Jamie Smith Visits Regent

James K.A. Smith, Calvin College professor, Reformed charismatic, and prolific author visited Regent University last Friday. Smith's morning presentation revolved around his 2009 book, Desiring the Kingdom. In short, his thesis is that desires, far more than reason, underlie our actions. While the recent emphasis on "world-view" thinking that has swept most Christian colleges is worthwhile, it doesn't result in changed lives. Changed thinking, even high-quality critical thinking, does not lead to changed living.

To change students' lives requires attention to their affections. Here Smith turns to the broadly catholic tradition of spiritual disciplines for assistance. Our affections are, in Smith's idiom, the product of various liturgies such as the secular liturgies of the mall and athletics and their competing Christian counterparts. Sadly, the competing Christian liturgies are confused and conflicted and, in the case of most contemporary Evangelicals, little different from the secular ones (e.g., worship as the rock concert, leadership as celebrity, and fellowship as consumers). To (re)focus Christian liturgies to reorient the affections of students Smith argues for a "neo-traditional" return to the church calendar, covenantally-structured worship, sacramental seriousness, and the practices associated with the contemplative life. All fine in my opinion but what do such liturgies have to do with education? Or, more precisely, how can such practices be introduced to higher education?

Smith was stumped by a question of an audience member who asked about what his approach would mean when a university has non-Christians among its student body. He admitted that in such a situation liturgical practices would need to be de-coupled from the mandatory educational requirements. This further suggests, in my opinion, that the practice of such liturgies be reserved for the body where they naturally belong--the Church.

Smith's call for Christian institutions like a university to counter the prevailing secular liturgies is appropriate. His solution misses the mark. To reorient students' affections is a process in which the university must in today's world play a subsidiary role. It should not reinforce the secular affections toward power and self-expression but should leave to the Church the primary task of inculcating affections for God and the virtues such as the fruit of the Spirit.

In the end, it is the modern American Church that should take Smith's book to heart. There is far more the Church should do to reorient our affections and this book is a good place to start learning how to do so.