Imagining the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith
Imagining the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith
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Imagining the Kingdom
How Worship Works

Author: James K. A. Smith

Narrator: Lyle Blaker

Unabridged: 8 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/30/2022

Synopsis

How does worship work? How exactly does liturgical formation shape us? What are the dynamics of such transformation? In the second of James K. A. Smith's three-volume theology of culture, the author expands and deepens the analysis of cultural liturgies and Christian worship he developed in his well-received Desiring the Kingdom. He helps us understand and appreciate the bodily basis of habit formation and how liturgical formation—both "secular" and Christian—affects our fundamental orientation to the world. Worship "works" by leveraging our bodies to transform our imagination, and it does this through stories we understand on a register that is closer to body than mind. This has critical implications for how we think about Christian formation.

Professors and students will welcome this work as will pastors, worship leaders, and Christian educators. The book includes analyses of popular films, novels, and other cultural phenomena, such as The King's Speech, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, and Facebook.

About James K. A. Smith

James K. A. Smith is a popular speaker who has written many books, including On the Road with Saint Augustine, You Are What You Love, Desiring the Kingdom, and Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?-all Christianity Today Book Award winners. He is professor of philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he holds the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. He was editor in chief of Comment magazine from 2013 to 2018 and is now editor in chief of Image, a quarterly journal at the intersection of art, faith, and mystery. Smith has written for Christianity Today, the Christian Century, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the Washington Post.

Reviews

Goodreads review by J on February 01, 2013

Imagining the Kingdom is the second part of James K.A. Smith's Cultural Liturgies project. Originally, Smith wrote the first volume Desiring the Kingdom as a popular introduction with some philosophical heft, but it turned out to be a bit difficult for popular consumption and not philosophically rig......more

Goodreads review by Avery on March 11, 2024

I loved this book and am currently rereading Desiring the kingdom. James KA Smith provides language for learning to love and picture the kingdom. I’m rereading Desiring the Kingdom and am looking forward to reading the last book in the series. If you haven’t read the Cultural Literature series, I’d......more

Goodreads review by David on September 10, 2020

Worthwhile exploration into the structures and methods by which our hearts come to love and our minds come to know. Ironically, or perhaps not, it is through our hands, Smith presents, our bodies and physical presence that knowledge enters the soul. Precisely in this truth do we find his suggestion......more

Goodreads review by Amanda on February 12, 2018

I mostly enjoyed this because Smith taps into a lifelong interest of mine--namely, how we as humans live inside of stories, and how we use ritual and liturgy and habit to tell those stories and get them into our lives. Dr. Smith pointed me in the direction of some philosophers and stories that I nee......more

Goodreads review by Ben on December 27, 2020

Perhaps it’s my fault for misunderstanding the book’s genre or intention, but I wanted more Bible and theology in a work attempting to construct a Christian anthropology.......more

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