Josh Mann

“Excarnation The process by which religion (and Christianity in particular) is dis-embodied and de-ritualized, turned into a “belief system.”
― James K.A. Smith, How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor

“By using repetition, images, and other strategies - all of which communicate truths in ways that are not cognitively or propositional - marketing forms us into the kind of persons who want to buy beer to have meaningful relationships, or to buy a car to be respected, or buy the latest thing to come along simply to satisfy the desire that has been formed and implanted in us. It is important to appreciate that these disciplinary mechanisms transmit values and truth claims, but not via propositions or cognitive means; rather, the values are transmitted more covertly...This covertness of the operation is also what makes it so powerful: the truths are inscribed in us through the powerful instruments of imagination and ritual.”
― James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church

“So it is precisely our allergy to repetition in worship that has undercut the counterformative power of Christian worship—because all kinds of secular liturgies shamelessly affirm the good of repetition.”
― James K.A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): How Worship Works

“It's not that we start with beliefs and doctrine and then come up with worship practices that properly "express" these (cognitive) beliefs; rather, we begin with worship, and articulated beliefs bubble up from there. "Doctrines" are the cognitive, theoretical articulation of what we "understand" when we pray.”
― James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation