He does ask who do you say that I am? Belief. Not just what we want. I do not mind if he says that we are more than just thinking things but we are thinking things and feeling things and doing things. So our thinking, feeling, and doing is all part of it. You are what we love but love is not just a heart (as we understand it) thing. WE love with our mind, heart and will. That is why the greatest commandment says that we should love God with our whole being. I do not think he is wrong except that he has limited things without necessity. I think different types of people with different personalities and backgrounds will put the emphasis on one of these things. (Thinking, feeling, doing).
Hey Carl, love your train of thought. I wonder: could it be that although different contexts/cultures focus on either thinking, feeling, and doing, might they all benefit from emphasizing imagination? Smith developed this argument pretty strong. Just a thought.
Yes. I wrote this before I started to read his book. I am not through with and will probably need to reread it after I am finished. It is a really great text. Yes, we all need to take the time to focus on all aspects of loving God, neighbor, and ourselves (in a proper way). Some ways might be more normal or more central but we are called to love in all these ways. Imagination is a huge part of it. All should stress it. I think many might be put off by the word because they will think it means that it is something unreal though. I have so many thoughts right now but need to put them down so I can make more sense. I am also reading a book by Ellen Charry about the centrality of hapiness and human flourishing. Her theological tradition is somewhat outside of my box but I find I can learn a lot from her.
His book explains It really well what he means by that. He says that we are the habits, the actions we do, more than we think we are, or should be. He is calling us to put in practice what we know and that habit of acting virtues will change us and bring us close to God. It's super hard to state what we are with just a phrase so there are layers to those claims that he covers in the book.
Wonderful lecture. This information and viewpoint is straight out of Eastern Christian Soteriology, or Eastern Orthodoxy. Check out the Eastern Church Fathers for even more insights - St Basil, St Ireneaus, St Athanasius, etc.
I was finishing his book and wanted a video recap. Is it a mic, is it a light? I saw him bump into it, and the rest of the sermon I had trouble not focusing on whether he would do it again.
We are creatures of will, and to be saved, we must be saved in our will, our ethos. Our will is not our "gut." Nor do we love with our "gut." On the contrary, in Romans 7, Paul shows the person who does what he doesn't want to do--he doesn't even love what his "gut" makes him do. The unredeemed "gut" is lust. We cannot equate lust with love. In Christ, the "gut" or the "flesh" is put under submission through the renewing of our mind. Our minds must be so filled with Scripture that we love doctrine. We will invariably act upon what we believe. To imply that we can discipline our love in any other way than to bring every thought into captivity to Christ is to create confusion. To push away from doctrine in this biblically illiterate age is unthinkable. Proverbs 23:7, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." There is no false dichotomy between the heart and the mind. We love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. To say or even to imply that we love only with our "gut" is to imply that love is an emotion, which is not only simplistic but which also skews the rhetorical triangle of all true communication. To make the emotional appeal supersede logos (the mind) and ethos (the will) is erroneous. Smith says we can't think our way to holiness, but who is saying we can? We are saved by grace through faith, and we are sanctified by this same grace through faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
It's hard for him to go in detail about his thoughs in 30 mins. In his book he goes more in depth about these claims. It's a really good text. All in all he is Just saying there that we must apply and act virtues to train our hearts, so love, compassion patience etc, become "second nature" and by that we can be transformed and brought closer to God. Not for salvation(that would bê sacramentalism) but for living in discipleship in the way Jesus told us to.
@@giovanne2143 I have read and taught his book, You Are What You Love, in a small group study (the book was chosen for me, not by me). It is upon that basis that I wrote my concerns above. I literally highlighted in one color any reference to the Holy Spirit, and they are few and far between in the entire book. In fact, in only one instance does Smith even refer to the Holy Spirit and that is in a quotation by someone else. Instead, he uses his own cryptic term, "Spirit," which could mean almost anything in this post-doctrine age. My concerns are very deep. I cannot endorse the book. We are not transformed by acting a certain way; we are transformed so that we can act in accordance with God's Word.
I don't think he's quite nailed it. There seems to be a gap, and that is in determining what habits you are going to practice (and if you do them is that really 'practice'?). Doesn't that require knowledge and will? In any case I need a clear picture -- the knowledge, if you will -- of what those habits are, and I'm not finding that here. I'm still just left with a life that encounters an inspirational or admonishing message here and there, easily soon forgotten, if in fact I get it at all. Isn't the big problem a lack of disciplined character formation? You pretty much do what you are, don't you? Maybe that's what Smith is saying, but I need specifics as to what I'm to be, as there seems to be a lot of different views about what that entails out there. And if it's just up to each person to figure that out (and to be effectually instantiated in a life it has to be more than just love God and everybody as best you can), I don't know that we're getting anywhere.
What if you don't need a clear picture, a certain knowledge of what those habits are? What if, like those of Old, we are to live by the Spirit guiding us? I for one do not want a laundry list of do this don't do that, this would be 'living by the Law' and didn't Christ end this? Christ frees us from the Law, 'if' we trust in Him and in the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
![James K.A. Smith: Taking a Liturgical Audit of Your Life [altær]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bactDK2JV34/mqdefault.jpg)
![James K.A. Smith: Taking a Liturgical Audit of Your Life [altær]](/img/tr.png)
I love seeing how Smith has developed his ideas through the years. Very excited for this book to come out!
Touches the heart... not just the head.
He does ask who do you say that I am? Belief. Not just what we want. I do not mind if he says that we are more than just thinking things but we are thinking things and feeling things and doing things. So our thinking, feeling, and doing is all part of it. You are what we love but love is not just a heart (as we understand it) thing. WE love with our mind, heart and will. That is why the greatest commandment says that we should love God with our whole being. I do not think he is wrong except that he has limited things without necessity. I think different types of people with different personalities and backgrounds will put the emphasis on one of these things. (Thinking, feeling, doing).
Hey Carl, love your train of thought. I wonder: could it be that although different contexts/cultures focus on either thinking, feeling, and doing, might they all benefit from emphasizing imagination? Smith developed this argument pretty strong. Just a thought.
Yes. I wrote this before I started to read his book. I am not through with and will probably need to reread it after I am finished. It is a really great text. Yes, we all need to take the time to focus on all aspects of loving God, neighbor, and ourselves (in a proper way). Some ways might be more normal or more central but we are called to love in all these ways. Imagination is a huge part of it. All should stress it. I think many might be put off by the word because they will think it means that it is something unreal though. I have so many thoughts right now but need to put them down so I can make more sense. I am also reading a book by Ellen Charry about the centrality of hapiness and human flourishing. Her theological tradition is somewhat outside of my box but I find I can learn a lot from her.
His book explains It really well what he means by that. He says that we are the habits, the actions we do, more than we think we are, or should be. He is calling us to put in practice what we know and that habit of acting virtues will change us and bring us close to God. It's super hard to state what we are with just a phrase so there are layers to those claims that he covers in the book.
Amen God bless you all
Wonderful lecture. This information and viewpoint is straight out of Eastern Christian Soteriology, or Eastern Orthodoxy. Check out the Eastern Church Fathers for even more insights - St Basil, St Ireneaus, St Athanasius, etc.
I was finishing his book and wanted a video recap. Is it a mic, is it a light? I saw him bump into it, and the rest of the sermon I had trouble not focusing on whether he would do it again.
Salvation is not surgery. It is a new birth.
He's the new Pascal of our time!
We are creatures of will, and to be saved, we must be saved in our will, our ethos. Our will is not our "gut." Nor do we love with our "gut." On the contrary, in Romans 7, Paul shows the person who does what he doesn't want to do--he doesn't even love what his "gut" makes him do. The unredeemed "gut" is lust. We cannot equate lust with love. In Christ, the "gut" or the "flesh" is put under submission through the renewing of our mind. Our minds must be so filled with Scripture that we love doctrine. We will invariably act upon what we believe. To imply that we can discipline our love in any other way than to bring every thought into captivity to Christ is to create confusion. To push away from doctrine in this biblically illiterate age is unthinkable. Proverbs 23:7, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." There is no false dichotomy between the heart and the mind. We love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. To say or even to imply that we love only with our "gut" is to imply that love is an emotion, which is not only simplistic but which also skews the rhetorical triangle of all true communication. To make the emotional appeal supersede logos (the mind) and ethos (the will) is erroneous. Smith says we can't think our way to holiness, but who is saying we can? We are saved by grace through faith, and we are sanctified by this same grace through faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
It's hard for him to go in detail about his thoughs in 30 mins. In his book he goes more in depth about these claims. It's a really good text.
All in all he is Just saying there that we must apply and act virtues to train our hearts, so love, compassion patience etc, become "second nature" and by that we can be transformed and brought closer to God. Not for salvation(that would bê sacramentalism) but for living in discipleship in the way Jesus told us to.
@@giovanne2143 I have read and taught his book, You Are What You Love, in a small group study (the book was chosen for me, not by me). It is upon that basis that I wrote my concerns above. I literally highlighted in one color any reference to the Holy Spirit, and they are few and far between in the entire book. In fact, in only one instance does Smith even refer to the Holy Spirit and that is in a quotation by someone else. Instead, he uses his own cryptic term, "Spirit," which could mean almost anything in this post-doctrine age. My concerns are very deep. I cannot endorse the book. We are not transformed by acting a certain way; we are transformed so that we can act in accordance with God's Word.
I don't think he's quite nailed it. There seems to be a gap, and that is in determining what habits you are going to practice (and if you do them is that really 'practice'?). Doesn't that require knowledge and will? In any case I need a clear picture -- the knowledge, if you will -- of what those habits are, and I'm not finding that here. I'm still just left with a life that encounters an inspirational or admonishing message here and there, easily soon forgotten, if in fact I get it at all.
Isn't the big problem a lack of disciplined character formation? You pretty much do what you are, don't you? Maybe that's what Smith is saying, but I need specifics as to what I'm to be, as there seems to be a lot of different views about what that entails out there. And if it's just up to each person to figure that out (and to be effectually instantiated in a life it has to be more than just love God and everybody as best you can), I don't know that we're getting anywhere.
What if you don't need a clear picture, a certain knowledge of what those habits are? What if, like those of Old, we are to live by the Spirit guiding us? I for one do not want a laundry list of do this don't do that, this would be 'living by the Law' and didn't Christ end this? Christ frees us from the Law, 'if' we trust in Him and in the guidance of the Holy Spirit.