I have said it before: Whether we know it or even like it or not, every church and every service of worship is liturgical. Every church and every service of worship follows a prescribed liturgy. The liturgy may be bad or it may be good. Either way, it is there. James K.A. Smith, professor of philosophy and congregational and ministry studies at Calvin College takes my statements a step further in his Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. He extends liturgy to everyone, everywhere. In fact, there are cultural liturgies and religious liturgies. And the reason for this is because, in Smith’s words, we are homo liturgicus, liturgical animals.

We are what we love, and our love is shaped, primed, and aimed by liturgical practices that take hold of our gut and aim our heart to certain ends. So we are not primarily homo rationale or homo faber or homo economicus; we are not even generically homo religiosis. We are more concretely homo liturgicus; humans are those animals that are religious animals not because we are primarily believing animals but because we are liturgical animals—embodied, practicing creatures whose love/desire is aimed at something ultimate (p. 40).

Much of what is said here is unpacked in his book. But what is most interesting is that Smith challenges us to think about how we know what we know. Or even more fundamentally, what are we? Are we like those who follow in Descartes’ footsteps, “I think therefore I am”? Or are we like many in the reformed tradition who think that the human person is merely a believer whose underlying or presuppositional beliefs influence what we believe? Smith suggests that we are neither of those but that we are what we love. That is, he says,

…the way we inhabit the world is not primarily as thinkers, or even as believers, but as more affective, embodied creatures who make our way in the world more by feeling our way around it. Like blind men pictured in Rembrandt’s sketches, for the most part we make our way in the world with hands outstretched, in an almost tactile groping with our bodies (p. 47).

The implications of this are massive and we lack the space to tease them out here. Consider just one, though. First, consider this from the vantage point of evangelism. Normally we do evangelism by dumping information into people’s heads—either by giving them more information—evidentialist approach—or by seeking to change the way they codify, classify and interpret information—presuppositional. We do this because deep down we believe people are containers for their brains. What if we did evangelism holistically? What if we recognized that learning takes time and practice? What if we recognized that often people come to love the facts of Jesus through the people and place (church) of Jesus?

Every church and every service of worship follows a prescribed liturgy.

In Desiring the Kingdom James K.A. Smith applies his thesis to worship and Christian higher education. Thus he takes up things like “world-view” and “worldview training”, liturgy and the like. But he also takes up cultural liturgies and forces us to grapple with what we are being shaped by and how it is shaping us. There are so many competing liturgies to the liturgy of the kingdom of God. We do well to be aware what is crooning for our attention, affection and allegiance.