Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation

Cultural Liturgies #1

by James K.A. Smith

Malls, stadiums, and universities are actually liturgical structures that influence and shape our thoughts and affections. Humans-as Augustine noted-are "desiring agents," full of longings and passions; in brief, we are what we love. James K. A. Smith focuses on the themes of liturgy and desire in Desiring the Kingdom, the first book in what will be a three-volume set on the theology of culture. He redirects our yearnings to focus on the greatest God. Ultimately, Smith seeks to re-vision education through the process and practice of worship. Students of philosophy, theology, worldview, and culture will welcome Desiring the Kingdom, as will those involved in ministry and other interested readers.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Education, Christian, Nonfiction, Cultural, Christianity

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2009

Reviews

[Peter Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the hardest books to give a rating to. The reason is simple: his main thesis is dead on and needs to be digested by numerous Christians and pastors. But some of his details and unanswered questions leave one queasy. I do not often write long reviews, but the book made me think. So here is my lengthy review.

Here are the points in the book I liked.

1. His main thesis, in my words, is that ritual or liturgies shape our desires and our desires cause us to do what we do. Therefore ritual, liturgies, and worship have tremendous influence over our lives. But the influence is subtle. He would argue, and I think rightly, that what we learn in the liturgies of our lives can undo what we learn in a classroom setting. This is why a parent can give a child all the correct doctrine and that child still leaves the righteous path. The parents’ daily liturgies undo their teaching. I agree with this wholeheartedly. He does a great job of showing how the world has competing liturgies. In chapter 3 he lists the mall, entertainment, and the university as secular liturgies that compete with the Church. He then spends a long chapter discussing what a historical Christian worship service means and how it shapes our lives. He argues persuasively that the Christian life is more about formation than information. Here Dr. Smith is at his best. His arguments are persuasive and well written. I really enjoyed his discussion of liturgies and desire, as well as how he illustrated his points. As I read, I thought about our liturgy at church and what we are teaching with it. But I also thought about what I do at home. What am I teaching my children through our various family liturgies? Here is why I gave it four stars. The main point is needed tonic for 21st century Christianity.

2. Dr. Smith is a professor at Calvin College, so his burden is for the university. One of the triumphs of the book is his plea for Christian colleges and universities to be rooted in the local church. He describes the Church as the sanctuary with the university being one of the small rooms connected to the sanctuary. For too long, universities have seen themselves as separate from the church, instead of an extension of it. Smith says, “The task of Christian education needs to be reconnected to the thick practices of the church.” (p. 220)

3. Dr. Smith also does a good job of showing that quantity or our liturgies as well as quality matters. Thus our liturgies Monday through Saturday must line up with our liturgies on Sunday. For most of the book this is implicit, but in the last chapter he makes the point explicit as he discusses the Christian university. (p. 226-227) I think quantity is also why people can have a biblical liturgy on Sunday and yet, that liturgy not impact their lives. They are immersed in a Christian liturgy for 1 to 2 hours on Sunday, but swimming in secular liturgies the rest of the week. It is not a surprise that the secular liturgies win.

4. There is one other point, which I do not remember Dr. Smith making, but is still essential to his thesis. What he describes, I think would work best in a local or parish setting. In other words, his thesis wars against large, impersonal classrooms and churches. I am not saying it can’t work with larger groups, but it would be more difficult. It is hard to see the formation he is aiming at happening without the personal connection between pastor/teach and parishioners/students, but also between the parishioners and students themselves.

Here are the things I did not like.
1. The main problem I have with the book is that despite the rhetoric about countering secular liturgies, Dr. Smith often sounds like he is reciting one. For example in his discussion of the confession of sin in the worship service he says this, “We create institutions and systems that are unjust, not only because of individual bad choices, but also because the very structures and systems of these institutions are wrongly ordered, fostering systematic racism or patriarchy or exploitation of the poor.” (p. 178) This sounds like a list of talking points I would hear from a liberal Hollywood actor. It is hard to see how this is counter acting any secular liturgy at all. Also there is no discussion of abortion or sodomy in the book, despite the fact that these two sins are a primary part of the current secular liturgy. I agree that racism and exploitation of the poor are sins. But is racism more rampant than our culture’s hatred of children? Yet abortion goes unmentioned. I am not saying greed is not a problem in the church. The church has absolutely been influenced by our consumerist, materialistic culture. But Dr. Smith leaves out obvious signs that accompany that greed, sins like abortion and sodomy. So I agree with Dr. Smith that liturgies have power and the world has competing liturgies. But reading between the lines of the book, it seems the Dr. Smith has been shaped by most of the prominent secular liturgies, such as feminism, the pro-choice movement, the environmental movement, the sodomite movement, and the wealthy are guilty movement instead of by a biblical liturgy.

2. This brings me to the second aspect of the book I didn’t like. There is very little emphasis on the Bible as the check on our liturgies and Christian formation. This is why Dr. Smith can say with a straight face, “The minister raises her hands.” (p. 207) He does quote from the Bible from time to time, but it does not seem to guide his thinking. There almost no biblical exegesis. Yet, there will not be true Christian formation/discipleship without a deep love for and obedience to the Scriptures. His first chapters are filled with philosophers, sociologists, and Christians, but very little Bible. Because liturgy is so powerful, it must be explicitly biblical. We cannot merely say that we think we are doing Christian liturgy. We must prove it biblically. Dr. Smith did not need to necessarily do that comprehensively in his book. But he did need to show more clearly that the Scriptures were guiding this thinking. If I was a Martian and read his book, I would never know that Bible was the compass that guided his thinking.

3. There is little discussion of the role faith in Christ plays in being formed by liturgies. One thought that kept pounding my head was. “Yes, I know liturgies are powerful. But I also know men and women who have sat under biblical liturgies for decades and yet live rotten, evil lives. How do these two truths weave together?” On page 208, he briefly addresses this problem in a footnote, saying he plans on discussing this in volumes 2 and 3. However, the deciding factor in our lives is a growing, vibrant faith in Christ that works itself out in obedience to his word. Christian liturgies can become instruments of death when someone participates apart from faith in Jesus Christ, the only Savior of sinners. Dr. Smith might plan on discussing this in the future. Maybe he assumed that faith in Christ was an understood prerequisite to a faithful liturgy. However, I did not get that impression. It seemed at times that faith in Christ was not even a factor in his thesis.

4. Finally, this might be a little picky, but I disagree with the quote from Stanley Hauerwas, which Dr. Smith approves of. “Becoming a disciple is not a matter of a new or changed self-understanding but of becoming part of a different community with a different set of practices.” (p. 220) Paul and Jesus are constantly trying to tell Christians how they are to view themselves. You are salt and light. You were dead, but now you alive. You have been raised up with Christ. Our practices are shaped by who we are, by our self-understanding. And our practices also shape who we are. I know Dr. Smith’s focus is on the latter of these two. But the former is true as well. A proper self-understanding is essential to Christian formation. Self-understanding is believing what God says about us. One of the great acts of the Christian imagination is to view ourselves how God views us. If I understood Dr. Smith correctly, then I think he overreaches. Yes, it is not just about “a new or changed self-understanding,” but to exclude that is unbiblical.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once in a while a book comes along that crystallizes the things you have been thinking and takes you further down the road. This was such a book. Smith contends that we are primarily "desiring animals" who think rather than "thinking things" who happen to have desires. He thinks much of Christian education has followed the latter conception and crucially fails to shape Christians who live and think Christianly. This is because their approaches failure to consider the importance of desire and the practices that direct desires in habits of faithfulness toward the kingdom. By contrast, he argues that secular consumerist culture has created effective liturgies to shape desire towards its end, as has the secular academy

He argues for the recovery of Christian liturgical practices that shape the affections and practices of Christians toward the values of the kingdom. And in the longest chapter of the book, he considers how the "thick" (i.e. substantive) practices of Christian worship do this and how they may be enhanced, particularly in the Christian college setting. He believes that such practices not only shape us along kingdom lines but enable us to recognize the alternative "liturgies" for what they are.

One of my own reflections as a leader of a collegiate ministry with graduate students is that he names what I've long thought--that graduate education is not simply an informative process but a formative. And he provokes me to think about the "liturgies" and formative practices we pursue communally and how they enable us to keep focused on the kingdom of God rather than the academic kingdom. In the past I've pursued these more intuitively and informally but after reading this am challenged to think of how we might even develop a simple community "rule of life" in which we mutually encourage each other by various formative practices of prayer, scripture, communal life, sabbath, hospitality, and service to desire the kingdom.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rated this book at 3 stars because parts of it were a 5 and other parts a 1. He says many outstanding things, which he then negates by the context he puts them in. Unlike Paul's approach, this book is an exercise in shadow boxing -- many great moves, but nothing connects.

[Justin Lonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite good.

I'd been meaning to read it for years, and finally opted for an audiobook to fit it into a full slate of seminary readings.

I've interacted with Smith's work in shorter books and articles for years, and his core critique (that reducing Christianity to a set of propositional truths or a worldview fails to fully embody the messages of faith—that humans are lovers before we are thinkers and need liturgies to cement our understanding of the world in order to live in it rightly) is well laid-out here and eminently readable.

And how can I not love a book with so many illustrations from Percy, Waugh, and Greene novels....

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thesis: “We love in order to know” (Smith 18n). Christian education is formative as well as in-formative. It is a formation of desires. This is Augustine 101. Smith notes that the phenomenology of visiting a mall echoes that of visiting a cathedral (20ff). This shows the limit of “worldview” talk. W-V ignores the formative impact of cultural sites.

Perhaps we should clarify a term. Some of Smith's critics at the Gospel-Industrial Complex said Smith makes a false-dichotomy between head and heart. He does know such thing. He is simply drawing upon the Patristic mode of knowing known as "bringing the nous into the heart." Modern Reformed and the Young, Restless, and Reformed crowd simply aren't aware of this wide range of literature.

Thesis 2: “Liturgies--sacred or secular--shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world” (25). Liturgies teach us in pre-cognitive ways. Do liturgies take precedence over doctrine, as some of Smith’s critics fear? Not necessarily. I don’t think it is a strict temporal separation. Do you learn how to pray by reading treatises on prayer or by actually praying? What about both?

Education: a constellation of “practices, rituals, and routines that inculcate a vision of the good life” (26). “Behind every pedagogy is a philosophical anthropology” (27).

In the first chapter Smith gives a very lucid account of how phenomenologists like Heidegger and Husserl, echoing Augustine, describe pre-cognitive modes of being-in-the-world. He also analyzes alternatives to worldview talk. Pace the worldview revival, we aren’t simply “thinking things,” brains on a stick.

Smith, instead, suggests we view man as “homo liturgicus.” What we love is a more ultimate category. This is Augustine 101. Love is our most basic mode of being-in-the-world. He illustrates this with Husserl’s category of “intentionality.” We are always intending-towards or -about something. We don’t simply “think.” We think about something. Consciousness is consciousness about something.

There are different modes of intentionality. We don’t simply “think.” We are “involved” (what Heidegger called “care”). Heidegger shifted the discussion from the cognitive to the sub-cognitive level, from the head to the kardia. Augustine would have changed “care” to “love.” Love is the primary mode of being-in-the-world. Its structure is longing and desire (50). Habit is Love’s Fulcrum.

Smith’s liturgical proposals, far from being simply “high church” (what does that even mean?), is more or less the same as many Reformed and Evangelical proposals in the last 40 years (Horton, Gore, Webber). Sure, some of his applications are goofy but the structure is not. Some high points:

Prayer

“It is a practice that makes us people who refuse to settle for appearances” (193). Prayer is a “performative ontology,” a new construal of the God-world relation. It is also a “performative epistemology.” When we pray we are training ourselves for reception and dependence--epistemic humility.

Scripture and Sermon: Renarrating the World

When the Scriptures are read aloud, they are in a certain sense “enacted.” When we are habitually engaged in the reading aloud of the Scriptures, we begin to absorb its ethical and moral compass. Scripture does not confront us with merely abstract truths, but with narrating creation’s telos (196). It is the shape of the kingdom we are looking for, so it narrates our telos, too.

Eucharist: Supper with the King

Draws on recent analyses of the “communal” and “economic” aspects of the Supper, rather than focusing on essences. Correctly notes that the Supper is a sign of kingdom economics, where none will hoard a surplus or go without; it is one of free distribution (200-201; cf. Isaiah 55:1-2; 65:21-23).

Smith ends with a critique of the Christian University.

Good

As is usual with Smith’s work, he is a complete master of difficult philosophical literature--namely the German phenomenological tradition (yikes!). I now know what Heidegger and Husserl are saying. Further, he connects Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality with Heidegger’s Dasein, noting that both are drawing off of Augustine’s understanding of love as our Dasein. If someone does not address Smith’s use of Heidegger and Husserl in his critique of this work, then he simply does not know what Smith is saying. Full stop.

Smith isn’t saying that we first “do liturgy” and then only secondly come around to the doctrine stuff. Rather, he points out that when we approach doctrine we are already engaged in a being-in-the-world. As Augustinians, we will see this being-in-the-world as directing our love toward God or toward things. Smith’s project is Augustine 101.

He is saying that liturgies affect us in two ways: 1) what we hear and 2) what is happening in our tacit dimension (HT to Michael Polanyi). To illustrate this he “exegetes” the experience of going to a mall. In short, malls are shaped like cathedrals and have the same sort of sensory overload as a cathedral does.

Bad

*Smith’s applications, especially in worship, aren’t near as goofy as they were in Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? We are encouraged on that point.

*Smith spends a lot of time attacking “nationalism” and “American Religion.” True, those can be idols, but they are also convenient idols. No one is going to get in trouble attacking “nationalism” today. But if someone starts attacking the EU, the UN, or the IMB, or the Council on Foreign Relations, watch out.

[Sebastian Wittwer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitiv eins der Bücher, das mein Denken sehr viel weiter gebracht! Sehr verständlich geschrieben, mit brillianten Einsichten!

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best types of books are the ones that, while you're still reading them, you're thinking, discussing, and talking about the content that they're positing. Desiring the Kingdom is that type of book. Since starting earlier this week, I found myself constantly thinking through many of the things that Smith posits and argues for.

In sum, Smith argues that contra models of philosophical anthropology that argue for humans as "thinking beings" or "believing beings," that we humans are more appropriately "loving beings". We are driven toward what we love, or desire.

After setting the stage for humans as "loving beings," he then proceeds to show how various institutions put forth "liturgies" that set out to shape our desire for other, lesser kingdoms. He shows this by exegeting the liturgies of the mall, the sports stadium, and the university. This cultural exegesis, as well as showing the distinction between "thick" and "thin" habits, was probably one of the most helpful things for me.

With an understanding of other "liturgical institutions," Smith then proceeds to exegete the liturgies of the church. For someone who has a pretty substantive ignorance of the liturgy of the church, this was helpful and clarifying - as well as challenging - to think through. As one who has drank deeply from the "Reformed" stream of thought that is cautious of anything Romish, it was a helpful corrective to think about history, tradition, and sacramentalism - even if I walk away with some minor disagreements with Smith.

Smith concludes with a brief chapter on how to incorporate some of these liturgical elements that drive us to "desire the Kingdom" into a distinctly Christian education. This was a good chapter, though not really meaningful for a broader audience (which is understandable since Smith originally aimed to write DTK for those thinking about Christian education.)

My only disagreement is that it seems that Smith's emphasis on humans as "desiring" animals can sometimes, in my mind, be pressed to far. For instance, he argues that contra man as "thinking" or "believing" being, we are, firstly, driven by desire. Therefore, we should start with "liturgies of desire" instead of thinking firstly about right thinking or right believing. My only question would be, Why does there need to be a hierarchy of motivations? It seems more appropriate to think of desires not hierarchically but all mutually feeding the others. For instance, what I think will help shape my beliefs, which in turn helps change the scope of my worship, etc. Humans are beings who are motivated by thoughts, beliefs, and desires that are all helping to shape human person.

Minor critique aside, I want to conclude by saying that this book was really good. It has already helped me to have a critical eye toward potential "secular liturgies" that are at war with my desires. Not only that, but it has also helped me to think more appropriately about what it is we do as the gathered people of God each Sunday as we remember what Christ has done and long for his return. I very much look forward to reading the other two books in this series.

[Eric M · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to give this book a chance. Page after page I thought that James Smith would transition to a deeper and more applicable explanation of desiring the kingdom. 70% of the book was spent explaining the philosophical background of humans as lovers, and therefore we desire what we love. What we love shapes us as human beings. I struggled to read page by page because in my head all I could think was "get to the point." I applaud Smith for his extensive work and explanation and I know that others greatly appreciate this book, but this read was just not for me. Few pages within the book are noteworthy and quotable, and this is why I am giving this a 2 out of 5 stars.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smith's main idea here is that we are a liturgical people first (the physical things we do with our bodies and say with our mouths). Our liturgies (secular or spiritual) will form our desires. In order to re-orient our desires, we should first purposefully re-orient our liturgies, or daily practices (instead of approaching something purely from an intellectual angle).

Okay, fine. An interesting idea. I'd argue that you should approach something from both a liturgical and intellectual angle at the same time. But whatever. I get it. I've no problem with Smith's idea. But he loses me in the explanation. Smith takes up half the book explaining this same idea over and over and over again. Yes. We get it. You don't have to re-hash it constantly. Only in the last 30%-40% of the book does he eventually apply this idea to other things in church life. And not very thoroughly. By then, he'd lost me.

I chipped away at this ebook a few pages at a time, over many months, hoping it would get better. But it never quite worked for me. Full disclosure: I did not read all the endnotes.

I don't think I will seek out the two other books in this series: Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works and Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology.

But I will still seek out Smith's other books, which I hope are mercifully shorter:
—You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
—How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor
—Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church

[Kristen Yoder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite quotes/core ideas:

"All habits and practices are ultimately trying to make us into a certain kind of person."

"Secular liturgies don't create our desire; they point it, aim it, direct it to certain ends."

"In carrying out the Great Commission, we are witnessing to the fact that God's actions in the cross and resurrection has made it possible for humanity to be human, to take up their creational vocation as prince(sse)s and priests charged with cultivating creation."

Amazing ideas, but it definitely takes intentionality and thought to process and read.

[Nathan White · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second time through this book. I first read it in seminary (Westminster Seminary California) a number of years ago as it was assigned by Dr. Michael Horton in his class, 'Modern Mind'. I was struck by a few things the first time I read it, so I wanted to go back and give it a much more thorough reading (assigned reading in seminary does not leave much time for reflection).

Is it possible to love certain aspects of this book, such as his central thesis that humans are essentially 'lovers' rather than 'thinkers', and yet be a bit disgusted at some of the solutions/remedies he proposes? That's my general reaction here.

The general thesis, which I commend, is that "love constitutes our fundamental and governing orientation to the world." And, "our love is aimed from the fulcrum of our desire," and "the way our love or desire gets aimed in specific directions is through practices that shape, mold, and direct our love." Where Smith excels here is in his treatment of worship, liturgy, the sacraments, and how they shape and mold us in profound ways. And his parallel of how the liturgies of the world world shape us as well is extremely insightful (although, his famous liturgy of the shopping mall is already dated).

Where he falls off the other side of the horse, however, is in:

-His very tired and superficial anti-capitalism, socialism, anti-nationalism, which all stems of a mixture of God's two kingdoms.

-His de facto position that all of life is worship and all of life is 'liturgy', which actually means that nothing is.

-He nails the power of personal and communal experiences. But what's lacking is the biblical corrective that truth (logic, thinking) always interprets, corrects, and defines our experiences.

-His rejection of the 2nd commandment, outright it seems, in how he's willing to advocate other extra-biblical media (other than the spoken word) as means of worship/communicating truth. Here, the reality that things other than the Word shape and form us is an effect of our sin and stubbornness, which the Word is to correct. But he's fine with other things shaping us, rather than the word, and he even encourages these other mediums rather than seeing that the scriptures point us back to the Word.

-His rejection of the Reformed view of the sacraments as ordinances and means of grace. For he turns everything into a 'sacrament', and even shockingly says that his wife’s love for him not only reveals God’s love (sacramentality) but “confers” God’s love (a sacrament), and is “the most powerful expression of sanctifying grace in my life.” This is a dangerous, Roman Catholic error.

-His very dangerous blurring of law and gospel, favorably quoting men like NT Wright. Clearly, all throughout, he advocates a perspective that could be called 'deeds over creeds'; that what we do is as Christians is more important/central than what we believe. This is perhaps the greatest error in the book.

-Although it seems as though he has a high view of the church (and liturgy), in practice, he ends up with a very low view of the church. One example would be how he seems to want to mix the college (Christian education) and the church (mixing the roles and practices of what should be two separate institutions). Another example here is how he says that Sunday mornings (worship, church) is crucial but insufficient to properly form us.

Overall all, it's not that I don't recommend this book. Just read it with a red pen in hand (mine is really marked up!). I like his thesis. It resonates. It's worth careful consideration. He's striking at something that has been lost by so many in our modern age. But his solutions are way off the mark. I'm hoping that the next two installments of this series serve as a helpful corrective.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book about how humans are primarily oriented to the world by our desires or loves. Rather than thinking of ourselves as mere thinking creatures, we ought to realize that we are embodied creatures, that, while rational, are primarily motivated by desire. A recurring thesis throughout the book is that we are defined by what we love, by what we worship.

Here is a snippet of what Smith is arguing for:

“Being a disciple of Jesus is not primarily a matter of getting the right ideas and doctrines and beliefs into your head in order to guarantee proper behavior; rather, it’s a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly—who loves God and neighbor and is oriented to the world by the primacy of that love. We are made to be such people by our immersion in the material practices of Christian worship—through affective impact, over time, of sights and smell in water and wine.”

While Smith never actually calls for us to discipline our desires, he does stress the importance of forming our desires through Christian worship. Surprisingly, I don't think he ever references 1 Cor. 9:27: "I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified." This verse reverberated through my mind as I read the book, and is perhaps what the book is all about.

Smith contends that Christian worship is opposed to the "secular" liturgies that we contend with daily--liturgies of the mall or marketplace, liturgies of the sports stadium, liturgies of the university, etc. He shows how many of the places we attend in life are not the innocent experience we believe them to be, because they seem so mundane. But Smith argues that a trip to the mall, Target, or wherever, is in fact a liturgy in opposition to Christian worship. It is an experience that calls for your ultimate allegiance, that demands your worship in a way that we don't often recognize.

This is one of the most important and exciting books I've ever read. Highly, highly recommended!

[Drake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another one this year that I enjoyed wrestling with. On the one hand, there are several issues on which Smith and I land differently (e.g., patriotism). Perhaps the biggest criticism I have is his repeated emphasis (especially in the second half of the book) on liturgies giving rise to doctrine and not vice versa. Liturgies don't simply appear out of nowhere, and if they do not flow from the beliefs of those who established them, the reader is left wondering where exactly they come from. I also have a hard time accepting his view that liturgies have intrinsic, objective meaning to them regardless of the beliefs of the practitioners. As Mainline Protestantism and modern Catholicism have shown, traditional liturgies can be given new (and contradictory) meanings. Those criticisms aside, Smith's book is absolutely worth reading. He offers a powerful critique of Christian education as merely a Christianized data dump, and his anthropology (arguing that humans are fundamentally driven by what they most love) is an appropriate corrective. His analysis of cultural liturgies (e.g., shopping at the mall) are incredibly insightful, and his exposition of the elements of Christian liturgies is wonderful. Finally, his call for Christian teachers and students to view the goal of education as forming a particular kind of people - a people whose loves are rightly ordered and who are being conformed into the image of Christ - is one that is well-worth heeding.

[Courtney Geiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this! Enjoyable and lighthearted voice. I found helpful points and illustrations to show that we are first and foremost desiring/loving beings (before rational/thinking beings), and that we are formatively shaped by all that we do, whether we think we are or not, for better or worse.
Anyone interested in how education/life shapes us should read this. I found the fifth chapter to be a bit redundant and perhaps too specific in his application points, but nonetheless really enjoyed it.

[Davis Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/25: If I read this again today, I would review it differently, having become a Confessional Lutheran and considerably more conservative in the meantime. But Smith's book was actually a major influence in my coming over to Wittenberg due to his beautiful explication of the meaning of liturgy, and that's the main reason why I'd (with many significant reservations) recommend him.

1/23: Consider it 3 3/4 stars. I have significantly more problems with this book than I usually do with things that I rate four stars, but the central thesis is so powerful and important that I can't bring myself to rate it any lower. My GR friends have made plenty of really intelligent criticisms of some of the specifics in Smith's arguments, so I won't get too much into them here, but just a quick list of these points of contention would include his socially progressive leanings, his uncharitable reading of Descartes (although one of my favorites, Josef Pieper, has a similar view of him, so maybe I'll have to reassess my own view of René), some blanket assertions on things that I wouldn't raise to the level of importance as he does (especially in the somewhat disappointing and disjointed last chapter on education, which almost seemed like a reluctant postscript); and the fact that, even though he takes pains to make clear he's not in favor of anti-intellectualism, he fails to provide sufficient healthy distinctions and proofs that habit and desire always precede doctrine when it comes to faith. That's a bold statement, and one that I'm attracted to in some ways, but I would have appreciated more clarity here, as when the issue comes up when he discusses the creeds, he seems to wave it off as insignificant. Though he's a strong arguer, I also wish he would have rooted his thesis more in both Scripture and tradition (of which there is plenty to support him), as he comes across more as throwing a totally new way of doing things on the table—which is unfortunate, as he would be even more persuasive to both the evangelical and traditional skeptic if he demonstrated its deep biblical and historical roots. One more minor criticism: I really wish that books like this would include fewer references to the immediate contemporary world if authors want them to make a long-term impact. Even 14 years later many of his points about secular liturgies wouldn't be as piquant to the average reader, because people don't visit the mall nearly as much as they shop online.

All that aside: this is really a sensationally wonderful book for the sheer persuasiveness of its paradigm. Fairly ecumenical in his claims, Smith charts a vision for a church that actually acts like it's redeemed. The long chapter on the church's practices is simply one of the most beautiful breakdowns of the heart of Christianity that I have read, and I want everyone I know to read it. You probably won't want to go to a "low church" ever again after reading this. His discussions of the state of the contemporary world and how the various "rituals" of our disembodied, consumeristic, hedonistic lives steal our hearts surely must convict anyone who thinks that the sacred and the secular can be wedged apart. But he doesn't stop with his takedown of these secular narratives: he provides trenchant criticisms of various "countercultural" strategies and right-wing narratives that are equally ineffective in teaching us to love the beautiful. His prioritization of imagination and narrative provides a fertile foundation for continued work to implement his model in training and formation—there are lots of things that classical educators and devotees can take away here in our efforts to liberate our beliefs from mere abstract contemplation. As a would-be academic with similar interests to Smith, I'm challenged and convicted by his reflections and will be using this book as a plumb line in developing my pedagogical inclinations for a long time indeed. Anyone who finds themselves uncomfortable with the big ideas (irony alert!) offered here needs to do some serious self-examination to see if mental illusion is winning out over schooling of the heart in their lives. I really want to complete his "Cultural Liturgies" series as well as his work on Radical Orthodoxy.

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 4 out of 5]

James K.A. Smith's "Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation" will prove to be one of the most important and enduring works of Christian thought in the early 21st century. Superior reviews will be found elsewhere by people more qualified than I, but here are some of my thoughts.

I think Smith is right to emphasize practices and rituals and how they play a role in our formation. Coming from an evangelical background, there are few practices embedded in Sunday morning services, at least compared to liturgical churches. Smith's praise of liturgy has sparked my interest. I also appreciate his criticisms of the "secular" liturgies of the mall, the stadium, etc...Before reading this book, I had been thinking about how the messages of hit-radio form the listener and I think there is a strong similarity there.

One of, if not the, key message in this book is that we are "desiring-beings" before we are "thinking-beings". I'm not so sure I agree. If we look at liturgical practices, we would realize that many of these practices would not have popped into existence unless they were first revealed to us through God's revelation and instruction. Think about communion: the Lord's Supper was instituted by Jesus himself and because we have been instructed to partake in it we do. Without Jesus mandating it to his early disciples, we would never have conceived of such a sacrament.

One of Smith's main focuses in the book is Christian education. Here I have little to offer as I have never attended a Christian educational institute. However, I do take umbrage with his treatment of campus ministries. While Smith is right in stressing that campus ministries should be connected to local churches (because everyone graduates someday and they need a church to smoothly transition to), I disagree with him that the sacraments should be administered only in a church. I cannot think of anything that has helped me in my own Christian formation than my campus ministry club: I take communion weekly with my club and I was baptized in that club.

Smith provides a helpful exegesis of the worship service and he offers his own suggestions for improving both the service and Christian education.

Smith has already produced an impressive array of publications and every book I've read so far has proven to be an enriching read. Many would benefit from reading "Desiring the Kingdom".

[Jeremy]

This is a book that has potential to really soar (and often does), but falls flat on its face in numerous places. See here ("My central complaint against Christians who want to accomodate postmodernist insights is that, however astute their critiques, they wind up doing nothing of the kind, and the whole project is just modernity trying to lose a few pounds."), and then check out Father Hunger (pp. 127-31 and 230n13), which addresses Smith's whiffs on women pastors and cultural transformation.

[Alyssa Yoder · Rating 3 out of 5]

To write the full and thoughtful review this book demands would take more time than I care to give. I found his central thesis, that we humans are lovers above thinkers, to be thought-provoking. I appreciated his drawing attention to the power of habit and actions to shape our worldview. His chapter on the sacraments was beautiful. And yet I found just as much in the book that I disagreed with. I think it's a worthwhile read. Just read with a red pen in hand, as one other reviewer said.

[Judah Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

James K.A. Smith, you are an interesting man.

This book had some absolutely incredible ideas that really shifted the way the way I think about Christianity as a structure. The primary argument the book makes is that we are much more heart driven/desire driven creatures than we are idea driven. Thus, he thinks we need to transform our methodology of Christian growth from purely Christian worldview training to a pedagogy of liturgy in which our everyday habits - from church even leading into education, transform our hearts and desires.

I will share some striking quotes that were quite good:

"The church is elected to responsibility, called to be the church to and for the world-not in order to save it or conquer it or even transform it, but to serve it by showing what redeemed human community and culture look like, as modeled by the One whose cultural work led him to the cross. In short, we're sent out to be martyrs, witnesses of the Crucified One. In that way, we win by losing"

"The fact that there seems to be little tension between Christianity and American nationalism is not a function of the generosity (let alone "Christianness") of the American ideal but rather a sign of a Christianity that has accommodated itself to these American ideals of battle, military sacrifice (which is very different from the Christian ideal of martyrdom)," individual (negative) freedom, and prosperity through property"

"We will not adequately grasp what's at stake in given cultural institutions if we just look at what appears in the present or on the surface; we need to "read" these institutions and practices in order to discern the telos at which they re aimed. It is at the point of feloi that we'll discern the antithesis between a Christian vision of the kingdom and the visions of human flourishing that are implicit in so many current configurations of cultural institutions. Thus our cultural criticism should not be asking what ideas or beliefs are being bandied about in "culture rather, we should be discerning to what ends all sorts of cultural institutions are seeking to direct our love"

"These rituals form the imagination of a people who thus construe their world as a particular kind of environment based on the formation implicit in such practices. In just this sense Christianity is a unique social imaginary that "inhabits" and emerges from the matrix of preaching and prayer. The rhythms and rituals of Christian worship are not the "expres-sion of" a Christian worldview, but are themselves an "understanding implicit in practice an understanding that cannot be had apart from the practices"

So the books highs were definitively 10 out of 10s. Some rich ideas that are very unique in this culture. He makes an excellent point that Christianity has become too secularized in our manner of thinking, as a result of the Enlightenment movement.

Now my critiques.
His writing is academically snobbish, unnecessarily long and repetitive, and some of his conclusions are vast overspiritualizations of life. Not to mention some of his conclusions at the end of the book are woefully unrealistic.

His writing is academically snobbish in the sense that he uses much heftier speech than is necessary. (To quote Kevin from the office: "Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick")
Don't get me wrong, I think there is a necessity in academic writing to use certain words or phrases if their is no true substitute. If we are discussing the subject of justification, if we are writing in an academic sense, there is no substitute for that language. There is certainly a need for clarity of language, which will result in times with hefty words, language, and mannerisms in order to communicate a complex issue. However, in my humble opinion, it does not demonstrate to me anything other than making his writing clotted up with hoity toity speech. So many of his arguments could have been greatly simplified with less words, lighter words, and reduced repetition. This is not me saying that the book should be more consumer friendly, I recognize that this book is for an academic setting. The setting, however, does not change the fact that good writing is good writing and bad is bad.

As to my other point, I think that many of his points in the book are excellent, but he goes too far in overspiritualizing every aspect of life into a 'litergical, heart-forming, pedogagical sense' that it diminishes the strength of his foundational point.

James K. A. Smith - you are a very interesting man.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb. Can't recommend highly enough.

[Shane Williamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

2023 reads: 21

Rating: 4 stars

Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation by James K. A. Smith attempts to communicate a vision for authentic, integral, Christian learnin, with particular attention given to worship and practices in the context of discipleship. (11) Where Smith’s thesis diverges from similar literature on this topic is in his focus on praxis over thought, habitus over cognition. For this, Smith is reliant on Charles Taylor’s famous principle the “social imaginary.” In this schema, it is our being embodied creatures of love that is front and center. These loves structure our desires, which are in turn shaped by habits, aiming said desires in certain directions. (56) As such Desiring the Kingdom aims to establish a Christian understanding of formation that targets the heart, our loves, for God’s kingdom.

Smith’s proposal is phenomenal. The volume is littered with insightful cultural critique and offers, in Smith’s words, a philosophical anthropology that is better attuned to our habits as embodied lovers. Where Smith’s project carries weight is in his analysis of contesting habits or practices in society, which he calls “liturgies”. If Smith is correct, then Christian formation needs to better account for the embodied practices that lure and steer our affections away from Christian worship of God to the “secular” liturgies contesting our allegiances. Thus, the “battle for the mind” is not the center of conflict in Christian formation; instead it is seen in how competing institutions seek to direct our loves. (73)

This volume gave me much to think about. I was thoroughly convinced of Smith’s argument but thought that the conclusion fizzled out dramatically. His vision for a “Christian university” (215ff) implicitly reflects what I understand to be the role of the church. This is not a terrible conclusion, of course. But I was looking for a lot more on the what-does-this-mean-for-academic-institutions side of things, especially as it relates to liturgical praxis in education.

[Read for the Foundations for Theological Studies seminar at SBTS]

[Mike Fendrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, I generally have profited greatly from Smith's other works, but there were spots here that I just can't agree with. Yes, Christianity is incarnational, we are bodies with desires and emotions along with minds. I agree that a worldview only approach to Christianity not only sterilizes everything, it takes the fun out of a whole lot of things. We need to cultivate practices that put flesh on our Christian beliefs and doctrines. But not at the expense of the beliefs and doctrines. This, to me, is both/and, not either/or. For example, on page 135 Smith writes, "The people of God called out (ek-klesia) to be the church were worshipping long before they got all their doctrines in order or articulated the elements of a Christian worldview; and they were engaged in and developing worship practices long before what we now call our Bible emerged and was solidified, so to speak." I wonder if Cain, Aaron and the golden calf worshippers, Nadab and Abihu or the Corinthian church for that matter would agree with that statement. Seems to me that the declared Word of God set the limits for acceptable worship and "developing worship practices" contrary to the prescribed was neither acceptable worship nor healthy (if one desires to continue living) to the worshippers.

As I said, this is both/and. There is much to be gained from this book but the minimizing the importance of the mind, the doctrines expressed in Scripture and given to the people of God, has many pitfalls. After all, didn't the Apostle, who most certainly lived an embodied Christianity write "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Certainly establishing Christian practices and liturgies is part of this equation but discerning requires knowledge of what the good, acceptable and perfect are and the wisdom to properly apply and implement bodily. It is body, desires, emotions and mind.

Yes, we can easily make Christianity adherence to a list of correct propositions and completely miss Jesus. In this regard, Smith's diagnosis and correctives are a very helpful addition to Christian formation. We need not, however, throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Josiah DeGraaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fact that it took me 3.5 months to read this book says more about the hecticness of my schedule as a first year teacher than any negative aspects about this book. Smith does an excellent job of looking at things in a new perspective and I fully bought into his argument that Reformed Christianity in particular has idolized the intellectual world to the neglect of the whole human being. I also really liked his emphasis on physical place and his discussion of how habits end up forming our character at times more than intellectual beliefs do. All-in-all, I liked his framework a lot.

Where I was less convinced was in his applications. While I understand where he's coming from in his approval of having communion and church services multiple times a week, I don't think adding regular worship services above what God has prescribed is exceedingly wise. I wasn't fully comfortable with Smith's semi-pacifism (though I do have serious concerns with the approach the US has taken w/wars in the past couple decades). And I am not completely convinced by his vision for what Christian universities should look like (though having attended one for 4 years, I can testify to the fact that the academic/chapel divide very much exists and needs resolving).

That being said, even where I disagree with Smith, Smith provided thought-provoking insights that made me think about these issues more than I had in the past. And like I said earlier on, I really liked his "you are what you love" matrix, especially when he expanded on what exactly he meant by that.

Overall, this was a solid book that I really enjoyed and which gave me much to chew on.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Excellent).

[Logan Vlandis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smith has changed how I understand humanity and our actions. In this first volume of the trilogy, he presents an understanding of humans as fundamentally desiring creature, ones who yearn for a particular “good life.” He builds on that, discussing how we are unknowingly hoodwinked into longing for lives that are antithetical to the coming Christian kingdom. He offers ancient suggestions on how to reorient our desires to want the things of God and this appear a peculiar people in a secular age.

Ultimately, he’s concerned with Christian education, and vehemently rejects the idea that Christian education is about head knowledge plus a “Christian perspective.” He offers a short discussion at the end on how Christian education could look if we accepted the “humans as lovers” paradigm, but I found it spotty and at times practical but unobtainable.

[Ronald J. Pauleus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book. James shares such good truth that has begun to reshape my thinking and understanding about “thinking” and “desire.” I was challenged by the rich truth presented.

“Education is a holistic endeavor that involves the whole person, including our bodies, in a process of formation that aims our desires, primes our imagination, and orients us to the world -- all before we ever start thinking about it.”

Deep and rich insights. Caught more a second time around.

“Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies.”

[Ptaylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

A difficult book to read, and, if it were not required reading for the Academy, I doubt that I would have finished it. Smith makes his point and then continues to repeat it. He makes simple things complicated by using religious terms that are not familiar to the layperson. I found that I had to refer to my unabridged dictionary often, and, while I enjoy learning new words, the ones I learned are so religiously technical, I doubt I'll use them. Not recommended.

[Christopher Perrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Desiring a Kingdom School
Christopher A. Perrin

A review of Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, by James K. A. Smith.

We all have ideals—ideals for a wonderful marriage, the best job, a superb vacation. Our ideals, however, are often fuzzy. What does the ideal church really look like? An ideal government? What about an ideal school?

Well to outline an ideal marriage involving the intersection of two inscrutable human beings is a difficult challenge, to actually live out an ideal marriage is beyond difficult. What might an ideal school look like—with the intersection of two to three hundred human beings—parents, teachers, administrators, board members and….students? And that would be a small school.

If James K. A. Smith is right, we simply cannot help imagining an ideal future, an ideal of human flourishing. According to Smith in his book Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation, imagining ideals is a large part of what it means to be human. We all are seeking some version of the good life, we all desire a kingdom. What is more, we are all being shaped and formed in various ways to love and desire one sort of kingdom or another.

Smith contends that before we humans are cognitive, rational beings we are creatures of desires, passions and loves. He further contends that the way we change is not primarily a matter of the mind, but primarily the result of the heart-shaping forces of the “cultural liturgies” we encounter in the world. He writes, “Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices of the mall—the liturgies of the mall and market—that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. Embedded in them is a common set of assumptions about the shape of human flourishing, which becomes an implicit telos or goal of our own desires and actions. That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions. “


Smith takes time to examine the ways that various institutions do in fact act as cultural liturgies. He begins with the mall, imagining what it might be like for a Martian anthropologist to study its culture. Smith is convinced that such an anthropologist would see the mall as a thoroughly religious institution. The mall has a daily visitation of pilgrims who enter a large and dazzling cathedral of glass, concrete, light and ornamentation. There are banners and flags in displayed in a large atrium; there are familiar texts and symbols placed on walls to help us easily identify what is inside the various chapels that are contained in this labyrinthine cathedral. Rich iconography lines the wall of each chapel, and there are many three-dimensional statues adorned with the garb that we too can acquire in imitation of these ideals. These same icons, statues and exemplars can be found in similar temples across the country and around the world. In fact the wide distribution of these colors and icons are found in many places in the outside world and have drawn us as pilgrims in the first place. The power of the gospel message of these temple is the power of beauty, “which speaks to our deepest desires and compels us to come not with dire moralisms but rather with a winsome invitation to share in the envisioned good life.”

At this point, Smith is just getting started with his analysis of the “religion of the mall.” He goes on to describe the purchasing experience as a kind of secular Eucharist. Understandably, he does like or praise the religion of the mall. He does acknowledge, however, that the mall understands something profound about human beings. It embodies its view of its kingdom, rather than merely talking about it. He writes, “Indeed, the genius of mall religion is that actually it operates with a more holistic, affective, embodied anthropology (or theory of the human person) than the Christian church tends to assume. Because worldview-thinking still tends to focus on ideas and beliefs, the formative cultural impact of sites like the mall tends to not show up on our radar.”

As you might guess, the point of Smith’s book is to help us turn on our radar to the formative impact that various cultural liturgies have on us all. Of interest to classical educators will be his liturgical analysis of university education and of Christian college education. Using Tom Wolfe’s book I am Charlotte Simmons, Smith points out that the college experience is far more than the 15 hours a week a student spends in a classroom. Secular university experience exerts a dynamic and intentional shaping influence on college students in dozens of ways. Dorm life, frat house life, football games, drinking, bar and club escapades, hooking up and an exhausting, frenetic rhythm of classes, study, exams shape and form students for the “real world” of “corporate ladder climbing and white-collar overtime needed in order to secure the cottage, the boat, and the private education for the kids.” Smith concludes that while the classroom, laboratory, lecture hall and library have performed some role in shaping a student, it does not compare to the other ways students are shaped. The information provided in the academic areas is “not nearly as potent as the formation we’ve received in the dorm and frat house, or the stadium and dance club.”

His look at Christian colleges is not much more encouraging. Too many Christian colleges in his opinion simply take the basic secular approach to education and add the integration of a Christian worldview or Christian perspective. Smith suggests that the dominant paradigm of Christian education asserts that “goal of a Christian education is to produce professional who do pretty much the same sorts of things that graduates of Ivy League and state universities do, but who do them ‘from a Christian perspective,’ and perhaps with the goal of transforming and redeeming society.” For Smith this is regrettable reduction as it “unhooks Christianity from the practices that constitute Christian discipleship.” For Smith, the worship practices of the church must be vitally bound up with the rhythms and practices of a Christian college (and school). When the Christian college is unhooked from the liturgies of the church we end up with a intellectualization of Christianity, leading students to think that “being a Christian doesn’t radically reconfigure our desires and wants, our practices and habits. This happens because for far too long Christian education has “been concerned with information rather than formation; thus Christian colleges have thought it sufficient to provide a Christian perspective, an intellectual framework, because they see themselves as fostering individual “minds in the making. Hand in had with that, such an approach reduces Christianity to a denuded intellectual framework that has diminished bite because such an intellectualized rendition of the faith doesn’t touch our core passions.”

I think by now you Smith’s thesis is beginning to sink in. Christian worldview instruction is not enough. Appealing to the mind and intellect is not enough. Not that instruction in Christian worldview and ideas should not be done—such instruction is vital. But it is not sufficient, not enough. We must address the core passions of our students, and we do this by means of creating community, atmosphere, rhythms, practices, traditions that shape the hearts of students by engaging them as affective, passionate lovers, not mere minds. The church, rightly worshipping, seeks to do this. Welcoming, greeting, singing, hearing, tasting, standing, kneeling, we worship with all of our person—mind and body. Embodied worship is formative and shapes our love for the kingdom of God and acts a powerful counter-formation over against the formative influence of a dozen secular liturgies we witness and experience. In fact the liturgy of worship helps subvert the power of these secular liturgies, wising us up to their power and methods.

This is where things get interesting. Could it be that our children are being shaped to love a version of the good life that is primarily determined by the “liturgies” of the mall, football stadium, TV sitcoms and the iPod? Could it be that our schools that privilege direct engagement with the mind, and the presentation of ideas and a Christian worldview but are nonetheless failing to thwart the power of these other shaping influences? Any teacher with experience can tell you about scores of students whose minds and hearts are seldom truly present in the classroom. They are rather occupied with the shopping for the next fashionable item, the next soccer game, the latest movie, Monday Night Football, the coming rock concert. These things shape them and engage them as lovers, and the teacher often feel powerless standing before her whiteboard with a black marker in her hand. She wonders if would not be better to show then an educational movie—something they can relate to.


Consider the atmosphere and community of your school. What is its liturgy? That is what are its rhythms, rituals, practices and traditions? We carefully plan our curriculum and lessons. Do we carefully plan and create rhythms, rituals, practices and traditions? Do our teachers carefully plan rhythms, rituals, practices and traditions for each class of students? If Smith is right, then it is these things that will most profoundly shape what our students will love. Every teacher knows that students will forget 75% of the content you “teach” them in a classroom. Might it be wise then to pay attention to more than just content think about form with the same rigor? How can we shape, form and engage hearts, minds and yes, even bodies? Is there vibrant worship in you school? Does music echo through the halls and the great art adorn the walls? Are their dinner parties and great conversation with students and adults alike? Is your facility attractive and conducive to worship and learning? Are poems read and recited, stories written and told? Is Scripture read at lunch for a time? Are there traditions of hospitality when existing students welcome new students into the school, when upper school students warmly welcome new 7th graders or 9th graders? Do teachers and parents gather socially to read books, cook meals and pray? Do high school students babysit for the young children of teachers (maybe at no charge?). Do you older students help teach the younger students and join them for games on the playground from time to time? Do teachers and students go hiking together or bike-riding or running? Are pastors visiting your school counseling students and speaking in your classrooms or chapel services, or teaching a Bible class? Do you pray for the churches represented by your school and for each pastor by name? Does your school fast occasionally and give money or food to the needy?

These and dozens of other questions might enable us to think more deeply about embodying classical Christian education, such that students absorb it with all five senses and with their hearts as well as their minds. By considering such questions (and generating more) we might clarify our vision of an ideal classical school, and remove much of the fuzziness and confusion that impedes enthusiasm and momentum. Classical education has historically been communal and ecclesial and Smith poignantly reminds us of this. He also helps us to see more clearly that a classical Christian education involves the collaboration of family, church and school as we seek nothing less than the kingdom of God. Classical educators and leaders would do well to learn from the insights of this valuable and timely book.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom lays siege to the church’s current approach to worldview training. He says our current fascination with worldview is dominated by a philosophical emphasis that tends to overlook the body and the imagination. Man is treated like “a brain in a vat” rather than as the embodied lover God made him. This leads to an impoverishment of the church and the Christian life and surrender to the world, the flesh, and the devil. Smith seeks to redirect his readers into culture building through the church’s ancient liturgy. He argues that the liturgical practices of the church are full-bodied culture builders that can direct our desires, order our loves, and train our habits for fuller expressions of the kingdom. I think there is much to praise here but also some cautions that Smith shouldn’t have “thrown to the wind.” More about that below. One caution: I found Smith’s book is so provocative and challenging, I couldn’t help writing a longer review essay than a mere review of his ideas.

Smith specifically takes aim at his own reformed tradition which tends to be idea driven instead of practice driven. The reformed tradition tends to view the person as a container of ideas that issue forth in actions, rather than a passionate person formed by practices first and that issue in propositions later. Smith even sees in the reformed emphasis on “basic beliefs” that undergird ideas something more akin to propositions than passions. He fears that this approach, advocated by the highly respected Plantinga, Wolterstorff, and Dooyeweerd also reduces Christianity to a “belief system.” This reduction tends to ignore our the role of the body and makes the faith something that can be mediated outside the church (45). Smith argues that love is the basic human orientation to the world. Man is primarily a lover and secondarily a thinker or believer. Affections are more basic than thoughts, ideas, and propositions.

This is provocative for someone like me who was raised in a rebellion against liturgy. In my circles tradition was out and being "led by the Spirit" was in. This implied, of course, that either our forebears weren't led by the Spirit or the Holy Spirit was doing a new thing or both. I suspect it was both. I later moved toward the intellectual approach which could also denigrate the liturgical as a mindless “going through the motions.” I have since come to appreciate the benefit of time tested liturgy. Smith goes one further by arguing that all of life is liturgical. It is liturgical in that it consists of practices both thick and thin that train our desires. Thick ones are like the Lord's Supper, and thin ones are like brushing your teeth or checking for ticks. These direct our loves, and thus form us as people. The thick practices obviously have a greater impact on who we are. Smith argues that all of life is sacramental but the sacraments themselves are a God ordained intensification of the sacramental order into an act of special grace.

Smith convincingly reveals the liturgies of the mall, media, and market for what they are: training grounds for a kingdom other than the Kingdom of God. Far from innocent, they are "secular liturgies," fine tuned and field tested by media elites and advertisers. They are designed to make us want to dispose of what we have in discontent and purchase the new and the novel. These liturgies tend to express our fallenness and often participate in the demonic. For instance, it is not so subtly suggested to young men that if they mist some axe body spray over themselves beautiful young girls will throw themselves at them. Not only must we be aware of our culture if we don't want to be manipulated by it, but we must also reform it so that we will be reformed in turn. It turns out that, according to Smith, the evangelical and Reformed churches haven’t been as effective as the consumer culture at speaking to the heart and shaping desire.

As mentioned, Smith targets the current evangelical approach to worldview education, because it treats man like a brain walking around in an earth-suit. Smith says our approach to Christian worldview development is overly intellectual and cognitive. Smith's critique is based upon his argument that man is primarily a lover and secondarily a philosopher. We feel, sense, and "love before we know" (70). We imagine before we theorize (66, 134). One might say that worldview is "more caught than taught." Smith says worldview is visceral, running off of sense impressions from the body that fuel the imagination. Only a small percentage of worldview is usually processed by reason. It is also the case that while Christian truth forms Christian practice, our rational understanding and articulation of that truth comes later. Smith does not denigrate the cognitive mind. After all his book is an intellectual tour-de-force which aims to make us better appreciate what is going on in secular and sacred liturgies. His argument is that the teachings of the Christian faith are embedded in the practices and this is gradually discovered intellectually as reason matures. Thus God-ordained worship is the font of personal worldview (136). Visions of the kingdom are implicit in the liturgies (121). He argues that the proper use of the intellect is to deepen our understanding of the liturgical. We can reflect on and reform the liturgy as Smith encourages us to do. For instance, Smith asks us to consider what is going on when we go to the mall.

A walk through the mall presents one with sights, sounds, and smells. It also sends messages and puts us through motions that appeal to the whole person. The mall says fix it not through "confession but in consumption." Smith comments, "implicit in those visual icons of success, happiness, pleasure, and fulfillment is a stabbing albeit unarticulated recognition that that's not me" (96). But it can be me, if I proceed to the altar to complete my worship experience with transaction overseen by a high priest of consumerism professionally trained to pull it off with a smile and a tease for next time.

Smith argues that thick cultural practices, like going to the mall, train our hearts through casting a spell over our imaginations. The body is not unconnected to what we think, contra Kant and the Enlightenment. Smith asserts, and I think rightly, that bodily practices activate and animate our imagination. The heart is trained by the disciplines of the body. Meanwhile, Smith points out, the church tries to extinguish the lust consuming our hearts by pouring water on our heads. He says that we need to develop habits of daily worship in private, in our churches, schools, and families (211). Smith is giving us what he calls a "methodological jolt" by switching us from worldview beliefs to worldview practices and thus liturgies (93). He actually prefers the term "social imaginary" to worldview, but I'm afraid its not nearly as catchy.

Smith emphasizes, a la St. Augustine, that man is a lover and his loves need to be ordered. Smith understands liturgies as rituals that form and direct our loves. His recipe for reordered love through liturgical practices travels through three institutions: the church, the school, and the family. He points to the church as the cultural center of the kingdom that orders our loves under God. Quoting Witvliet, Smith refers to the Bible and worship as "God's language school" that "challenges us to practice forms of faithful speech to God that we are not likely to try on our own. Authentic worship, like toddler talk, expresses who we are and forms what we are becoming" (172). Smith is saying that if we want to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength we must do liturgy. We must kneel, fold our hands, confess, pray, stand, lift our arms, sing, dance, hear, see water trickle over an infant’s head, take, eat, touch, smell, drink, open, read, write, reason, praise, smile, shake hands, hug, and give thanks.

With respect to education, Smith quotes Stanley Hauerwas who said that “every education is a moral formation.” This means that the idea of a secular education that conveys information without formation is a myth. Smith calls for the Christian university to be the ecclesial university. Medieval universities were founded by the church and served as extensions of the church into the world. Today's secular university is, quoting Hauerwas, "the great institution of legitimation in modernity whose task is to convince us that the way thing are is the way things have to be" (221). Smith is refreshing in calling for a radical reformation of Christian universities. “The Christian university should not only be born but also nourished ex corde ecclesiae, ‘from the heart of the church’.” This would include “baptismal renunciations of what the surrounding culture might consider 'excellence’ ” (221). This means the "ecclesial university curriculum" will not look like that of the secular state university "plus Jesus" (220-222). In fact, it might not even ensure its students' success in a world formed by secular liturgies. Smith wants us to consider whether we are willing to pay the price for a truly Christian education.

Smith cites David McCarthy who refers to the family the “domestic church” (212, n. 129). The church is the “first family” that defines our homes and opens them to those to whom Christ ministered. In most Christian traditions, as soon as a child is born into a Christian family, he is baptized by the church. Smith calls baptism a subversive sacrament that, in the words of McCarthy, "establishes a communion that qualifies our relationships of birth" (186). This flies in the face of the modern idols of choice and democracy. Smith points out that since the Enlightenment freedom has been increasingly defined in terms of the mere act of choosing. Historically and biblically freedom has more to do with the ability to choose the good. Modernity has reduced freedom to the mere exercise of the will, because moral authorities, like the church, which define the good have been pushed to the margins of society. The problem with the modern definition is that it ironically leaves us with much less freedom. Smith cites research indicating "that only about 5 percent of our daily activity is the product of conscious, intentional actions that we 'choose'" (81). We simply find ourselves immersed in a life already given to us. Most of us do not choose to live the life of a commuter. We simply accept that lifestyle as a fact of our modern existence. To choose otherwise requires a deliberate countercultural move. Similarly Baptism is an act of grace that says you have begun your formation as a child of God, and it puts the baptized in an antithetical relationship to the world. It shows us that we don't choose the church, but it chooses us as part of the saving arm of God. We can choose otherwise, but only after the fact.

Desiring the Kingdom is a rich mine of truth, but even the richest mines yield some dross when refined by the word of God. Smith seems to be drinking from the font of secular liturgy by using "she" instead of "he" when it could be either sex. Smith thus breaks with Scripture's practice of assuming that a female is not necessarily negated by the masculine pronoun but protected under male headship. So it is no surprise when he also refers to ordained ministers as "she" breaking with the Bible's prohibition of women exercising that office of authority over men. For all the honor Smith pays to Scripture, he doesn't permeate his own words with the Word like one might expect. While he does use the Bible he doesn’t avail himself of the abundance of biblical texts about culture building. The "Shema" of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 would make his point in spades, but Smith doesn't turn his points on that sturdy hinge. Smith is more of a philosopher, but if Scripture is supposed to be the standard, as he says, it ought to be raised a bit more and its habits of speech imitated.

Smith is clearly for more liturgy in worship not less. He shows us that we shouldn’t be afraid of this since life is inescapably liturgical. He also encourages us to embrace the imagination since the liturgical works on the imagination first and most. But he goes on to say that this happens “without having to kick into a mode of cerebral reflection” (167). He recognizes that some people may be scandalized by the implication that liturgies work “ex opere operato” or “by the mere performance of ritual.” He admits that he thinks this is true though not ideal. Indeed, I know of many liturgical churches whose membership tends to have little passion for knowing and applying Scripture to their personal lives. They seem to assume that the liturgy takes care of all their spiritual needs, and their lives tend to resemble the world around them. I also know churches who aren’t known for being liturgical, and yet they have created a vibrant biblical culture where members personally apply the Bible to their lives and the world around them. Smith talks about those who wander into the world but are awakened by a liturgical memory and return to the church. Praise the Lord this happens, but nominal Christianity that issues in backsliding until the eleventh hour is FAR from ideal.

The goal of the Christian life is increasing levels of spiritual maturity as we mature physically and mentally. This means that as our rational capacities develop, rational understanding of what we love and believe should grow. Smith fails to emphasize that the intellectual appropriation of the liturgy represents a primary goal of Christian maturity. He also fails to use the intellectual appropriation of the liturgy as a safeguard against the nominal and passive Christianity that often attends highly liturgical churches. I agree that we need more liturgy, but we need to avoid the opposite error of being merely liturgical. The church must be vigilant in teaching the meaning of liturgy and that it must be personally received by a proactive, reasoning faith “until we all reach unity … in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

All things considered, Smith's scholarship is good and his call for Christian scholarship to "emerge from the matrix of worship" is much needed. We do need to return to the liturgical without becoming passive. We must use it to invigorate our imaginations and develop our reason. He promises to take the conversation further in future works, and I must say that I'm looking forward to them with my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very good.

Smith would disagree with the idea that we are what we think. Or what we believe. Instead he contends that we are what we love. And as Christians our hearts should be directed toward God. Here he argues that liturgies—broadly defined, whether secular or religious—will act to form our affections and social imaginaries, either properly aligned toward God, or as the world molds us, improperly toward ourselves. He then discusses how liturgies may be more effectively utilized in church and in Christian education for spiritual and cultural formation.


Bob wrote a great review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Quotes:

“Being a disciple of Jesus is not primarily a matter of getting the right ideas and doctrines and beliefs into your head in order to guarantee proper behavior; rather, it's a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly—who loves God and neighbor and is oriented to the world by the primacy of that love.”
[p 33]


“Such material rituals are effective because of what we saw in chapter 1: that we are not (primarily) thinking things, or even (merely) believing things, but are embodied lovers whose love is aimed and primed by the practices and rituals that "train" our desires, as it were.”


“Apocalyptic literature—the sort you find in the strange pages of Daniel and the book of Revelation—is a genre of Scripture that tries to get us to see (or see through) the empires that constitute our environment, in order to see them for what they really are. Unfortunately, we associate apocalyptic literature with end-times literature, as if its goal were a matter of prediction. But this is a misunderstanding of the biblical genre; the point of apocalyptic literature is not prediction but unmasking— unveiling the realities around us for what they really are.”
[p 92]


“…while the mall, Victoria's Secret, and Jerry Bruckheimer are grabbing hold of our gut (kardia) by means of our body and its senses—in stories and images, sights and sound, and commercial versions of "smells and bells" —the church's response is oddly rationalist. It plunks us down in a "worship" service, the culmination of which is a forty-five-minute didatic sermon, a sort of holy lecture, trying to convince us of the dangers by implanting doctrines and beliefs in our minds. While the mall paradoxically appreciates that we are liturgical, desiring animals, the (Protestant) church still tends to see us as Cartesian minds. While secular liturgies are after our hearts through our bodies, the church thinks it only has to get into our heads. While Victoria's Secret is fanning a flame in our kardia, the church is trucking water to our minds. While secular liturgies are enticing us with affective images of a good life, the church is trying to convince us otherwise by depositing ideas.”
[p 127]


“Reflection certainly deepens the doing; but the point is that there is always more happening: our imagination is being formed in ways that we are not (and perhaps cannot be) aware of. A way of construing the world becomes "automated," and this will affect our actions and behaviors outside the context of gathered worship in ways we don't always "think" about. In the action of gathering, there is a visceral training of our imagination that shapes how we subsequently think about our identity and our calling as human, in relation to God and in relation to others.”
[p 167]


“Fundamentally, the concern was to emphasize that Christianity is not only (or even primarily) a set of cognitive, heady beliefs; Christianity is not fundamentally a worldview. Or, as so aptly put by Cardinal Ratzinger \(now Pope Benedict XVI),
"Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or a moralism. Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story; it is an event."' Rather, we sought to show that what Christians think and believe (and they do think and believe, and that's a good thing!) grows out of what Christians do .”
[p 216]

[Paige Kleinsasser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for Christian Life & Witness (PM5101). In this six chapter book, Smith argues that we are not just thinking beings. We are embodied people. We are desiring/loving beings with affections. Our desires are shaped by both “thick” & “thin” practices that are often subconscious. His main argument is that solely having information is not effective in spiritual formation because we are embodied people. The final three chapters he expounds on these practices that get us to our telos (being formed into the image of Christ).

I love the principles in this book, but unfortunately it was way too philosophical for me and I would have a hard time recommending it to most people I know because of the style of writing which is unfortunate because his argument is so necessary in the church today.