Why It Matters that "You Are What You Love"
In my most recent sermon, I quoted from James KA Smith’s book You Are What You Love. I said that this book is changing the way I am thinking about discipleship.
Let me explain.
Smith is pushing back against the idea that “you are what you think.” I must confess that I deeply believed that idea for many years. I thought that if we could help people think aright, their lives would surely be right. If people struggled with their faith, it was no doubt due to something faulty in their worldview or their theology.
But I always had a question about that assumption.
Why the disconnect between the head and the heart?
But I have noticed that the facts on the ground often don’t align with that intellectual approach to spiritual formation. As I mentioned in my sermon, I was always puzzled and distressed when I saw a disconnect between head knowledge and life change.
Why is that someone can have what seems to be a good grasp on theological truth and still fail to grow in holiness? Why is that someone can have what seems to be a good grasp on theological truth and drift away or even walk away from the faith? How can someone have what seems to be a great hunger for spiritual knowledge – notebooks filled with valuable, biblically-based insights on the spiritual life – and yet continue to flounder spiritually?
Smith would answer that question this way: I am operating with a faulty understanding of how we actually make decisions. We overestimate the role that our thinking plays not just in worldview and doctrine but in all aspects of our lives. We assume that we make choices for purely rational reasons; we are under the impression that we think through every decision logically.
The truth is that we are not nearly as rational as we would like to suppose. Even in decisions as mundane as choosing which consumer products to purchase, our decisions are shaped by so many other factors: how we want to be perceived by others, how we want to think about ourselves, the customs of our family and tribe, and – above all – habit and routine.
We are not, of course, aware of this intermingling of motives in our decision-making; our decisions are shaped by assumptions that run in the background like a computer operating system, hidden from the scrutiny of our rational mind.
But Smith argues that we are actually being “discipled” by norms, customs, and routines that are culturally indexed. “Dispositions and habits can be inscribed in our unconscious if we regularly repeat routines and rituals that we fail to recognize as formative practices,” says Smith. “So there can be all sorts of automating going on that we do not choose and of which we are not aware but that nevertheless happen because we are immersed in environments loaded with such formative rituals.”
This over-emphasis on the intellect affects the way we approach discipleship, and Smith gives a lot of space to his critique contemporary approaches to discipleship that depend on the mind rather than the heart:
“We often approach discipleship as primarily a didactic endeavor—as if becoming disciple of Jesus is largely an intellectual project, a matter of acquiring knowledge.”
“Such an intellectualist model of the human person—one that reduces us to mere intellect—assumes that learning (and hence discipleship) is primarily a matter of depositing ideas and beliefs into mind-containers.”
So if discipleship is not primarily an educational endeavor, exactly what is discipleship?
Smith answers:
“Discipleship is more a matter of hungering and thirsting than of knowing and believing…. Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love.”
I think he’s onto something.
But of course that brings us to the obvious question: How do curate our hearts?
Smith points out that since our loves are already being shaped by the practices and habits (“secular liturgies”) embedded in our culture, the way we are “attentive to and intentional” about what we love is by cultivating the habit of corporate Christian worship.
That’s right: we “curate our loves” by going to church.
Smith explains:
“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.”
“Discipleship is a kind of immigration, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1:13). In Christ we are given a heavenly passport; in his body we learn how to live like ‘locals’ of his kingdom. Such an immigration to a new kingdom isn’t just a matter of being teleported to a different realm; we need to be acclimated to a new way of life, learn a new language, acquire new habits—and unlearn the habits of that rival dominion. Christian worship is our enculturation as citizens heaven.”
It’s true that “secular liturgies” do shape my outlook; it’s true that I am forgetful of the deeper truths about God and His Word. So, yes, I do need to regularly gather with the people of God to celebrate the goodness of God.
During the week, I am bombarded by a worldview that has no place for a sovereign God; in corporate worship I am reminded of who He is and why He is worthy of my worship. In mass media marketing and in social media, I am told that I am my own sovereign self, that I deserve to indulge myself; in corporate worship I am reminded that I have merited nothing from God but His well-deserved wrath but that He has redeemed me from sin and death.
So how does this change the way I approach discipleship?
I’m still working that out. But three implications are clear:
Discipleship must involve far more than the transferring of information. I can see that I need to focus more attention on matters of the heart. I need to help people see not only the necessity but also the joy of prayer, of service, of engaging with Scripture. I need to help people see not only the truth but the beauty of the gospel.
If discipleship must happen at the deepest level of our yearnings and heart’s desires, programs won’t make disciples. Disciples are required to make disciples; discipleship has to be personal, relational.
It is not enough to cultivate only the personal spiritual disciplines. Corporate worship is essential.
I think this is a book that will continue to resonate with me for a long time.
Look for copies of You Are What You Love on the Discipleship Resource shelf in coming weeks.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship