Benjamin McMullen

“I’m tired of all the death this world keeps insisting on.”
― David Wroblewski, Familiaris

“I don’t think my way into consumerism. Rather, I’m covertly conscripted into a way of life because I have been formed by cultural practices that are nothing less than secular liturgies. My loves have been automated by rituals I didn’t even realize were liturgies. These tangible, visceral, repeated practices carry a story about human flourishing that we learn in unconscious ways. These practices are loaded with their own teleological orientation toward a particular vision of the good life, a rival version of the kingdom, and by our immersion in them we are—albeit unwittingly—being taught what and how to love.”
― James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

“In sum, the innovative, restorative work of culture-making needs to be primed by those liturgical traditions that orient our imagination to kingdom come. In order to foster a Christian imagination, we don’t need to invent; we need to remember. We cannot hope to re-create the world if we are constantly reinventing “church,” because we will reinvent ourselves right out of the Story. Liturgical tradition is the platform for imaginative innovation.”
― James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

“It is essential to keep together these two complementary ways of looking at the cross. On the human level”
― John R.W. Stott, The Cross of Christ