James K.A. Smith

“Jesus is a teacher who doesn’t just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn’t content to simply deposit new…

— James K.A. Smith

“So it is precisely our allergy to repetition in worship that has undercut the counterformative power of Christian worship—because all kinds of…

— James K.A. Smith

“too often we look for the Spirit in the extraordinary when God has promised to be present in the ordinary.5”

— James K.A. Smith

“Formative Christian worship paints a picture of the beauty of the Lord--and a vision of the shalom he desires for creation--in a…

— James K.A. Smith

“Too much of our cultural analysis is rooted in thinking-thingism: we scan culture, listening for “messages,” bent on rooting out “false” teachings.…

— James K.A. Smith

“We confess knowledge without certainty, truth without objectivity.”

— James K.A. Smith

“Worship, then, needs to be characterized by hospitality; it needs to be inviting. But at the same time, it should be inviting…

— James K.A. Smith

“Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love.”

— James K.A. Smith

“Your deepest desire,” he observes, “is the one manifested by your daily life and habits.”6 This is because our action—our doing—bubbles up…

— James K.A. Smith

“Foucault. The seemingly disturbing, even Nietzschean claim that “power is knowledge” should push us to realize what MTV learned long ago: (a)…

— James K.A. Smith

“The doubter’s doubt is faith; his temptation is belief, and it is a temptation that has not been entirely quelled, even in…

— James K.A. Smith

“Worship works from the top down, you might say. In worship we don’t just come to show God our devotion and give…

— James K.A. Smith

“While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory…

— James K.A. Smith

“Antoine de Saint-Exupéry captures this well: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t…

— James K.A. Smith

“Because of this Christian materialism, a catholic postmodernism (or postmodern catholicity) affirms sacramentality on two levels. On the one hand, it affirms…

— James K.A. Smith

“The state does not take a merely temporal regulatory role and leave salvation in the hands of the church; rather, the modern…

— James K.A. Smith

“the postmodern critique is not aimed at metanarratives because they are really grounded in narratives; on the contrary, the problem with metanarratives…

— James K.A. Smith

“It is precisely this refusal of the Cartesian paradigm that characterizes Radical Orthodoxy, which seeks to reanimate the account of knowledge offered…

— James K.A. Smith

“Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire…

— James K.A. Smith

“Not many people can confront the truth about themselves. If they did they’d run a mile, would take an immediate and profound…

— James K.A. Smith

“classical apologetics operates with a very modern notion of reason; “presuppositional” apologetics, on the other hand, is postmodern (and Augustinian!) insofar as…

— James K.A. Smith

“Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.”

— James K.A. Smith

“The body of Christ is that unique community of practice whose members own up to the fact that we don’t always love…

— James K.A. Smith

“But once you realize that we are not just thinking things but creatures of habit, you’ll then realize that temptation isn’t just…

— James K.A. Smith

“Our wants and longings and desires are at the core of our identity, the wellspring from which our actions and behavior flow.”

— James K.A. Smith