Desiring the Kingdom: Formation, Education, Liberation - James K. A. Smith

How Education Can Liberate Us from Idolatry

The first edition of Desiring the Kingdom has been widely used in a variety of educational settings. In this substantial revision, popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith rearticulates his core argument, that human beings are lovers shaped by liturgies, for a new cultural context. Smith helps us recognize the way cultural practices form--and deform--us. In this fully revised edition, he

● reveals cultural liturgies at work, showing how cultural phenomena from the Apple Store to Instagram, from the football stadium to the frat house, immerse us in the liturgies of neoliberalism and consumer culture;
● reimagines the human person as a lover and "liturgical animal," shaped more by practices and social imaginaries than by ideas alone;
● reframes Christian worship as a pedagogy of desire and liberal arts education as liberating; and
● shows how holistic education can liberate us from the smoke screens of ideology and our unconscious captivation to idols.

At the heart of Desiring the Kingdom is an account of Christian assimilation to rival gospels. These liturgies turn us into consumers who confuse happiness with acquisition and consumption. When we fail to see cultural practices as liturgies, we end up turning the church into a den of robbers with the best of intentions, often in the name of "relevance."

This makes Smith's account of Christian worship and education urgent. The goal is an education in character that, far from producing mere moral conformity, teaches us to want what God wants for the world.

Ideal for courses in theology, culture, worldview, worship, and philosophy, Desiring the Kingdom is also essential reading for scholars, pastors, church leaders, and teachers.