Juvenile Nonfiction

52 Books in 52 Weeks, it's called. The challenge is simple: read a book every week for a year.

07. Desiring the kingdom: worship, worldview, and cultural formation.

52 Books. | February 2010
Smith, James K. A.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009
2 Comments.

Desiring the kingdom is Smith’s attempt to reapproach Christian Education through the stomach, as it were. Cognitive approaches to Christian formation don’t touch the desires, he argues, and desire is the prime mover. We lead with our hearts. So while we learn at Christian Schools to adopt a Christian Worldview, the secular liturgies of the Mall, the Stadium, the University are getting straight to our hearts through our bodies, and forming a desire for a different Kingdom in us. Smith argues for a new approach to education, centered around Worship, which employs affective methods to truly form us as a peculiar people. It’s a refreshing idea, although his exploration into the ways that the Worship liturgy enact this formation struck me as after-the-fact, as if he’d formed his conclusions and then worked up examples to try to support them. Don’t let that dissuade you from tackling this very readable book, especially the last chapter on pedagogy.

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It is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.

  • I’m interested in this one. James K. A. Smith is on the outskirts of a movement called Radical Orthodoxy. I really like the work of most of the Radical Orthodox theologians. So I’ve kept an eye on Smith. Perhaps i’ll peruse this one if I find it anywhere.

    matthew. February 13th. 2010. 1:07 pm.

  • This is one of The Englewood Review’s Best Books for the Life of the Church, 2009. I think it’s definitely worth a go through.

    jnonfiction. February 13th. 2010. 1:33 pm.

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