You Think: Learning to Read "Secular" Liturgies
I wish Smith would have defined secular.
27: reference to McCarthy's The Road
30-32: authenticity and inauthenticity
32: unconscious loves [cf. Beale's We Become What We Worship, p. 15]
34: Aristotle and Aquinas
35-37: "automaticites"
37: "your loves are unconscious even though they are learned"; "we unconsciously learn to love rival kingdoms because we don't realize we're participating in rival liturgies"
38: David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College commencement address, "This Is Water" (Smith: "We need to become aware of our immersions"); we need to 1) address the whole person (not just the mind) and 2) recognize the (de)formative power of cultural liturgies
39-40: the genre of apocalyptic literature is to unmask monstrous realities
40: we can't simply look for the easily spotted false messages in culture—we have to be attentive to how things are presented
40-45: the mall as a secular temple; vendors focus on attracting us, grasping at our desires
45: Charles Taylor's "social imaginary" (worldview)
46: other temples—stadiums, universities, smartphones—construct egocentric worlds; "Liturgies work affectively and aesthetically—they grab hold of our guts through the power of image, story, and metaphor. That's why the most powerful liturgies are attuned to our embodiment"
46-47: "'Liturgy,' as I'm using the word, is a shorthand term for those rituals that are loaded with an ultimate Story about who we are and what we're for. They carry within them a kind of ultimate orientation."
46-53: brokenness, competition, consumption, invisibility
48: shalom
52: Augustine's enjoyment vs. use
53: we ignore the unjust exploitation of our favorite temples
54: "the tenets of a consumer gospel are caught rather than taught"; "pastors need to be ethnographers, helping their congregations name and 'exegete' their local liturgies"
Chapter 3: The Spirit Meets You Where You Are: Historic Worship for a Postmodern Age
57-58: "If our loves can be disordered by secular liturgies, it's also true that our loves need to be reordered (recalibrated) by counterliturgies—embodied, communal practices that are 'loaded' with the gospel and indexed to God and his kingdom."
58: "our hungers are learned"
59: high fructose corn syrup shapes your tastes; lots of the food industry is actually unjust
60: reading Wendell Berry at the foodcourt at Costco (see p. 8 in Imagining the Kingdom)
62: importance of community and new practices (that you might not want to do)
65: Calvin: Christian worship can be a gymnasium (where we train)
67: often the practices are ordinary, not extraordinary (Horton)
69: "worship" is not just the music part of a church service; some Protestants might think of "liturgy" as a bad word, but the Reformers wanted proper liturgy, not no liturgy
70: worship is embodied, but not only material
70-71: Wolterstorff on the "naturalization" of Catholicism (God's actions were eclipsed)
71: Protestant worship isn't supposed to be passive—it's interactive
70/73: Smith is usually careful not to say "Catholic," although he does on p. 69 (sometimes he'll say "Reformed catholic")—he says "medieval" instead (see pp. 80, 140)
72: reference to Kuyper
73: our response is initiated by God; "the static medieval paradigm . . . focused on 'presence'"
74-75: the problem with assuming that we are the primary actors in worship is that worship becomes to expressionist, and expressionist worship has "a penchant for novelty" (see works righteousness on p. 77)
75-76: forms of worship are never neutral containers of a message (form matters—see p. 77)
77: "Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn't just something we do; it is where God does something to us. Worship is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts."
78: form includes narrative arc and concrete practices; this is not necessarily about style (reference to Begbie); this isn't nostalgia [cf. Brad Gregory's last chapter in The Unintended Reformation]
79: older pagan cultures were overt in making connections between politics and religion, but our culture pretends that there's massive separation (stadiums, capitols, universities), even though there's not
80: definition of "catholic"; "you're not showing, you're submitting"
80-81: Oscar Wilde's "The Critic as Artist": "learning to love takes practice, and practice takes repetition" (Smith)
Scripture in Ch. 3: 58, 65, 66, 69, 73, 78, 80
Chapter 4: What Story Are You In? The Narrative Arc of Formative Christian Worship
83: worship can capture your imagination; "every pastor is a curate and every elder a curator, responsible for the care of souls and responsible to curate hearts by planning and leading worship that undertakes this formative task"
84: Jacobs and Duffy on Cranmer's Book of Common prayer; "the Kalendar"
85: Twain (?) quip about learning by carrying a cat by the tail (can't put some things into words)
86: worldview as insufficient; as a negative (143, 155?, 164); worldview = social imaginary (45, 90, 199n19); doesn't "liturgical lens" = worldview? (55); worldview as a positive (84, 107); worldview = narrative? (90); why can't "worldview" have a telos? (164); Taylor's "social imaginary" > "worldview" (p. 199n19)
86: "In this chapter we'll consider the plot and practices of historic Christian worship as gifts of the tradition handed down to us for our (re)formation."
86-88: shalom on earth; transformation; being truly human
88-89: "one of the goals of Christian worship is to 'characterize' us, in a twofold sense"; 1) "see Scripture as the narration of the unfolding drama of the God who acts" (we are characters in a story); 2) "in the rhythms of worship, the Spirit inscribes in us the character that makes us a certain kind of person" (MacIntyre's After Virtue: "I cannot answer the question, 'What ought I to do?' unless I first answer the question, 'Of which story am I a part?'")
89: virtue, excellence, habits, and telos
90: presuppositions matter—they lead to "radically different accounts of what is virtuous and what is vicious"; Smith makes a point that sounds like Keller in The Reason for God (115-16): Christ's meekness and humility look like vices to cultures that value "power and domination and violence"
91: reference to Hans Urs von Balthasar; "we long for what has captured our imagination"; we are "aesthetic creatures who are moved more than we are convinced. . . . Our hearts are like stringed instruments that are plucked by story, poetry, metaphor, images"
92: Millais's painting of Raleigh as a young man (storytelling/imagination —> longing)
93: nutshell list of the practices that Smith likes; "Worship works as fiction does: both traffic in story and target the imagination"; "primary" (objective) as in "first on the list" (chronology), or "most important"?
93-94: Aristotle and mimesis; fiction creates a plausibility structure (Berger's term) for the subjunctive (hypothetical); plausibility and what could be
94: I'm not convinced that ritual alone is enough—thinking about why we perform rituals is vital (and ironic) (see p. 99); worship restor(i)es our imagination; Lewis's quote about Christianity and the risen sun; Hopkins and "God's Grandeur"
202n10: N.T. Wright: "The whole point of Christianity is that it offers a story which is the story of the whole world. It is public truth."
95: design as enchantment
95-99: plot lines (narrative arc of Christian worship): gathering (call to worship, confession), listening (law—living with the grain of the universe), communing (reconciliation, Lord's Table), sending (cultivate creation)
100: should I change/leave my church if it's not like this? (don't be nostalgic about a "recovery")
101-03: Charles Taylor stuff (excarnation, disenchantment, self-help spirituality, Gothic haunting, buffered/porous, secular age as a gift, faithful patience)
103-06: megachurches, seekers, and the desire to confess
107: I wish Smith didn't feel that stressing the poetic over the didactic is necessary (maybe it is these days, but I wish it weren't; see p. 93); ideally, Christians would fully participate in both worlds, because didacticism without poetry is joyless, and poetry without didacticism is meaningless; people aren't attracted to bullet points? [what about logical arguments or math?; dissertations can be very interesting, and sometimes they turn into interesting books]; "Stories stick"
107-08: Federer's "kinesthetic sense"
Scripture in Ch. 4: 86, 87, 90, 93, 95, 98, 110
Chapter 5: Guard Your Heart: The Liturgies of Home
111: our ability to love in the first place comes from God, Who loved us first (1 John 4:19)—"Even our disordered loves bear a backhanded witness to the fact that we are made in God's image"
112: we begin to learn to love at home
113: we need the home (liturgy) because church (Liturgy) isn't enough; discipleship is a way of life; see p. 203n5 (singleness and "household")
114: explanation of the chapter's purpose (liturgical audit of our households)
114-26: baptism and marriage as household worship
114-15: baptism isn't about our expression of faith; we're initiated into a people
118: parents disciple their children, in part, by attending a church whose liturgies has an appropriate narrative arc (see Ch. 6)
120: Charles Taylor ("age of authenticity"; "mutual display"); the myth that marriage is about romance and that romance is without children and daily work (see p. 122 and "vampire children")
121-24: Orthodox wedding rite (the Service of Betrothal and the Service of Crowning [martyrdom])
127: intentional or not, our households have formative rituals
128: reference to Horton's A Better Way
129: family worship should ignite the imagination (use music, attend to the liturgical calendar, etc.)
130: parents should be preparing to send their children into the world (cultural mandate; Great Commission)
130-31: "the sacramental power of Christian worship 'enchants' our everyday lives"; ceremonies help with enchantment
131: cutting a stone vs. building a cathedral
132: dinner-table education
133: learning to lament; lifting the mundane
134: cultivate imagination; gratitude
136: Bible reading and family prayer
Chapter 6: Teach Your Children Well: Learning by Heart
138: learning by participating, not merely by studying [cf. Lewis's "Meditation in a Toolshed"]
139: French word for "training" means "formation"
205n3, n11, and n16: Teaching and Christian Practices
143: "we pray before we know, we worship before we 'worldview'"; formation vs. information
143-154: youth ministry
144: "the primary concern of not sounding boring" [ironically, this description could be used to describe some of Smith's books]
144-45: emphasis on fun (don't want to sound boring) is driven by fear; when young people worship by themselves, we rob them of the virtue-forming practice of imitation; worship becomes expressivistic and consumeristic
146-47: don't mistake extroversion for faithfulness
148-49: reenchantment
147/149: young people actually love rituals/traditions
152-54: three steps to formative youth ministry (sanctuary worship, ancient disciplines, service)
154: God uses the influence of parents and other adults to keep kids in the church
154-58: Christian schools and homeschool contexts
158-59: great section on forming students
159-60: virtues have never been "generic"—they "are thick realities tethered to particular communities governed by a particular Story"
160-61: a version of this is online: "Secure Your Own Mask First" ("if I am going to be a teacher of virtue, I need to be a virtuous teacher")
161-63: specific ways for teachers to grow together (p. 163: "becoming a teacher of virtue takes practice")
163-64: Smith mentions Desiring the Kingdom and Teaching and Christian Practices as sources for further study
164: Kuyperian worldview doesn't have a telos?
165: macro/momentous framing practices (often at orientation) and micro/mundane framing practices (daily)
166: "secular" in quotes
169-70: Aquinas's prayer before study (ignorance as a darkness, but not a sin)
170: framing prayers provide opportunities to create concrete contexts (instead of abstract discussions)—in economics, international relations, philosophy, or other classes
Chapter 7: You Make What You Want: Vocational Liturgies
171-72: we are home in creation, which is very good; Revelation ends with God dwelling with us; we should not abandon creation; Smith connects the creation mandate with the Great Commission [cf. Gentry]
172-75: we are to image (God's vice-regents), unfold (unpack latent potential), and occupy (Hunter's "faithful presence")
173: Tolkien and sub-creation
174: "Promethean striving" sounds like Frankenstein; tent imagery (cf. cathedral imagery)
175: as culture-makers, we make what we love
175-77: Star Wars example about Lucas's desire to have a certain kind of fairytale; Vader's redemption because of attachment, not distance
177-78: cultivating our unconscious
178-81: reinventing church is harmful—"we don't need to invent—we need to remember"
179: "Good culture-making requires that we imagine the world otherwise—which means seeing through the status-quo stories we're told and instead envisioning kingdom come. . . . [W]e need imaginations that have absorbed a vision for how things ought to be."
179: "good design tells the truth about the world"
180: "Christian worship, I suggest, is a design studio"
181-85: constraints as gifts
185-86: influence of Alvin Plantinga on Smith (we need Christian philosophers); Kuyperian language; some people use Col. 2:8 to argue against philosophy
186-87: Aristotle on God's attracting us to Himself (Metaphysics) and on practice and repetition (Nicomachean Ethics)
187: worship makes us better workers
188: positive look at Calvin's Geneva (vision of a God-centered civic life)
Benediction
189: "Our telos brings us back to our beginning."
For Further Reading
191: David Brooks on character, virtue, formation, and imitation; Mike Cosper on the "'narrative arc' of intentional Christian worship"
192: Desiring the Kingdom as a 201 course, and this book as a 101 course; Imagining the Kingdom as the "philosophical foundations for a liturgical theology of culture"; Smith was heavily influenced by Robert Webber's Ancient-Future Worship
Acknowledgements
194: origin of the book
195: Edith Schaeffer's The Hidden Art of Homemaking on hospitality
vii: quotes from Prov. 4:23, Augustine's Confessions, Hans Urs von Balthasar, John Updike, and Winnie the Pooh
Preface
xi: discovering God's sovereignty over all things can be invigorating—people are drawn to the language of culture-making and social justice; "This book articulates a spirituality for culture-makers"; this book is about discipleship; worship as an "imagination station"
xii: "you need to invest in the formation of your imagination"
Chapter 1: You Are What You Love: To Worship Is Human
1: "What do you want?" (desire)
2: Jesus both informs our intellect and forms our loves [Smith stresses the latter and disparages lectures]
2-3: lots of emphasis on our assumptions about human beings as "thinking things" (Smith blames Descartes)
3-4: bell hooks and Paulo Freire call this a "banking" model of education
4: don't ignore the power of habit; Smith concedes that we need to develop our minds; irony of anti-intellectual Christians
5: gap between knowledge and action; extremes of intellectualism and emotionalism/relativism
6: by acknowledging limits to knowledge, Smith is not rejecting thinking (but we need to be more holistic)
6-7: Paul's prayer in Philippians: love —> knowledge
7-8: return to ancient voices such as Augustine's voice in Confessions; Augustine talks about our design/purpose/telos and our heart as the seat of longings (more like hunger than curiosity)
9-10: we're erotic creatures (moved by desire)—don't set up a false dichotomy between eros and agape
10: Augustine's third point: rightly ordered loves; Pascal's wager (and you have to wager)
11: Hugo's Les Mis; definition of God's kingdom (should/ought); flourishing
13-14: love is like gravity
15-16: subconscious desire (orientation/inclination)
16: clothing metaphor (put on virtues); virtues are moral habits
16-18: Aquinas on virtue (internal disposition); Aristotle and "second nature"; virtues (and vices) acquired affectively; imitation and practice
20: rival gods/kingdoms
20-21: regular calibrations of our cravings; pedagogies of desire
21: faulty (but attractive) maps of the good life
22: cultural practices/rituals/liturgies do something to us
23: Calvin and "idol factories"
23-24: David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College speech ("Everybody worships"); life truths are codified in myths
Scripture in Ch. 1: 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 14, 16, 18, 24 (also vii and xi)
Chapter 2: You Might Not Love What You Think: Learning to Read "Secular" Liturgies
I wish Smith would have defined secular.
27: reference to McCarthy's The Road
30-32: authenticity and inauthenticity
32: unconscious loves [cf. Beale's We Become What We Worship, p. 15]
34: Aristotle and Aquinas
35-37: "automaticites"
37: "your loves are unconscious even though they are learned"; "we unconsciously learn to love rival kingdoms because we don't realize we're participating in rival liturgies"
38: David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College commencement address, "This Is Water" (Smith: "We need to become aware of our immersions"); we need to 1) address the whole person (not just the mind) and 2) recognize the (de)formative power of cultural liturgies
39-40: the genre of apocalyptic literature is to unmask monstrous realities
40: we can't simply look for the easily spotted false messages in culture—we have to be attentive to how things are presented
40-45: the mall as a secular temple; vendors focus on attracting us, grasping at our desires
45: Charles Taylor's "social imaginary" (worldview)
46: other temples—stadiums, universities, smartphones—construct egocentric worlds; "Liturgies work affectively and aesthetically—they grab hold of our guts through the power of image, story, and metaphor. That's why the most powerful liturgies are attuned to our embodiment"
46-47: "'Liturgy,' as I'm using the word, is a shorthand term for those rituals that are loaded with an ultimate Story about who we are and what we're for. They carry within them a kind of ultimate orientation."
46-53: brokenness, competition, consumption, invisibility
48: shalom
52: Augustine's enjoyment vs. use
53: we ignore the unjust exploitation of our favorite temples
54: "the tenets of a consumer gospel are caught rather than taught"; "pastors need to be ethnographers, helping their congregations name and 'exegete' their local liturgies"
Chapter 3: The Spirit Meets You Where You Are: Historic Worship for a Postmodern Age
57-58: "If our loves can be disordered by secular liturgies, it's also true that our loves need to be reordered (recalibrated) by counterliturgies—embodied, communal practices that are 'loaded' with the gospel and indexed to God and his kingdom."
58: "our hungers are learned"
59: high fructose corn syrup shapes your tastes; lots of the food industry is actually unjust
60: reading Wendell Berry at the foodcourt at Costco (see p. 8 in Imagining the Kingdom)
62: importance of community and new practices (that you might not want to do)
65: Calvin: Christian worship can be a gymnasium (where we train)
67: often the practices are ordinary, not extraordinary (Horton)
69: "worship" is not just the music part of a church service; some Protestants might think of "liturgy" as a bad word, but the Reformers wanted proper liturgy, not no liturgy
70: worship is embodied, but not only material
70-71: Wolterstorff on the "naturalization" of Catholicism (God's actions were eclipsed)
71: Protestant worship isn't supposed to be passive—it's interactive
70/73: Smith is usually careful not to say "Catholic," although he does on p. 69 (sometimes he'll say "Reformed catholic")—he says "medieval" instead (see pp. 80, 140)
72: reference to Kuyper
73: our response is initiated by God; "the static medieval paradigm . . . focused on 'presence'"
74-75: the problem with assuming that we are the primary actors in worship is that worship becomes to expressionist, and expressionist worship has "a penchant for novelty" (see works righteousness on p. 77)
75-76: forms of worship are never neutral containers of a message (form matters—see p. 77)
77: "Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn't just something we do; it is where God does something to us. Worship is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts."
78: form includes narrative arc and concrete practices; this is not necessarily about style (reference to Begbie); this isn't nostalgia [cf. Brad Gregory's last chapter in The Unintended Reformation]
79: older pagan cultures were overt in making connections between politics and religion, but our culture pretends that there's massive separation (stadiums, capitols, universities), even though there's not
80: definition of "catholic"; "you're not showing, you're submitting"
80-81: Oscar Wilde's "The Critic as Artist": "learning to love takes practice, and practice takes repetition" (Smith)
Scripture in Ch. 3: 58, 65, 66, 69, 73, 78, 80
Chapter 4: What Story Are You In? The Narrative Arc of Formative Christian Worship
83: worship can capture your imagination; "every pastor is a curate and every elder a curator, responsible for the care of souls and responsible to curate hearts by planning and leading worship that undertakes this formative task"
84: Jacobs and Duffy on Cranmer's Book of Common prayer; "the Kalendar"
85: Twain (?) quip about learning by carrying a cat by the tail (can't put some things into words)
86: worldview as insufficient; as a negative (143, 155?, 164); worldview = social imaginary (45, 90, 199n19); doesn't "liturgical lens" = worldview? (55); worldview as a positive (84, 107); worldview = narrative? (90); why can't "worldview" have a telos? (164); Taylor's "social imaginary" > "worldview" (p. 199n19)
86: "In this chapter we'll consider the plot and practices of historic Christian worship as gifts of the tradition handed down to us for our (re)formation."
86-88: shalom on earth; transformation; being truly human
88-89: "one of the goals of Christian worship is to 'characterize' us, in a twofold sense"; 1) "see Scripture as the narration of the unfolding drama of the God who acts" (we are characters in a story); 2) "in the rhythms of worship, the Spirit inscribes in us the character that makes us a certain kind of person" (MacIntyre's After Virtue: "I cannot answer the question, 'What ought I to do?' unless I first answer the question, 'Of which story am I a part?'")
89: virtue, excellence, habits, and telos
90: presuppositions matter—they lead to "radically different accounts of what is virtuous and what is vicious"; Smith makes a point that sounds like Keller in The Reason for God (115-16): Christ's meekness and humility look like vices to cultures that value "power and domination and violence"
91: reference to Hans Urs von Balthasar; "we long for what has captured our imagination"; we are "aesthetic creatures who are moved more than we are convinced. . . . Our hearts are like stringed instruments that are plucked by story, poetry, metaphor, images"
92: Millais's painting of Raleigh as a young man (storytelling/imagination —> longing)
93: nutshell list of the practices that Smith likes; "Worship works as fiction does: both traffic in story and target the imagination"; "primary" (objective) as in "first on the list" (chronology), or "most important"?
93-94: Aristotle and mimesis; fiction creates a plausibility structure (Berger's term) for the subjunctive (hypothetical); plausibility and what could be
94: I'm not convinced that ritual alone is enough—thinking about why we perform rituals is vital (and ironic) (see p. 99); worship restor(i)es our imagination; Lewis's quote about Christianity and the risen sun; Hopkins and "God's Grandeur"
202n10: N.T. Wright: "The whole point of Christianity is that it offers a story which is the story of the whole world. It is public truth."
95: design as enchantment
95-99: plot lines (narrative arc of Christian worship): gathering (call to worship, confession), listening (law—living with the grain of the universe), communing (reconciliation, Lord's Table), sending (cultivate creation)
100: should I change/leave my church if it's not like this? (don't be nostalgic about a "recovery")
101-03: Charles Taylor stuff (excarnation, disenchantment, self-help spirituality, Gothic haunting, buffered/porous, secular age as a gift, faithful patience)
103-06: megachurches, seekers, and the desire to confess
107: I wish Smith didn't feel that stressing the poetic over the didactic is necessary (maybe it is these days, but I wish it weren't; see p. 93); ideally, Christians would fully participate in both worlds, because didacticism without poetry is joyless, and poetry without didacticism is meaningless; people aren't attracted to bullet points? [what about logical arguments or math?; dissertations can be very interesting, and sometimes they turn into interesting books]; "Stories stick"
107-08: Federer's "kinesthetic sense"
Scripture in Ch. 4: 86, 87, 90, 93, 95, 98, 110
Chapter 5: Guard Your Heart: The Liturgies of Home
111: our ability to love in the first place comes from God, Who loved us first (1 John 4:19)—"Even our disordered loves bear a backhanded witness to the fact that we are made in God's image"
112: we begin to learn to love at home
113: we need the home (liturgy) because church (Liturgy) isn't enough; discipleship is a way of life; see p. 203n5 (singleness and "household")
114: explanation of the chapter's purpose (liturgical audit of our households)
114-26: baptism and marriage as household worship
114-15: baptism isn't about our expression of faith; we're initiated into a people
118: parents disciple their children, in part, by attending a church whose liturgies has an appropriate narrative arc (see Ch. 6)
120: Charles Taylor ("age of authenticity"; "mutual display"); the myth that marriage is about romance and that romance is without children and daily work (see p. 122 and "vampire children")
121-24: Orthodox wedding rite (the Service of Betrothal and the Service of Crowning [martyrdom])
127: intentional or not, our households have formative rituals
128: reference to Horton's A Better Way
129: family worship should ignite the imagination (use music, attend to the liturgical calendar, etc.)
130: parents should be preparing to send their children into the world (cultural mandate; Great Commission)
130-31: "the sacramental power of Christian worship 'enchants' our everyday lives"; ceremonies help with enchantment
131: cutting a stone vs. building a cathedral
132: dinner-table education
133: learning to lament; lifting the mundane
134: cultivate imagination; gratitude
136: Bible reading and family prayer
Chapter 6: Teach Your Children Well: Learning by Heart
138: learning by participating, not merely by studying [cf. Lewis's "Meditation in a Toolshed"]
139: French word for "training" means "formation"
205n3, n11, and n16: Teaching and Christian Practices
143: "we pray before we know, we worship before we 'worldview'"; formation vs. information
143-154: youth ministry
144: "the primary concern of not sounding boring" [ironically, this description could be used to describe some of Smith's books]
144-45: emphasis on fun (don't want to sound boring) is driven by fear; when young people worship by themselves, we rob them of the virtue-forming practice of imitation; worship becomes expressivistic and consumeristic
146-47: don't mistake extroversion for faithfulness
148-49: reenchantment
147/149: young people actually love rituals/traditions
152-54: three steps to formative youth ministry (sanctuary worship, ancient disciplines, service)
154: God uses the influence of parents and other adults to keep kids in the church
154-58: Christian schools and homeschool contexts
158-59: great section on forming students
159-60: virtues have never been "generic"—they "are thick realities tethered to particular communities governed by a particular Story"
160-61: a version of this is online: "Secure Your Own Mask First" ("if I am going to be a teacher of virtue, I need to be a virtuous teacher")
161-63: specific ways for teachers to grow together (p. 163: "becoming a teacher of virtue takes practice")
163-64: Smith mentions Desiring the Kingdom and Teaching and Christian Practices as sources for further study
164: Kuyperian worldview doesn't have a telos?
165: macro/momentous framing practices (often at orientation) and micro/mundane framing practices (daily)
166: "secular" in quotes
169-70: Aquinas's prayer before study (ignorance as a darkness, but not a sin)
170: framing prayers provide opportunities to create concrete contexts (instead of abstract discussions)—in economics, international relations, philosophy, or other classes
Chapter 7: You Make What You Want: Vocational Liturgies
171-72: we are home in creation, which is very good; Revelation ends with God dwelling with us; we should not abandon creation; Smith connects the creation mandate with the Great Commission [cf. Gentry]
172-75: we are to image (God's vice-regents), unfold (unpack latent potential), and occupy (Hunter's "faithful presence")
173: Tolkien and sub-creation
174: "Promethean striving" sounds like Frankenstein; tent imagery (cf. cathedral imagery)
175: as culture-makers, we make what we love
175-77: Star Wars example about Lucas's desire to have a certain kind of fairytale; Vader's redemption because of attachment, not distance
177-78: cultivating our unconscious
178-81: reinventing church is harmful—"we don't need to invent—we need to remember"
179: "Good culture-making requires that we imagine the world otherwise—which means seeing through the status-quo stories we're told and instead envisioning kingdom come. . . . [W]e need imaginations that have absorbed a vision for how things ought to be."
179: "good design tells the truth about the world"
180: "Christian worship, I suggest, is a design studio"
181-85: constraints as gifts
185-86: influence of Alvin Plantinga on Smith (we need Christian philosophers); Kuyperian language; some people use Col. 2:8 to argue against philosophy
186-87: Aristotle on God's attracting us to Himself (Metaphysics) and on practice and repetition (Nicomachean Ethics)
187: worship makes us better workers
188: positive look at Calvin's Geneva (vision of a God-centered civic life)
Benediction
189: "Our telos brings us back to our beginning."
For Further Reading
191: David Brooks on character, virtue, formation, and imitation; Mike Cosper on the "'narrative arc' of intentional Christian worship"
192: Desiring the Kingdom as a 201 course, and this book as a 101 course; Imagining the Kingdom as the "philosophical foundations for a liturgical theology of culture"; Smith was heavily influenced by Robert Webber's Ancient-Future Worship
Acknowledgements
194: origin of the book
195: Edith Schaeffer's The Hidden Art of Homemaking on hospitality
April 1, 2018
It is not hyperbole to say that this book has changed my life, particularly when it comes to how I lead my community (discipleship) group, how I raise my kids, and how I interact with youth. The last 6th of the book wained for me a little bit, but maybe that's because I was being over-tranced by how good this book is. Seriously.
While it is about habit, it's not one of those "if you read your Bible every day, you'll eventually want to" books. Rather, it focuses on liturgy, both the ones that we use in church and the ones the world gives us. That's the running theme throughout the book, and the book handles SO MANY SUBJECTS, especially come the second half.
Outside of the Bible, there are now only two books I am committing to reading every year. The first is Parenting by Paul Tripp (which I'm reading for the next 20 years). The second one is this book. I am committing to reading it for the next 10 years because I truly want the message to sink into my heart, far past just my brain.
After reading this book, I will all the more recommend people to listen *more* (more, not meaning "exclusively") to people like John Piper and slightly less to others like R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur. Wondering why? Read this book. lol
Sidenote: This narrator was on point. I wish every theology audiobook had a good engaging narrator like this one. Hint hint ChristianAudio.com
While it is about habit, it's not one of those "if you read your Bible every day, you'll eventually want to" books. Rather, it focuses on liturgy, both the ones that we use in church and the ones the world gives us. That's the running theme throughout the book, and the book handles SO MANY SUBJECTS, especially come the second half.
Outside of the Bible, there are now only two books I am committing to reading every year. The first is Parenting by Paul Tripp (which I'm reading for the next 20 years). The second one is this book. I am committing to reading it for the next 10 years because I truly want the message to sink into my heart, far past just my brain.
After reading this book, I will all the more recommend people to listen *more* (more, not meaning "exclusively") to people like John Piper and slightly less to others like R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur. Wondering why? Read this book. lol
Sidenote: This narrator was on point. I wish every theology audiobook had a good engaging narrator like this one. Hint hint ChristianAudio.com
May 27, 2016
I love Jamie Smith's mind and creativity. This book is no exception. Full of insight and provocation on everything from Cranmer's Book of Common prayer to how George Lucas created the Star Wars universe, via the liturgy of the shopping mall.
I did feel there was a tendency to overdo the emphasis on directing habit and instinct over and above the importance of training the mind because our culture needs no more excuses to bypass the mind. After all, why does the apostle Paul make such a big deal of renewing the mind (which I realise is far more than the modernist's intellect, but it can't be less than it,surely)?
Still. This was a very stimulating read from a great thinker, yet again.
I did feel there was a tendency to overdo the emphasis on directing habit and instinct over and above the importance of training the mind because our culture needs no more excuses to bypass the mind. After all, why does the apostle Paul make such a big deal of renewing the mind (which I realise is far more than the modernist's intellect, but it can't be less than it,surely)?
Still. This was a very stimulating read from a great thinker, yet again.
April 1, 2024
An incredibly important book! I have been going down this whole “spiritual formation” rabbit hole for a couple of months now, and this book really helped me to synthesize a lot of floating thoughts into a few concrete ideas. I’d strongly encourage the typical 21st century Christian to read this book or interact with Smith’s content more broadly (other books, podcast appearances, etc.) because he is saying some incredibly important things more clearly than anyone else. This book is for sure top 5-10 books I’ve read in terms of simple impact on my life.
A few minor qualms were that it drug a bit at the end, and Smith was pretty strictly prescriptive concerning certain practices that I wished he would hold onto a bit more loosely. I really agreed with all of his observations about what we ought not to do, and I thought that his suggestions for what we should instead do were really great ideas, but I was a little off-put by the degree to which he asserted that his suggestions were really THE alternative.
A few minor qualms were that it drug a bit at the end, and Smith was pretty strictly prescriptive concerning certain practices that I wished he would hold onto a bit more loosely. I really agreed with all of his observations about what we ought not to do, and I thought that his suggestions for what we should instead do were really great ideas, but I was a little off-put by the degree to which he asserted that his suggestions were really THE alternative.
May 29, 2017
I'm often quibbling with Smith. As a Baptist, I think he's too high church and sacramental. Like in his previous books in the Cultural Liturgies series, I think he exaggerates his thesis (“we're primarily lovers, not thinkers"). He often repeats himself (e.g., "as we've argued), which is a good pedagogical tool, but I'm not convinced it's needed (at least not as often) in a slim book. And he can at times caricature the opposing view ("brain-on-sticks"). That said, I think Smith says many things that the evangelical church desperately needs to hear. We are being catechized--either by the American dream or orthodox faith. We are liturgical brings, hungry for story and ritual. Our corporate gatherings as the church are meant to be tactile representations of the gospel. And on and on. Parents, church leaders, and educators would do well to take Smith's proposal to heart.
February 9, 2022
I am not what I thought I loved. Whoops. Thanks James for absolutely yeeting my life :’)
June 9, 2016
I've read both James Smith's Desiring the Kingdom and Imagining the Kingdom, the two books that are the foundation of this one. This book makes the same general point of those two: that we as humans are fundamentally "lovers" (that is, the true mark of who we are is not what we believe but what we love), and that the primary way to form disciples is "affectively" through habit. This is basically a virtue ethics type argument, but extended beyond to epistemology (how we know) to education and vocation. The primary place this happens for disciples, argues Smith, is Christian worship.
There are major weaknesses in this view, however. First, Smith argues that we intellectualize too much. Yet, it's hard to see how by focusing on worship as the primary place of formation he isn't doing the same exact thing. True, it may be more embodied than memorizing scripture, but it's still a form of 'theoria,' as the Greeks would have it, rather than 'arete.' Wouldn't a truly habitual formation be on the practices of discipleship in a wider sense - service, evangelism, community, etc. I'm sure he wouldn't say those are not included, but he spends a whole lot more time on one slice of faith.
The other major problem I find with Smith's actual argument is his relying on a lot of anecdotes. At one point he creates an image a youth pastor, and then just asserts that kids these days would find much more valuable things like "The Divine Hours" or Taize. This may be true for some of his highly motivated Christian students at his Christian University, but this is not the environment for most of us. Without any data it's hard to say if this is true or not. A nice sentiment though, but not an argument.
The first three chapters are really good, and worth the price of the book, even if you've read the other volumes.
There are major weaknesses in this view, however. First, Smith argues that we intellectualize too much. Yet, it's hard to see how by focusing on worship as the primary place of formation he isn't doing the same exact thing. True, it may be more embodied than memorizing scripture, but it's still a form of 'theoria,' as the Greeks would have it, rather than 'arete.' Wouldn't a truly habitual formation be on the practices of discipleship in a wider sense - service, evangelism, community, etc. I'm sure he wouldn't say those are not included, but he spends a whole lot more time on one slice of faith.
The other major problem I find with Smith's actual argument is his relying on a lot of anecdotes. At one point he creates an image a youth pastor, and then just asserts that kids these days would find much more valuable things like "The Divine Hours" or Taize. This may be true for some of his highly motivated Christian students at his Christian University, but this is not the environment for most of us. Without any data it's hard to say if this is true or not. A nice sentiment though, but not an argument.
The first three chapters are really good, and worth the price of the book, even if you've read the other volumes.
November 8, 2021
This book was brilliant. The main thesis of the book is that worship is the basis of Christian formation and we worship that which the liturgies of our life teach us are important. Therefore, we need to acknowledge that despite modernity’s insistence that we are primarily ‘thinking things’ we are actually lovers. And as lovers we need to be aware of the things we truly love. Not what we say we love but the liturgies, or habits, that reflect our true loves.
This is all of course quite ironic as it is presented in a book designed for the intellect. However it is also incredibly practical and challenging. It comes with a big thumbs up from me. My only critique would be that the author sometimes gets carried away with promoting high church practices and bashing the low churches view of symbolism and ritual.
This is all of course quite ironic as it is presented in a book designed for the intellect. However it is also incredibly practical and challenging. It comes with a big thumbs up from me. My only critique would be that the author sometimes gets carried away with promoting high church practices and bashing the low churches view of symbolism and ritual.
July 17, 2018
The overall thesis of the book is compelling and believable but the 3 star rating ultimately comes from the repetitiveness and unnecessary length. While I understand this is a shorter book condensed from three more academic volumes, it seemed like this could have been more properly communicated, without losing the effect, in an article. As a result, the book club I read this with all had a hard time engaging it toward the end due to loss of interest.
July 7, 2021
So glad to have finally finished this. What an incredible, inspiring book. Now on to his trilogy!
October 2, 2023
This book has marked me in a really significant way. It gave language to things I have seen in the church that didn’t sit right with me, but never known how to explain it..
Incredibly challenging, so much to chew on. I took my time with this book and it was worth it. Let it seep in how beautiful the narrative of the gospel is and God’s invitation to you to participate in His story!
Incredibly challenging, so much to chew on. I took my time with this book and it was worth it. Let it seep in how beautiful the narrative of the gospel is and God’s invitation to you to participate in His story!
December 21, 2017
Um bom livro a respeito de como nossos hábitos não são meramente coisas que fazemos, mas também produzem efeitos em nós. Também somos formados por nossos hábitos, que nada mais são do que manifestações daquilo que amamos verdadeiramente. Destaco alguns bons insights de Smith: 1. O modo como o batismo se relaciona com o conceito de igreja como "família", uma família ainda mais importante do que nossas famílias de sangue; 2. A maneira como os ídolos existentes da indústria de cerimônias de casamento são expostos; 3. A necessidade de reformar os formadores (professores), para que estes possam levar seus alunos a um telos que se harmonize com a vontade de Deus, a saber, tornarem-se amantes do Bom, do Belo e do Verdadeiro. Sobre esse último, isso é importante, uma vez que o que mais ouvimos em nossas escolas e universidades é a respeito do seu telos como a formação de seres humanos críticos, o que representa uma apostasia do propósito para o qual Deus criou o homem.
Alguns senões ficam em razão da maneira como Smith se posiciona em relação às tradições ortodoxa oriental e católica romana.
Ainda assim, trata-se de uma leitura instigante.
Recomendo.
Alguns senões ficam em razão da maneira como Smith se posiciona em relação às tradições ortodoxa oriental e católica romana.
Ainda assim, trata-se de uma leitura instigante.
Recomendo.
June 22, 2017
The central idea here is that human beings are not primarily thinkers, but lovers. Not lovers in the sense commonly used, but rather in the most basic sense of the word - human beings must have an object of love, (something to worship, as David Foster Wallace said in his oft-quoted commencement address), something to reach for - we must have a telos, an end in mind. Much of the book is spent directly in opposition to what Dr. Smith calls "thinking-thingism," or the idea that people are formed by their thoughts and that Christian formation can be done merely by the impartation of facts and knowledge. Christian discipleship, he argues, is not merely a matter of thinking the right thoughts, it's primarily a matter of setting one's affections rightly. It was good and insightful, and made me re-examine how I think about Christian discipleship.
February 12, 2019
I really like the premise of the book...how our habits shape us, how our desires control us more than our thoughts, how we can bring those two things together: desires and habits work together to shape our lives for the Kingdom. That said, Smith is a philosopher. I am not. I appreciate quite a few stand alone points from the book, but was unsure how they related to the overall theme. Take away: watch over the things I practice (my habits) as they are shaping me more than I realize. I can choose to shape my own heart by being specific in my habits.
July 16, 2023
Maybe a 3.75???
This book was really interesting and a paradigm shifter for sure.
HIGHLIGHT: Probably the first couple chapters.
The book started strong and got a little more uncertain for me as i went, not because i was necessarily in disagreement (although at times I was), but mostly because a lot of the claims that were made didn’t seem to have much in terms of a supporting argument. I think it was greatly lacking in use of biblical support, although many good biblical ideas and themes are used throughout the book. Another big complaint is that he talks about reforming our “imaginations” without well defining what he means by “imagination”. There are a few times where he uses words in that manner than aren’t entirely clear and while I followed the arguments it was just hard to get a perfect picture of what he was trying to say at times. I wanted a more detailed approach to the topic. My last complaint is that the book didn’t seem very helpful to me at helping me identify which habits in my life were good and bad and for what reasons. He just gives some examples but does not teach how to discern those things yourself. I would’ve appreciated a more detailed writing I think.
I did really enjoy this book and putting thought into the idea of being a primarily loving being instead of a thinking being was a good paradigm shift for me. It helped me see discipleship in a new light and have a better understanding of spiritual growth. I think that a lot of his points are true and truly do impact the way we should live as christian’s and how we should function in the church.
I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO SOMEBODY IF THEY WERE WANTING TO READ ABOUT SOMETHING IN THIS AREA.
This book was really interesting and a paradigm shifter for sure.
HIGHLIGHT: Probably the first couple chapters.
The book started strong and got a little more uncertain for me as i went, not because i was necessarily in disagreement (although at times I was), but mostly because a lot of the claims that were made didn’t seem to have much in terms of a supporting argument. I think it was greatly lacking in use of biblical support, although many good biblical ideas and themes are used throughout the book. Another big complaint is that he talks about reforming our “imaginations” without well defining what he means by “imagination”. There are a few times where he uses words in that manner than aren’t entirely clear and while I followed the arguments it was just hard to get a perfect picture of what he was trying to say at times. I wanted a more detailed approach to the topic. My last complaint is that the book didn’t seem very helpful to me at helping me identify which habits in my life were good and bad and for what reasons. He just gives some examples but does not teach how to discern those things yourself. I would’ve appreciated a more detailed writing I think.
I did really enjoy this book and putting thought into the idea of being a primarily loving being instead of a thinking being was a good paradigm shift for me. It helped me see discipleship in a new light and have a better understanding of spiritual growth. I think that a lot of his points are true and truly do impact the way we should live as christian’s and how we should function in the church.
I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO SOMEBODY IF THEY WERE WANTING TO READ ABOUT SOMETHING IN THIS AREA.
October 25, 2016
Summary: Smith contends that our hearts and the ways we live our lives are shaped by what we love and worship, and that "liturgies" historically have shaped the loves of our hearts and the ways of our lives.
So often, in Christian circles, it is thought that if we can instruct Christians in right doctrine and help them apply this rightly in their lives, they will live Christianly. James K. A. Smith would not deny the importance of right doctrine but would argue that it is the shaping of our hearts, our loves, desires, and what we worship, that is crucial in translating right belief into our practices. Several years ago, Smith framed out in great depth this argument in Desiring the Kingdom (reviewed here). Many have asked for a more distilled version of this material, which he provides in this new work.
Smith begins by observing that we are not simply thinking things but rather people shaped by the habits of our hearts. Re-shaping our lives means recognizing the existing habits of the heart, often more culturally than convictionally-shaped, and re-orienting our hearts by re-orienting the focus of our worship. He believes this fundamentally happens through "liturgies" that re-shape the loves of our heart along the lines of loving the Triune God and loving our neighbors.
The problem he sees in much of contemporary church practice is its thin, expressive form. In an effort to turn away from liturgical formalism, it has rejected the proper uses of liturgy. Instead, he would contend as follows:
"If worship is formative, not merely expressive, then we need to be conscious and intentional about the form of worship that is forming us. This has one more important implication: When you unhook worship from mere expression, it also completely retools your understanding of repetition. If you think of worship as a bottom-up, expressive endeavor, repetition will seem insincere and inauthentic. But when you see worship as an invitation to a top-down encounter in which God is refashioning your deepest habits, then repetition looks very different: it's how God rehabituates us. In a formational paradigm, repetition isn't insincere, because you are not showing, you're submitting. This is crucial because there is no formation without repetition. Virtue formation takes practice, and there is no practice that isn't repetitive. We willingly embrace repetition as good in all kinds of other sectors of life--to hone our golf swing, our piano prowess, and our mathematical abilities, for example. If the sovereign Lord has created us as creatures of habit, why should we think repetition is inimical to our spiritual growth" (p. 80).
Smith then explores how Christian worship is meant to "re-story" our lives in a narrative arc of gathering, listening, communing, and sending. In the final three chapters he writes about liturgies at home and at work, and most tellingly, of the shaping of the hearts of our young. He decries the "next big thing" of much of youth ministry and contends for communal practices of eating, praying, singing, thinking and reading together across generations in both families and educational settings.
Even this distillation of Smith's work is worth savoring and reading slowly. It is an important work for any charged with leading the formational and liturgical life of churches, as it is for those engaged in the formational work of education, and those who care about the translation of Christian believe into Christian practice in the workplace. It recognizes that we are far more shaped by our heart-habits, whether it is praying the hours, or regularly checking our phones, than simply by what we formally believe. Far too often we are those, who, like the author, read Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan's challenges to healthier agriculture and eating while sitting in a fast-food restaurant. Just as weight loss programs help us develop better liturgies toward food, Smith contends that the work of the church is to lead us in liturgies that shape our hearts around our beliefs in ways that God works to transform our lives.
I'll leave you with three questions this provokes for me:
1. If an outsider were to observe the lives of our congregation or group for a week, what would they conclude we love?
2. What "liturgies" inside or outside our community seem most formative in shaping these "habits of heart?"
3. What "liturgies" might we embrace to begin to be formed along the lines of what we believe?
_______________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher . I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
So often, in Christian circles, it is thought that if we can instruct Christians in right doctrine and help them apply this rightly in their lives, they will live Christianly. James K. A. Smith would not deny the importance of right doctrine but would argue that it is the shaping of our hearts, our loves, desires, and what we worship, that is crucial in translating right belief into our practices. Several years ago, Smith framed out in great depth this argument in Desiring the Kingdom (reviewed here). Many have asked for a more distilled version of this material, which he provides in this new work.
Smith begins by observing that we are not simply thinking things but rather people shaped by the habits of our hearts. Re-shaping our lives means recognizing the existing habits of the heart, often more culturally than convictionally-shaped, and re-orienting our hearts by re-orienting the focus of our worship. He believes this fundamentally happens through "liturgies" that re-shape the loves of our heart along the lines of loving the Triune God and loving our neighbors.
The problem he sees in much of contemporary church practice is its thin, expressive form. In an effort to turn away from liturgical formalism, it has rejected the proper uses of liturgy. Instead, he would contend as follows:
"If worship is formative, not merely expressive, then we need to be conscious and intentional about the form of worship that is forming us. This has one more important implication: When you unhook worship from mere expression, it also completely retools your understanding of repetition. If you think of worship as a bottom-up, expressive endeavor, repetition will seem insincere and inauthentic. But when you see worship as an invitation to a top-down encounter in which God is refashioning your deepest habits, then repetition looks very different: it's how God rehabituates us. In a formational paradigm, repetition isn't insincere, because you are not showing, you're submitting. This is crucial because there is no formation without repetition. Virtue formation takes practice, and there is no practice that isn't repetitive. We willingly embrace repetition as good in all kinds of other sectors of life--to hone our golf swing, our piano prowess, and our mathematical abilities, for example. If the sovereign Lord has created us as creatures of habit, why should we think repetition is inimical to our spiritual growth" (p. 80).
Smith then explores how Christian worship is meant to "re-story" our lives in a narrative arc of gathering, listening, communing, and sending. In the final three chapters he writes about liturgies at home and at work, and most tellingly, of the shaping of the hearts of our young. He decries the "next big thing" of much of youth ministry and contends for communal practices of eating, praying, singing, thinking and reading together across generations in both families and educational settings.
Even this distillation of Smith's work is worth savoring and reading slowly. It is an important work for any charged with leading the formational and liturgical life of churches, as it is for those engaged in the formational work of education, and those who care about the translation of Christian believe into Christian practice in the workplace. It recognizes that we are far more shaped by our heart-habits, whether it is praying the hours, or regularly checking our phones, than simply by what we formally believe. Far too often we are those, who, like the author, read Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan's challenges to healthier agriculture and eating while sitting in a fast-food restaurant. Just as weight loss programs help us develop better liturgies toward food, Smith contends that the work of the church is to lead us in liturgies that shape our hearts around our beliefs in ways that God works to transform our lives.
I'll leave you with three questions this provokes for me:
1. If an outsider were to observe the lives of our congregation or group for a week, what would they conclude we love?
2. What "liturgies" inside or outside our community seem most formative in shaping these "habits of heart?"
3. What "liturgies" might we embrace to begin to be formed along the lines of what we believe?
_______________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher . I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
February 15, 2022
2nd read through: Teaching this in my High School class on Spiritual Formation. Still Wonderful.
1st read: Wonderful! Even if you have, like me, read "Desiring the Kingdom" and "Imagining the Kingdom", I think this is a delightful and worthwhile read. Immensely readable and immediately practical as well as philosophical, Smith helps us connect his important message from DtK and ItK to those who would find those reads intimidating and to the daily grind of pastoring, teaching, parenting, living, and character forming. I will be buying several copies so that I can give them to others. Highly recommended. If you want more than the 200 pages here, I strongly recommend the aforementioned volumes (they aren't actually difficult reads), but this is a good starting point or refresher.
1st read: Wonderful! Even if you have, like me, read "Desiring the Kingdom" and "Imagining the Kingdom", I think this is a delightful and worthwhile read. Immensely readable and immediately practical as well as philosophical, Smith helps us connect his important message from DtK and ItK to those who would find those reads intimidating and to the daily grind of pastoring, teaching, parenting, living, and character forming. I will be buying several copies so that I can give them to others. Highly recommended. If you want more than the 200 pages here, I strongly recommend the aforementioned volumes (they aren't actually difficult reads), but this is a good starting point or refresher.
February 5, 2017
The formative power of our everyday rhythms and habits should not be underestimated. We operate, often subconsciously, according to our own vision of what "the good life" looks like, and this is what drives and motivates our actions, generally even more so than a pattern of intellectual thought that we have explicitly articulated to ourselves or others. We need to get more intentional about cultivating and curating the underlying "loves" that drive us, Smith argues, following from Augustine and others. I agree, even as someone myself who tends to spend significant time in the life of the mind; this is an important paradigm shift crucially needed for our contemporary setting today.
December 13, 2016
Probably the best book I've read this year. Impossible for me to recommend it highly enough. I usually dislike re-reading books, but I will be coming back to this one for certain.
December 29, 2023
This book has a few nuggets that are 24K gold and I’m very glad to have read it to get them. It does feel tedious getting to them and rehashing them. This (like so many non-fiction books) would be much much more digestible, memorable, and enjoyable as a long essay instead but perhaps that is all part of the Plan. Someday our species will hopefully advance to being able to monetize essay format information as well.
The first profound principle here is that moral deviance is never solved by knowledge. No amount or kind of “information” as such can make a person be a better person. Just last night I tried to convince myself to go to bed on time and, lo-and-behold, I stayed up to finish a movie I didn’t need to watch in the first place. We all do these things everyday and our cultural inclination says, “next time, I’ll just think and try harder”. Wrong.
As Aristotle is quoted “we are what we repeatedly do, excellence therefore is not an act but a habit”. The genius of this book is to take Aristotle’s observation as far as possible. What makes a habit? Discipline? Maybe for GI Joe’s like Jocko Willink. But even he is maybe not being honest with himself. All sticks and carrots is an exhaustive and unreliable way to modify behavior. All the anecdotal evidence I have ever seen first or second hand indicates that people habitually do what they most want to do. Period. So what makes a habit? Actually wanting something will inevitably make it a habit. To form a morning routine, we have to inculcate a deep enough desire to overcome the desire to hit snooze or it just won’t stick.
So, who we are is not based on our actions but our habits. Habits are inevitably shaped by desires. But deeper still, what produces desire? Often, we naively think a worldview shapes desires but clearly this is not true. Its just a reformulation of the idea that more better information will change us. After careful review a disturbing truth settles with the conviction of distant thunder as Freud cackles from beyond the grave… from conception up to this moment, our desires were shaped by previous habits which were shaped by previous desires which were shaped by previous habits! Existential terror!!
Thankfully there is more to the story. And thank God, the transformational and supernatural essence of divine love (agape), possibility of redemption through crucifixion and resurrection, and surrender to the will of God, is the only way to truly exercise our free will, break our deepest cycles of habit and desire (perhaps generational), and enter His Kingdom.
In this way, we are what we Love.
The second profound insight has to do with culture and society, and in particular, a sort of “science-ism”. In the 1980s, Carl Sagan described our contemporary predicament as a combustible mixture of ignorance and trust. Where the lay public truly and justifiably don’t know what science is, has done, or is doing, but have come to “trust the science” implicitly. What culture thinks it “knows” about “science” is that science is as admirable, objective, and true as anything will ever be. This perfect hubris has infiltrated western pedagogies since at least the industrial revolution and produced more chaotic and confusing liturgies than even Ray Bradbury could have imagined.
In a similarly co-creative and unexamined fashion to desire and habit, pedagogy and liturgy leap-frog through culture and society, defining them. Pedagogy determines the structure of education, education determines how people live and relate, how people live and relate forms their liturgy, their liturgy is assumed as true and necessary, what is “true and necessary” is packaged up into educational pedagogy. Hubris and assumption abound. In America today, more than religions, more than professions, more than politics, more even than family, our society elevates autonomy and the sovereign individual. It follows that we must assume a scientifically objective perspective, for the sake of the others autonomy. We are assured that if we think we are objective, we are. It further insists that anything subjective, anything teleological whatsoever, is a sign of corruption and bias and is against the autonomy of the individual. Eduction is then purely critical thinking, devoid of the good, let alone oriented toward goodness. In America, the current pedagogy overtly precludes virtue.
I am certainly missing many key insights and look forward to more reflection on this work. Lastly, one difficult part of accepting the thesis that we are what we love is the immeasurable weight of responsibility it affords. When we are what we love, everything matters. Every action, every word, every thought has a note of spiritual relevance. I encourage everyone who has encountered this view from Jordan Peterson or from any other conservative thinker to hopefully remember what it means beyond responsibility. It also means the opportunity for communion and growth in the balance of truth and love. It also means that every action, word, and thought is participating uniquely in Gods beauty, goodness, and truth. It is less an ultimatum than it is an invitation to responsibility through gratitude of our divine gifts, an invitation to love for its own sake.
The first profound principle here is that moral deviance is never solved by knowledge. No amount or kind of “information” as such can make a person be a better person. Just last night I tried to convince myself to go to bed on time and, lo-and-behold, I stayed up to finish a movie I didn’t need to watch in the first place. We all do these things everyday and our cultural inclination says, “next time, I’ll just think and try harder”. Wrong.
As Aristotle is quoted “we are what we repeatedly do, excellence therefore is not an act but a habit”. The genius of this book is to take Aristotle’s observation as far as possible. What makes a habit? Discipline? Maybe for GI Joe’s like Jocko Willink. But even he is maybe not being honest with himself. All sticks and carrots is an exhaustive and unreliable way to modify behavior. All the anecdotal evidence I have ever seen first or second hand indicates that people habitually do what they most want to do. Period. So what makes a habit? Actually wanting something will inevitably make it a habit. To form a morning routine, we have to inculcate a deep enough desire to overcome the desire to hit snooze or it just won’t stick.
So, who we are is not based on our actions but our habits. Habits are inevitably shaped by desires. But deeper still, what produces desire? Often, we naively think a worldview shapes desires but clearly this is not true. Its just a reformulation of the idea that more better information will change us. After careful review a disturbing truth settles with the conviction of distant thunder as Freud cackles from beyond the grave… from conception up to this moment, our desires were shaped by previous habits which were shaped by previous desires which were shaped by previous habits! Existential terror!!
Thankfully there is more to the story. And thank God, the transformational and supernatural essence of divine love (agape), possibility of redemption through crucifixion and resurrection, and surrender to the will of God, is the only way to truly exercise our free will, break our deepest cycles of habit and desire (perhaps generational), and enter His Kingdom.
In this way, we are what we Love.
The second profound insight has to do with culture and society, and in particular, a sort of “science-ism”. In the 1980s, Carl Sagan described our contemporary predicament as a combustible mixture of ignorance and trust. Where the lay public truly and justifiably don’t know what science is, has done, or is doing, but have come to “trust the science” implicitly. What culture thinks it “knows” about “science” is that science is as admirable, objective, and true as anything will ever be. This perfect hubris has infiltrated western pedagogies since at least the industrial revolution and produced more chaotic and confusing liturgies than even Ray Bradbury could have imagined.
In a similarly co-creative and unexamined fashion to desire and habit, pedagogy and liturgy leap-frog through culture and society, defining them. Pedagogy determines the structure of education, education determines how people live and relate, how people live and relate forms their liturgy, their liturgy is assumed as true and necessary, what is “true and necessary” is packaged up into educational pedagogy. Hubris and assumption abound. In America today, more than religions, more than professions, more than politics, more even than family, our society elevates autonomy and the sovereign individual. It follows that we must assume a scientifically objective perspective, for the sake of the others autonomy. We are assured that if we think we are objective, we are. It further insists that anything subjective, anything teleological whatsoever, is a sign of corruption and bias and is against the autonomy of the individual. Eduction is then purely critical thinking, devoid of the good, let alone oriented toward goodness. In America, the current pedagogy overtly precludes virtue.
I am certainly missing many key insights and look forward to more reflection on this work. Lastly, one difficult part of accepting the thesis that we are what we love is the immeasurable weight of responsibility it affords. When we are what we love, everything matters. Every action, every word, every thought has a note of spiritual relevance. I encourage everyone who has encountered this view from Jordan Peterson or from any other conservative thinker to hopefully remember what it means beyond responsibility. It also means the opportunity for communion and growth in the balance of truth and love. It also means that every action, word, and thought is participating uniquely in Gods beauty, goodness, and truth. It is less an ultimatum than it is an invitation to responsibility through gratitude of our divine gifts, an invitation to love for its own sake.
March 1, 2023
This one kept moving from being too simple to too critical for me. I actually like his push for a return to church tradition and liturgy, but I wasn’t a fan of his way of expressing it. Two chapters in, I was pretty over it.
July 5, 2023
3.5 stars. I liked this book and think there was some really good stuff in here, just didn’t love it. I think I didn’t love his writing style and there were just a couple points where he kinda lost me, but regardless his central point of our habits not just being things we do but things that do something to us was very well taken and the implications he goes into are very worth dwelling on.
April 4, 2019
This book is an accessible yet thoughtful introduction to Augustine, virtue ethics, and liturgy. Smith reintroduces (from Augustine) the often needed corrective that we aren’t merely thinking beings but also complex beings who love and desire. What you love affects who you are; the things you do also do things to you.
June 7, 2020
This has been one of the most educational, corrective, and accurate takes on the human heart I have ever read. I loved every page and am walking away a better learner, lover, and follower of Jesus. The thesis of the book sums it up well: you are what you love because you live toward what you want. So make sure you actually know what you love since that's what you worship. Highly recommend you read this book.
November 13, 2020
This is the first book I've been assigned to read as an incoming seminary student, and I'm genuinely pumped to have the opportunity to further reflect on and wrestle with Smith's ideas and arguments within that context, as there's a lot I really appreciated here and a good bit I hold push-back towards too. To start, his twofold foundational principles earned rousing resonance and support from me. He articulates the ways that the American Church has largely come to understand Christian discipleship as an intellectual pursuit the centers the mind rather than an embodied devotion more centered around lived habits, which he suggests are more reflective of the things we love. This is accompanied by the compelling and largely evident logic that, for the most part, we are more shaped by the things we love than the things we believe. Alongside that originating concept is his recognition that the American Church has also settled for a replication of our dominant culture (he pays particular emphasis towards our intersecting proclivities towards consumerism, individualistic expression, and desires for novelty and entertainment) rather than a counter-formative alternative set apart from those norms which would invite people more holistically into the Christian story in its contrast to American culture.
And all of that is freakin' spot on for me! While I found him erring into redundancy in his continual loop around a few key phrases and ideas (e.g. "We aren't what we think, but what we love"), I was really tracking with so much of what he was describing. And then...he sort of lost me a bit when he offered liturgical worship as the primary or central solution to the dilemmas described above. Don't get me wrong; I think Smith builds a strong case in favor of liturgical worship as a corrective against many of the ways the Church has assimilated into American culture and -could- very well be a meaningful invitation into habits of faith that cultivate abiding, reforming, embodied love. However, it's far less inevitable than he seemed to suggest, and I think we see unavoidable evidence of this when assessing the lived realities of those churches and their attendants today. Obviously there are passionate, committed followers of Jesus in every iteration of the Church, just as there are not. So while, sure, there are plenty of people in the "Expression Paradigm" who are missing the big picture in their pursuit of emotional highs and novelty experiences, it's pretty apparent that just as many in the "Formation Paradigm" may be going through the motions of church without the deep awareness of their history, purpose, and theological impact that Smith holds. While I personally really appreciated his descriptions of the potential or presumed impact of weekly experiences of communion, confession, or a reading of a creed would offer, I just don't share his certainty that that will be grasped by all. Ultimately, he makes an excellent case for liturgical worship (and some compelling critiques of worship within the "Expression Paradigm"), but relies on dichotomous and even hierarchical logic that seems both unwarranted and unearned to me by the book's conclusion.
However, like I said, I did genuinely appreciate engaging with it throughout the reading experience, and its philosophical premise both put words to observations and inklings I'd held for quite some time while also spurring further reflection. Mostly, I've been mulling over his notion that there are countless invisible institutions (or "cultural liturgies") vying for our attention and devotion, and that we not only need to be on guard about what we do with them, but more so the ways that they influence and shape us. While Smith does a thorough job connecting this to the context of consumerism (coming within reach of calling it capitalism, perhaps), I was hoping he'd more directly contextualize those cultural liturgies as systems of power, if only because that's an examination where the stakes feel appropriately high. As I was reading that portion of the book, my mind immediately went to the ways its been revealed since 2016 that white American Christians have been deeply influenced by and loyal to white supremacy as a "cultural liturgy," and I think it would've been a radical reorientation of Smith's central argument to take it in that direction rather than the one he did. However, that's the direction I'm inclined towards, and I'm looking forward to engaging further in considering the ample implications his work offers towards that reading.
And all of that is freakin' spot on for me! While I found him erring into redundancy in his continual loop around a few key phrases and ideas (e.g. "We aren't what we think, but what we love"), I was really tracking with so much of what he was describing. And then...he sort of lost me a bit when he offered liturgical worship as the primary or central solution to the dilemmas described above. Don't get me wrong; I think Smith builds a strong case in favor of liturgical worship as a corrective against many of the ways the Church has assimilated into American culture and -could- very well be a meaningful invitation into habits of faith that cultivate abiding, reforming, embodied love. However, it's far less inevitable than he seemed to suggest, and I think we see unavoidable evidence of this when assessing the lived realities of those churches and their attendants today. Obviously there are passionate, committed followers of Jesus in every iteration of the Church, just as there are not. So while, sure, there are plenty of people in the "Expression Paradigm" who are missing the big picture in their pursuit of emotional highs and novelty experiences, it's pretty apparent that just as many in the "Formation Paradigm" may be going through the motions of church without the deep awareness of their history, purpose, and theological impact that Smith holds. While I personally really appreciated his descriptions of the potential or presumed impact of weekly experiences of communion, confession, or a reading of a creed would offer, I just don't share his certainty that that will be grasped by all. Ultimately, he makes an excellent case for liturgical worship (and some compelling critiques of worship within the "Expression Paradigm"), but relies on dichotomous and even hierarchical logic that seems both unwarranted and unearned to me by the book's conclusion.
However, like I said, I did genuinely appreciate engaging with it throughout the reading experience, and its philosophical premise both put words to observations and inklings I'd held for quite some time while also spurring further reflection. Mostly, I've been mulling over his notion that there are countless invisible institutions (or "cultural liturgies") vying for our attention and devotion, and that we not only need to be on guard about what we do with them, but more so the ways that they influence and shape us. While Smith does a thorough job connecting this to the context of consumerism (coming within reach of calling it capitalism, perhaps), I was hoping he'd more directly contextualize those cultural liturgies as systems of power, if only because that's an examination where the stakes feel appropriately high. As I was reading that portion of the book, my mind immediately went to the ways its been revealed since 2016 that white American Christians have been deeply influenced by and loyal to white supremacy as a "cultural liturgy," and I think it would've been a radical reorientation of Smith's central argument to take it in that direction rather than the one he did. However, that's the direction I'm inclined towards, and I'm looking forward to engaging further in considering the ample implications his work offers towards that reading.
Read
September 22, 2016I still remember learning Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major. My violin teacher was a stickler for technique, especially when it came to playing Bach. She called this particular piece a “marathon”: it required careful pacing and a good deal of commitment. There are a lot of fast passages that, if learned too hastily, sound rushed and fitful. The key, she affirmed week after week, was to practice the piece slowly with a metronome, paying excruciating detail to rhythm and fingering. She assured me that once I grew intimately acquainted with the notes and bowings, the speed would come by itself. Like second nature.
She was right. And to my surprise, the more time I spent practicing that piece, the more I came to love it. Whereas at the beginning of my study I was only mildly interested in Bach, the more I played this and other pieces by him, the more I came to love his music, with all its delicacy and finesse.
Perhaps it’s this remembrance that helped me identify so deeply with James K.A. Smith’s new book You Are What You Love. Smith begins his book with a classic quotation from St. Augustine’s Confessions, in which Augustine declares that “You [God] have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” There is a teleological bent to human nature: we are dynamic beings in search of a specific end. And while philosophy since the Enlightenment has conditioned us to believe “we are what we think” (thanks in large part to René Descartes), Augustine’s statement positions the seat of human character and creaturehood in the heart, not the head, suggesting that our proper end is devotion, not cognition. “What if, instead of starting from the assumption that human beings are thinking things, we started from the conviction that human beings are first and foremost lovers?” Smith asks. Then, the question becomes not “whether you will love something as ultimate,” but rather, “what you will love as ultimate.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
She was right. And to my surprise, the more time I spent practicing that piece, the more I came to love it. Whereas at the beginning of my study I was only mildly interested in Bach, the more I played this and other pieces by him, the more I came to love his music, with all its delicacy and finesse.
Perhaps it’s this remembrance that helped me identify so deeply with James K.A. Smith’s new book You Are What You Love. Smith begins his book with a classic quotation from St. Augustine’s Confessions, in which Augustine declares that “You [God] have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” There is a teleological bent to human nature: we are dynamic beings in search of a specific end. And while philosophy since the Enlightenment has conditioned us to believe “we are what we think” (thanks in large part to René Descartes), Augustine’s statement positions the seat of human character and creaturehood in the heart, not the head, suggesting that our proper end is devotion, not cognition. “What if, instead of starting from the assumption that human beings are thinking things, we started from the conviction that human beings are first and foremost lovers?” Smith asks. Then, the question becomes not “whether you will love something as ultimate,” but rather, “what you will love as ultimate.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
July 2, 2020
Whew! That was a fun ride! My first James KA Smith book, and definitely not my last. If you want, or at least are willing, to consider a view that offers a counter perspective to the current day culture of most churches, pick up this book. It just might challenge your view of liturgy, tradition, virtue, habit, imagination, and what story, or to what end or telos, it is that each one of us is living out and/or living towards. Whether we realize it or not.
Some, and I mean truly only a few of the many sections I highlighted in my book, of my favorite quotes/passages:
“Your deepest desire,” he observes, “is the one manifested by your daily life and habits.” This is because our action—our doing—bubbles up from our loves, which, as we’ve observed, are habits we’ve acquired through the practices we’re immersed in. That means the formation of my loves and desires can be happening “under the hood” of consciousness. I might be learning to love a telos that I’m not even aware of and that nonetheless governs my life in unconscious ways.”
“The orientation of the heart happens from the bottom up, through the formation of our habits of desire. Learning to love (God) takes practice.”
“The orientation of the heart happens from the bottom up, through the formation of our habits of desire. Learning to love (God) takes practice.”
“Jesus is a teacher who doesn’t just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn’t content to simply deposit new ideas into your mind; he is after nothing less than your wants, your loves, your longings.”
“Antoine de Saint-Exupéry captures this well: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
Some, and I mean truly only a few of the many sections I highlighted in my book, of my favorite quotes/passages:
“Your deepest desire,” he observes, “is the one manifested by your daily life and habits.” This is because our action—our doing—bubbles up from our loves, which, as we’ve observed, are habits we’ve acquired through the practices we’re immersed in. That means the formation of my loves and desires can be happening “under the hood” of consciousness. I might be learning to love a telos that I’m not even aware of and that nonetheless governs my life in unconscious ways.”
“The orientation of the heart happens from the bottom up, through the formation of our habits of desire. Learning to love (God) takes practice.”
“The orientation of the heart happens from the bottom up, through the formation of our habits of desire. Learning to love (God) takes practice.”
“Jesus is a teacher who doesn’t just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn’t content to simply deposit new ideas into your mind; he is after nothing less than your wants, your loves, your longings.”
“Antoine de Saint-Exupéry captures this well: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
March 18, 2019
I cannot say I didn’t get any meat off of the bones here, but I quit this book at chapter six. Smith gets too condescending and narrow-minded. Christians and humans should act this way and only this way. Disciples should do this and not that. I wonder if Smith even realized the irony in his metaphors, namely the one about the mall being a temple where we blindly soak in the liturgies and hope the act of getting or doing something will make us feel better or more worthy, so easily apply to the churches of today and those of yesteryear he nostalgically fetishizes. It was when he said that we should pray but not be activists for any causes because Jesus and others didn’t that led me to end this — he must have forgotten Jesus flipping tables.
But yes! We are what we love. I get that, and know how it’s one thing to believe something and not so it, just like Paul said. Just wonder if Smith knows he loves intellectually striking down intellectualism.
But yes! We are what we love. I get that, and know how it’s one thing to believe something and not so it, just like Paul said. Just wonder if Smith knows he loves intellectually striking down intellectualism.
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