James K. A. Smith Quotes

• Sometimes to be creative you have to give yourself permission to not be outstanding.

  James K. A. Smith

  Giving, Creative, Sometimes

  47 Copy quote

• What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect?

  James K. A. Smith

  Imagination, What If, Saturation

  James K. A. Smith (2009). “Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation”, p.18, Baker Academic

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• In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love.

  James K. A. Smith

  People, Kind, Liturgy

  James K. A. Smith (2009). “Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation”, p.25, Baker Academic

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• Education is a holistic endeavor that involves the whole person, including our bodies, in a process of formation that aims our desires, primes our imagination, and orients us to the world - all before we ever start 'thinking' about it

  James K. A. Smith

  Thinking, Imagination, Desire

  James K. A. Smith (2009). “Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation”, p.39, Baker Academic

  17 Copy quote

• What if education wasn't first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?

  James K. A. Smith

  What If, Firsts, Knows

  James K. A. Smith (2009). “Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation”, p.18, Baker Academic

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• We all - whether naturalists, atheists, Buddhists, or Christians - see the world through the grid of an interpretive framework - and ultimately this interpretive framework is religious in nature, even if not allied with a particular institutional religion.

  James K. A. Smith

  Christian, Religious, Buddhist

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• Our Christian faith - and correlatively, our account of apologetics - is tainted by modernism when we fail to appreciate the effects of sin on reason. When this is ignored, we adopt an Enlightenment optimism about the role of a supposedly neutral reason in the recognition of truth.

  James K. A. Smith

  Christian, Optimism, Appreciate

  James K. A. Smith (2006). “Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? (The Church and Postmodern Culture): Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church”, p.28, Baker Academic

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• Whenever science attempts to legitimate itself, it is no longer scientific but narrative, appealing to an orienting myth that is not susceptible to scientific legitimation.

  James K. A. Smith

  Narrative, Myth, Susceptible

  James K. A. Smith (2006). “Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? (The Church and Postmodern Culture): Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church”, p.68, Baker Academic

  10 Copy quote

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