James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (aff.) (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016). 210 pages.
James Smith is a professor of philosophy at Calvin University. He has written a thought-provoking book that challenges numerous common assumptions.
He states in the preface, “You need to worship well. Because you are what you love. And you worship what you love. And you might not love what you think” (xii). In describing discipleship, he claims, “Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love” (2).
Smith challenges the assumption that we are first and foremost thinking creatures. Rene Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” Smith notes that “It’s the mind that we picture as ‘mission control’ of the human person” (3). Yet he asks this question: “What if the problem here is precisely the implicit model of the human person we’ve been working with in this whole approach to discipleship? What if Descartes was wrong and we’ve been hoodwinked into seeing ourselves as thinking things?” (5).
Smith writes, “To recognize the limits of knowledge is not to embrace ignorance. We don’t need less than knowledge; we need more. We need to recognize the power of habit” (6). Smith notes that if our thoughts are our primary motivator, then simply adding knowledge should make us better. But even though many churches offer classes that speak to people’s minds, their behavior remains largely unaffected. Smith concludes, “Instead, we need to embrace a more holistic, biblical model of human persons that situates our thinking and knowing in relation to other, more fundamental aspects of the human person” (6).
Smith posits that “To be human is to be animated and oriented by some vision of the good life, some picture of what we think counts as flourishing, and we want that. We crave it. We desire it. This is why our most fundamental mode of orientation to the world is love. We are oriented by our longings, directed by our desires” (11). He concludes, “In short, you are what you love” (9). He quotes Irenaeus, who claimed that “The glory of God is a human being fully alive” (8). Rather than merely filling people’s minds, we must foster longing in their hearts. He quotes Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “If you want to build a ship . . . don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” (11).Smith concludes, “You are what you love because you live toward what you want (13). He adds, “To be human is to be a lover and to love something ultimate” (15).
The key, according to Smith, is to train our hearts to long for that which is virtuous and good. He suggests, “The subconscious longings of our hearts are aimed and directed elsewhere; our orientation is askew, our erotic compass malfunctions, giving us false bearings” (20). He adds, “. . . if our heart is like a compass, an erotic homing device, then we need to (regularly) calibrate our hearts, tuning them to be directed to the Creator, our magnetic north” (20). John Calvin called the human heart an “idol factory” (23). Smith notes that “Learning to love God takes practice” (25).
Smith argues that liturgical practices are crucial for Christian formation. He stresses that the traditional liturgies of church history have much to offer us today, as they represent the collective wisdom the church has passed down through the generations. He cites Robert Webber approvingly: “The future of the church is ancient” (7). Smith claims that “Christian worship faces this disturbing reality head on, recognizing the gap between what we think we love and what we really love (29).
Smith suggests that “. . . how we think about discipleship depends on how we understand the nature of the human person” (33). Regarding modern approaches to discipleship, he suggests that “It is an approach that unwittingly overestimates the influence of thinking and conscious deliberation and thus tends to overlook and underestimate the power and force of all kinds of unconscious or subconscious processes that orient our being-in-the-world. In short, it underestimates the power of habit” (33).
Smith cites Timothy Wilson, who suggested that only about 5% of what we do each day is the outcome of conscious, deliberate choices (33).
Smith makes some interesting points. He argues that the purpose of apocalyptic literature “. . . is not prediction but unmasking” (39). He also offers an interesting discussion of how shopping malls have become a place in which liturgies are performed. He suggests that “The mall is a religious site, not because it is theological but because it is liturgical (41). He suggests that “If our loves can be disordered by secular liturgies, it’s also true that our loves need to be reordered (recalibrated) by counter liturgies—embodied, communal practices that are ‘loaded’ with the gospel and indexed to God and his kingdom” (57). Smith states that “The church—the body of Christ—is the place where God invites us to renew our loves, reorient our desires, and retrain our appetites” (65). He adds, “. . . the most potent, charged, transformative site of the Spirit’s work is found in the most unlikely of places—the church!” (68).
Smith concedes that modern evangelical churches have largely dispensed with traditional liturgies, yet Smith strongly urges churches to embrace them to counter the secular liturgies in which people are immersed each day. He suggests that “Liturgy is the way we learn to ‘put on’ Christ” (69). He adds, “Christian worship is nothing less than an invitation to participate in the life of the triune God” (70).
Smith warns against constantly updating the church and its practices. He claims that “Novelty is how we try to maintain the fresh sincerity of worship that is fundamentally understood as expression” (75). He adds, “So we remake the church in order to ‘speak to’ contemporary culture” (75).
Speaking of worship, Smith notes that “Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where God does something to us” (77). He continues, “Worship is not primarily a venue for innovative creativity but a place for discerning reception and faithful repetition” (78). He adds, “If the Sovereign Lord has created us as creatures of habit, why should we think repetition is inimical to our spiritual growth?” (80). He concludes, “Christian worship doesn’t just teach us how to think; it teaches us how to love” (85).
Smith underscores the importance of good liturgies that point our hearts toward God. He points out that “Every liturgy, we’ve said, is oriented toward a telos—an implicit vision of flourishing that is loaded with rituals” (86). He suggests that our world is filled with liturgies of various sorts and each has an end in mind. He quotes Alasdair MacIntyre, who retorted, “I cannot answer the question, ‘What ought I to do’ until I first answer the question, ‘Of which story am I a part?’” (89).
Smith notes that “. . . a virtue is a good habit that inclines us toward the telos that is best for us” (89). He adds, “In a similar way, Christian worship should tell a story that makes us want to set sail for the immense sea that is the Triune God” (93). He makes the memorable point that “Worship that restores us is worship that restories us” (95).
Smith notes the various aspects of traditional Christian worship in liturgy. This section alone is a great help in this book, especially for someone who was not raised in traditional Christian liturgy. Concerning confession, he suggests, “. . . there is never a moment of confession that isn’t immediately met with the announcement of the good news of forgiveness and absolution” (97). He also states that “Jesus is the smile of God” (112).
He argues that liturgy at church should inform multiple liturgies we experience in our homes and throughout the week. He suggests that “The capital – L Liturgy of Sunday morning should generate lowercase – l liturgies that govern our existence throughout the rest of the week” (113). He continues, “Embedded in the church’s worship are pictures of what flourishing homes and families look like” (114). Smith includes significant discussion of liturgies families can practice at home. He notes, “Don’t underestimate the significance of a dinner-table education” (132).
Smith offers further thoughts on education. He asks, “What if education weren’t first and foremost about what we know but about what we love?” (138). He bemoans much of modern youth ministry that is motivated by fear of losing our teens rather than by a desire to train their hearts to love virtuously. He claims, “Indeed we have created youth ministry that confuses extroversion with faithfulness” (146). He adds, “Young people aren’t going to meet the ascended Lord of history in an event that feels like every other production they’ve ever attended” (149). He argues that children love tradition (149). We do not need to fear that they will resist the traditions that have blessed the church for generations. He concludes, “Have we failed to realize that while we’re trying to entertain them, our young people are waiting for us to form them?” (150). He observes that children who don’t leave the church as adults are influenced both by their own parents and by other parental figures, often in their church, who invest in them as well (154).
Smith argues against churches reinventing themselves. He claims, “This is why the unfettered, undisciplined ‘reinvention’ of the church actually undercuts our ability to carry out innovative, restorative culture making” (179). He warns, “We cannot hope to re-create the world if we are constantly reinventing ‘church,’ because we will reinvent ourselves right out of the story” (181). He asks, “. . . is it possible that the constraints of handed-down tradition could be catalysts for creativity and imagination? (182). He concludes, “Maybe a completely free hand is not what we need” (185).
While I sympathize with his fear that we will reinvent the church into irrelevancy, he may over argue his case. I am certainly intrigued by his argument for the use of traditional liturgies in the church and home. But there is something to be said for translating ancient wisdom and practices to have fresh relevancy and application to the current culture. One could argue that many first-century church practices were created so that the first-century church had forms that spoke most clearly to them. Surely there is a place for church musicians and liturgists to create fresh forms with which to worship an ancient God.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book. I had not viewed my habits and routines as liturgies before. I was intrigued by some of the examples he gave of schools and families that practiced liturgies with the intent of fostering virtue in children. I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear, which, though a secular book, emphasized the life-changing power of habit. Smith offers an interesting perspective on this topic in terms of liturgy.
I highly recommend this book. It will challenge you to re-evaluate your church and home practices in terms of their telos. It may also challenge you to acquaint yourself with some of the ancient traditions that have enriched the spiritual life of generations of Christians who came before you.
Rating: 4
