Jamie Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, published a book in the fall of last year called Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, which was probably the best book I read in 2009. I was a little late in noticing this, but in January he gave a lecture at Calvin that highlighted the main themes of the book. The lecture is excellent (as is the book, which you definitely should read), and there is a lot to glean from it. Enjoy.

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As I have been reading Desiring the Kingdom, author Jamie Smith has continued to provoke me to thought with his insights. Earlier, I quoted a portion of the introduction, which had pointed to some of the questions he was setting out to answer in the book. On page 68, Smith speaks briefly about Charles Taylor's notion of the "social imaginary" (discussed in Taylor's book, A Secular Age), and then talks about how that notion can help the Christian worldview conversation. In many ways, I think this portion directly addresses some of his earlier questions.

The 'social imaginary' is an affective, noncognitive understanding of the world. It is described as an imaginary (rather than a theory) because it is fueled by the stuff of the imagination rather than the intellect: it is made up of, and embedded in, stories, narratives, myths, and icons. These visions capture our hearts and imaginations by 'lining' our imagination, as it were—providing us with frameworks of 'meaning' by which we make sense of our world and our calling in it. An irreducible understanding of the world resides in our intuitive, precognitive grasp of these stories.

Now, what does this have to do with a Christian worldview? I suggest that instead of thinking about worldview as a distinctly Christian 'knowledge,' we should talk about a Christian 'social imaginary' that constitutes a distinctly Christian understanding of the world that is implicit in the practices of Christian worship. Discipleship and formation are less about erecting an edifice of Christian knowledge than they are a matter of developing a Christian know-how that intuitively 'understands' the world in the light of the fullness of the gospel. And insofar as an understanding is implicit in practice, the practices of Christian worship are crucial—the sine qua non—for developing a distinctly Christian understanding of the world. The practices of Christian worship are the analogue of biking around the neighborhood, absorbing an understanding of our environment that is precognitive and becomes inscribed in our adaptive unconscious.

What Smith means with the analogy of biking around the neighborhood is that when we live somewhere, we become intimately familiar with it such that we can make our way around it and to specific destinations without even really thinking about where we are going. Another analogy could be the unconscious way we operate a car with a manual transmission after years of doing it.

Smith's caution against the concept of worldview becoming too intellectual is one I am familiar with, and I think is helpful. The aim of worldview education is the transformation of the whole person; however, there is a tendency for it to get bogged down in thought and conversation. Smith is entirely right to recognize that worship (not just our public worship on Sunday) plays an integral part—in fact, it may even be the crucial part—in forming an holistic understanding of the world.

We must look at the world through the lenses of the gospel, and that begins when our hearts are rightly ordered. What we worship shapes our hearts, dictates what we love, and fosters that intuitive know-how we operate from as we make our way through the world. That Smith should point out how important it is that education be aware of this is not surprising.

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As someone who plans to be involved in education, this bit from Jamie Smith's latest book, Desiring the Kindgom, is music to my ears.

What is education for? And more specifically, what is at stake in a distinctively Christian education? What does the qualifier Christian mean when appended to education? It is usually understood that education is about ideas and information (though it is also too often routinely reduced to credentialing for a career and viewed as a ticket to a job). And so distinctively Christian education is understood to be about Christian ideas—which usually requires a defense of the importance of "the life of the mind." On this account, the goal of a Christian education is the development of a Christian perspective, or more commonly now, a Christian worldview, which is taken to be a system of Christian beliefs, ideas, and doctrines.

But what if this line of thinking gets off on the wrong foot? What if education, including higher education, is not primarily about the absorption of ideas and information, but about the formation of hearts and desires? What if we began by appreciating how education not only gets into our head but also (and more fundamentally) grabs us by the gut—what the New Testament refers to as kardia, "the heart"? What if education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions—our visions of the "the good life"—and not merely about the dissemination of data and information as inputs to our thinking? What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? And what if this had as much to do with our bodies as with our minds?

What if education wasn't first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love? (17-18)

The copy of the book I have right now is from the library, but having read the introduction and a bit of the first chapter, I am convinced that it needs to be on my shelf.

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Every once in a while, I either come to a point where I feel as if I have nothing to say or I have so much going on in my head that I don't know what to say. In the last few weeks it has been the latter, hence the relative infrequency of posting here.

In the interim, then, I offer this delightfully inflammatory quote from one of the essays in James K. A. Smith's book, The Devil Reads Derrida, as a filler. Personally, I tend to opt for subtle provocation, but since this is a quote, I (somewhat) absolve myself of responsibility for what is said—though, I should add, for the most part I agree with the analysis. This particular essay focuses on some of the arguments in Greg Boyd's, The Myth of a Christian Nation. Let me anticipate what might be going through your mind—ultimately he takes Boyd to task for constructing his arguments on a number of false premises; it is the larger overall points with which he resonates.

Smith begins with a brief discussion of some of the evangelical figures who, in the early 1970s, began to make American Christians aware of the fact that they lived with a duality, one that had them altogether focused on redeeming the souls of individuals at the expense of redeeming the rest of the created order. Richard Mouw, for example, "invited evangelicals to take up the Cultural Mandate as a complement to, and expression of, the Great Commission." Only, it didn't quite go as planned.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Capitol. If [people like] Mouw were trying to pull evangelicals back from their isolation out on the pietist end of the pendulum's arc, they didn't likely anticipate the degree to which the pendulum would swing the other way...In fact, evangelicals became such zealous converts to the Cultural Mandate that it has pretty much trumped the Great Commission. Christians leaders spend more time worrying about activist judges, Venezuelan dictators, and constitutional amendments than their evangelical forebears could ever have imagined. Devoting themselves to political strategizing and marshaling the machinations of government, evangelicals have so embraced participation in the 'earthly city' that one wonders whether they've lost their passport to the City of God. Worse yet is the suspicion that evangelicals in America have just collapsed the two, such that the City of God is just downright confused with America as a city set on a hill...[We must denounce] the nationalistic 'idolatry' of American evangelicalism which fuses the kingdom of God with a preferred, made-in-America version of the kingdom of the world, confusing and conflating the cross and the flag (98-99).

As I said above, I agree with the overall point being made, though I would make a few qualifications. However, this is not the time to get into those, lest this turn into something of a tome. Ultimately, what Smith is attempting to bring out is that American evangelicalism is characterized by an over-realized eschatology. One need not look any further than the pervasive rhetoric of superiority, the quasi-divinization of the Founding Fathers (or Reagan, for that matter), and the unquestioning ascent to the supposed biblical principles of the Constitution to see the evidence of this.

By no means should Christians abdicate their responsibilities with respect to the cultural mandate; Smith is not advocating a return to isolationist pietism. Neither is he vilifying America or its principles (nor do I). Instead, this is meant to remind Christians that our citizenship in the Kingdom of God and resultant designation as resident aliens in this world calls us first and foremost to the task of being ambassadors of the King, of being a sign and foretaste of His Kingdom and bearing witness to the rule of our Sovereign Lord over all of creation. It is to this Lord that every knee shall one day bow.

I have stirred the pot with the ladle that is Smith (and Boyd) long enough. What do you think?

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One section of James K. A. Smith's book, The Devil Reads Derrida, is a collection of essays on the university, entitled "Schools of Faith." The title underscores Smith's recognition of the fact that any educational institution communicates a worldview and is shaped by a certain religious orientation.

The modern American university, Smith says, is every bit as religious as those institutions which intentionally declare themselves as such. These other institutions operate on the false principle that they are educating objectively, with the assumption that the secular is neutral and non-religious. This, of course, is impossible; "indeed, one could suggest that much that goes under the banner of 'secular' education is, in fact, a kind of religious formation where students are initiated into a particular worldview" (56). In the case of the secular institution, this means education reflects the secular commitments of the market and political liberalism, among others.

What this fosters is the mindset that students are consumers. As a defining characteristic of Western culture, Smith argues, this consumerist mentality filters its way into every part of our life such that even our educational institutions become agents in the process of consuming "goods" and "skills," which are intended solely for the benefit of the individual and his or her happiness.

There is another way, however, that does not focus on consuming goods and skills, but acquiring them, a distinction Smith employs to emphasize that acquisition of these things is ultimately for the sake of others—to be used in service to God and for the good of our neighbors. Here is where a liberal arts education is so important.

The scandal of the liberal arts education is that it's not about giving people what they want. It's about challenging the wants themselves, and ultimately to form and direct those wants and desires otherwise. My task is to invite students to radically reconsider their wants. The professor's task is not to politely and meekly ask, 'Can I help you find what you're looking for?' Rather, I want to challenge students by asking: 'Why would you be looking for that?' A liberal arts education—and especially a Christian liberal arts education—should come as a shock to those whose habits have been shaped by a culture of consumerism. This is because the liberal arts are about the formation of students, and the central task of formation runs deeply counter to the egocentric stance fostered by consumerism. The very notion of 'formation' calls into question the autonomy at the heart of consumerism (42).

Referencing the modal theory of Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd, Smith goes on to make the point that the university needs to operate according to its leading function or aspect, and raises the question of whether or not "the paradigm of student-as-consumer indicate[s] that the college is unwittingly letting a secondary, economic aspect trump our leading aspect of education, formation, and research" (44). The answer, of course, is quite clear. And so, Smith concludes,

while students are here to acquire habits, skills, and wisdom, this does not make them 'consumers' or customers. As an institution focused on the task of education, we are not providing a 'commodity.' And having a unique identity does not just translate into being a 'brand.' In fact, the task of a distinctively Christian liberal arts education is to create a community of people formed to resist and challenge the reductionism of a market-driven culture. To the extent that we do that, we will be faithful to our calling (45).

Any thoughts on this?

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