{"id":1855,"date":"2020-12-16T21:10:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T21:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=1855"},"modified":"2020-12-23T01:34:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T01:34:03","slug":"theology-take-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/16\/theology-take-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Theology Take Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Theology Takes Practice: Interview with James K. A. Smith<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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James K.A. Smith is a philosophy professor who holds the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview at Calvin College. He is also the editor of Comment <\/em>magazine and the author of numerous books, including a trilogy about Christian formation and education. Since before Fare Forward<\/em>\u2019s inception, Professor Smith has been a huge influence on many of our editors, writers, and readers for his focus on cultural engagement, liturgy, and the centrality of practice to the life of the faith.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Fare Forward:<\/strong> One of your specialties is the intersection of philosophy, theology, and culture. What drew you to work at that intersection?<\/p>

James K. A. Smith:<\/strong> I became a Christian when I was 18, in my senior year of high school (grade 13 back in Ontario, sort of like A-levels in England). My conversion was radical, and like most good evangelicals, I thought being serious about following Christ meant entering \u201cthe ministry.\u201d So I left for Bible college in preparation for pastoral ministry. But while in college, I started reading serious theology, as well as Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, and all the lights went on for me and I started to wonder: \u201cMaybe I\u2019m supposed to do this<\/em>.\u201d The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>

Those early encounters with philosophy and theology were with thinkers in the Reformed tradition who together constituted a chorus singing from the same hymn: that God cares as much about the mind as the heart, and that Christ was Lord of culture as much as he is Lord of the church. It was also right around this time that I read Mark Noll\u2019s groundbreaking book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind<\/em>. So I began to catch a vision of how the intellectual life could be an arena for following Jesus, and that cultural analysis would be a way to serve the body of Christ.<\/p>

FF:<\/strong> You\u2019ve written a lot about the role of embodied practices in the Christian life, and human nature more generally. One of Fare Forward\u2019s <\/em>self-descriptions is that we\u2019re trying to pursue \u201cthick doctrine and deep practice,\u201d so we have a keen interest in the concept of practice. Can you describe what you see the role of practice in human life is, and how Christians can learn from that?<\/p>

JS:<\/strong> Yes, there\u2019s a delicious irony here: while I embraced the life of the mind, my thinking<\/em> led me to re-appreciate the significant role of practices and pre-cognitive formation. As I try to unpack in Desiring the Kingdom<\/em> and Imagining the Kingdom<\/em>, \u201cpractices\u201d are those social, communal, embodied rituals that shape our very orientation to the world in unconscious but fundamental ways. In other words, practices aren\u2019t just something that we do; they do something to<\/em> us.<\/p>

This is really just recovering ancient philosophical and Christian insights about virtue: from Aristotle to Aquinas, the tradition has emphasized that you can\u2019t just think your way to virtue. It takes practice. It takes imitation. It takes immersion in a community of practice such that the governing Story of what\u2019s good and true and beautiful seeps into your bones. It becomes part of your character and shapes your action even without thinking about it. This is precisely why Christians need to recover an appreciation for liturgical practice and the spiritual disciplines\u2014which is just what I see Fare Forward<\/em> emphasizing in the \u201cdeep practice\u201d theme.<\/p>

There\u2019s a shadow side to this, too: it also means that practices can de<\/em>-form us. Vice \u201ctakes practice\u201d too. This is why I\u2019ve tried to encourage a \u201cliturgical\u201d analysis of culture in order to discern not only the \u201cmessages\u201d out there trying to convince our minds, but also the practices that are trying to train our hearts, shaping what we love<\/em> and hence what we do.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The human-machine interface leads us to relate to the world as constantly available<\/em>, and available to<\/em> us and for<\/em> us.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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FF:<\/strong> In this liturgical analysis of culture, what are some the central practices you see out there forming us as late moderns?<\/p>

JS:<\/strong> Such analysis is always very contextual. It really depends on where you are both regionally and in terms of class. So, for example, the secular liturgies of Canada are going to be different than the secular liturgies that should concern us in the United States. Similarly, the secular liturgies that affect professionals are going to be different, in some ways, than those that might captivate the working class.<\/p>

That said, I do think the rituals of consumerism work on all of us in ways we don\u2019t realize. We are immersed in a culture where marketing is ubiquitous, and the way marketing works is to appeal affectively and narratively to our unconscious, recruiting our imaginations such that we long for a vision of the \u201cgood life\u201d that has seeped into us without realizing it\u2014a vision of the good life that is bent on acquisition, competition, and disposal.<\/p>

We might also be able to do a \u201cliturgical analysis\u201d of how we interact with these little machines in our hands, smart phones. There are micro-rituals associated with smart phones that, over time, implicitly train us to expect that world to be available to us on our terms: what we want when we want it. The human-machine interface leads us to relate to the world as constantly available<\/em>, and available to<\/em> us and for<\/em> us. And that micro-ritual starts to spill over into our macro-lives so that, before you know it, you unconsciously learn to relate to the world and your neighbors in this way.<\/p>

But each community needs to undertake its own liturgical analysis of cultural contexts. For example, I think graduate school is its own kind of \u201cnovitiate,\u201d inculcating a vision of life well beyond the expertise of any particular discipline. (Actually, I think Thomas Kuhn\u2019s Structure of Scientific Revolutions<\/em> appreciated this a long time ago.) What are the unique rituals that shape the experience of law school, for example? Or what are the secular liturgies that characterize the world of finance? What story is implicitly carried in the practices of this cultural institution? That\u2019s the question we need to be asking.<\/p>

FF:<\/strong> One of the fields of philosophy you\u2019ve drawn on repeatedly in your career is postmodern, Continental philosophy of the kind that many Christians tend to be wary of. What does your experience engaging postmodern French philosophy say about the larger Christian engagement with the world or with groups we tend to see as adversaries?<\/p>

JS:<\/strong> My approach is just like that of Augustine and Calvin. I understand that all truth is God\u2019s truth. So I don\u2019t think God necessarily favors analytic philosophy vs. continental voices when it comes to helping us understand, say, the nature of language. So just as Augustine and Calvin were willing to learn from pagan philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, so I\u2019ve tried to be a discerning reader of figures like Derrida and Foucault. That doesn\u2019t mean simply baptizing their thought, but it does mean coming to it with a stance of charity that looks for the places where I can learn.<\/p>

I suppose I was drawn to \u201cpostmodern\u201d thought precisely because it offered a critique of modernity. And I think evangelicalism\u2019s easy wedding with modernity has been a source of many of our problems. So in a way, by listening to Derrida\u2019s and Foucault\u2019s and Rorty\u2019s critiques of modernity, I was also opened to hear anew the sources of pre<\/em>modern wisdom in the tradition. It\u2019s why I sometimes say that it was Derrida who led me to be catholic.<\/p>

FF:<\/strong> Speaking of Continental thought, you\u2019ve also done a lot of work on the \u201cRadical Orthodoxy\u201d movement. What is Radical Orthodoxy and what\u2019s its relevance for non-academics?<\/p>

JS:<\/strong> Radical Orthodoxy represents a contemporary Christian intellectual \u201csensibility\u201d that exhibits two important features: it affirms that the Christian faith is relevant to every<\/em> sphere of culture while at the same time looking to pre-modern sources (Augustine, Aquinas, and others) for contemporary wisdom. This resonates a lot with my own Kuyperian tradition, which is probably why Radical Orthodox caught my attention early on.<\/p>

When I published Introducing Radical Orthodoxy<\/em>, way back in 2005, the work of John Milbank and Graham Ward and Catherine Pickstock and others was getting a lot of attention. Their writing is notoriously dense and opaque, and yet I think there are some real gems of insight in what they\u2019re saying, so IRO<\/em> was kind of a \u201ctranslation\u201d project.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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So modernity is less some sui generis<\/em> \u201cgodless\u201d invention and more like a heresy within<\/em> the Christian west.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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FF:<\/strong> What are some central gems you see in Radical Orthodoxy? What is distinctive about it with respect to other \u201csensibilities\u201d driving discourse about Christianity right now?<\/p>

JS:<\/strong> I might highlight a couple. First, because RO draws on a more ancient and medieval tradition, there is a core conviction about sacramentality<\/em>\u2014that the material creation is an arena of grace; that the transcendent God meets us in physical stuff. I think this is why RO is kind of the theological correlate to Flannery O\u2019Connor and Walker Percy.<\/p>

Second, I think RO has a nuanced, critical reading of modernity that recognizes it as at once indebted to Christian faith and yet a perversion of it. So modernity is less some sui generis<\/em> \u201cgodless\u201d invention and more like a heresy within<\/em> the Christian west. In this sense, I think RO\u2019s cultural analysis resonates a lot with someone like Oliver O\u2019Donovan, who is interested in the ways that political liberalism is kind of indebted to Christianity, but also someone like Charles Taylor, who sees secularism as something that\u2014oddly enough\u2014was only possible because of Christianity. I\u2019ll be exploring this in more detail in my forthcoming book on Taylor, How (Not) To Be Secular<\/em>.<\/p>

FF:<\/strong> Your focus on practice seems to open up a lot of avenues for ecumenical engagement between different Christian denominations. How do you see that playing out?<\/p>

JS:<\/strong> I think this is also part of what drew me to Radical Orthodoxy. On the one hand, it\u2019s a kind of Anglo-Catholic thing, but on the other hand, it is a deeply ecumenical sensibility that is not \u201cowned\u201d by any one denomination.<\/p>

I think we live in a new day where old boundaries and dividing lines mean less and less. I have way more in common with my confessional Catholic sisters and brothers than I do with liberal Presbyterians. This is partly because Protestants of all kinds of stripes\u2014from Baptists like Timothy George and D.H. Williams to Reformed folk like Hans Boersma\u2014are recovering a deep appreciation for \u201cthe Great Tradition,\u201d which includes an emphasis on spiritual formation, virtue, and liturgy. But I think it\u2019s also partly because of renewal and reform in Roman Catholicism, too, under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. (For more on this, see Mark Noll\u2019s marvelous review of Weigel\u2019s Evangelical Catholicism<\/em><\/a>.) Or consider the fact that Ross Douthat\u2019s Bad Religion<\/em> won the Christianity Today<\/em> Book Award last year.<\/p>

So I spend a lot of my time trying to get Protestants to remember that we\u2019re all Catholic. But I also remind my sisters and brothers on the other side of the Tiber that Rome doesn\u2019t own catholicity.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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An interview with James K. A. Smith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,11,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-interviews","category-issue-6","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Practice_cover.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1855"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2448,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions\/2448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.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