Desiring the Kingdom (): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies Book 1)

by James K. A. Smith

I’m suggesting that this constitutes a liturgy because it is a material ritual of ultimate concern: through a multisensory display, the ritual both powerfully and subtly moves us, and in so doing implants within us a certain reverence and awe, a learned deference to an ideal that might some day call for our “sacrifice.” This is true not only of professional sports; the rituals of national identity—and nationalism—have been almost indelibly inscribed into the rituals of athletics from Little League to high school football.[25] “As is well known,” Stanley Hauerwas once quipped, “Friday night high school football is the most significant liturgical event in Texas.”[26] The imagination couples these spectacular displays at professional sporting events with the simplicity of the anthem and color guard at a high school football game, and together they build up a story of national unity forged by battle and sacrifice. Over time, these rituals have a cumulative, albeit covert, effect on our imaginary. And together, I’m arguing, these constitute liturgies of ultimate concern: the ideal of national unity and commitment to its ideals is willing to make room for additional loyalties, but it is not willing to entertain trumping loyalties. (Just try to remain seated at the next playing of the national anthem.) The fact that there seems to be little tension between Christianity and American nationalism is not a function of the generosity (let alone “Christianness”) of the American ideal b...