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 Desiring the Kingdom
by James K.A. Smith Book Review by Kim Winters Desiring the Kingdom by James K.A. Smith is a philosophical book that seeks to explore and explicate ideas connected to personhood, culture and worship. Smith describes it best when he calls it a “theology of culture," connecting “worship and worldview” while also persuading its readers to formulate a “vision of what authentic, integral Christian learning looks like." Smith obviously enjoys the pursuit, carrying his readers along on a refreshing thought journey that challenges us to first observe and then reform the ways in which we view and experience ourselves, the world around us, the church and virtually everything we know and love. I was first struck by Smith’s call to view “education as formation” rather than just an exercise in expanding head knowledge. According to Smith, people are not primarily “thinkers” nor “believers” but rather “worshippers” and a failure to recognize this will prove fatal to any ministry effort seeking to succeed on God’s terms. Smith wants us to consider people as “embodied souls” rather than “encased brains” — a transition he believes we have not yet made as protestant evangelicals.Smith’s concept of the “social imaginary” and the ways in which it impacts everything we believe and desire is especially intriguing. The “social imaginary” (according to Smith) is “not how we think about the world, but how we imagine the world before we ever think about it.” This concept is extremely helpful, especially in considering ways in which well-intentioned believers fall into serious doctrinal and practical error. It also serves to keep us humble as we pursue truth, always remembering that all of us have a social imaginary, and none of us can see our own. At times I think he goes too far with the concept, but overall it is an extremely helpful way to understand how our surroundings and our history can impact belief and practice. Smith makes some provocative statements in the book. At one point he says “I suggest on one level, Victoria’s Secret is right where the church has been wrong.” For Smith, this is just another way of saying that the church is failing to get at the root issue of “desire” by neglecting to view persons as they really are (worshippers). His point is one worth pondering deeply. “While secular liturgies are after our hearts through our bodies, the church thinks it only has to get into our heads.” So the question remains – how do we (as a church) go after hearts through bodies in ways that transform desire for Kingdom purposes? This is ultimately the question I think Smith wants us (as the church) to be asking. Smith also wants to know things like: “What if we didn’t see passion and desire…as the problem, but rather sought to redirect it?” I will close with the inspiration I found in his encouragement regarding our worship practices. Smith said that “The rather mundane fact that people show up is, however, an indicator of something fundamental: that a people has gathered in response to a call.” What a wonderful (and life changing) reminder this was for me. In a day when desires for the wrong things (even in worship) seem to be on the rise, it is so important to be reminded that God is “on the move” and no matter how consumerist, two-dimensional and even thoughtless we become as His followers, we are unable to obliterate what He intends to accomplish. This thought is rooted in God Himself “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’” (Isaiah 46:10).
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