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

by James K. A. Smith

Since its early beginnings, Charles Taylor notes, modernity has been marked by a rejection of teleology, a rejection of the notion that there is a specified, normative end (telos) to which humanity ought to be directed in order to enjoy the good life. And this rejection was driven by a new notion of “libertarian” freedom, which identified freedom with freedom of choice. “Indeed, one of the reasons for the vigorous rejection of Aristotelian teleology was that it was seen, then as now, as potentially circumscribing our freedom to determine our own lives and build our own societies.”[49] Such a conception of autonomous freedom as freedom of choice—freedom to construct our own ends and to invent our own visions of the good life—chafes against the very notion of a law outside of ourselves.[50] The announcement of “the law” is a scandal to those who are primarily formed by modern secular liturgies. In contrast, right here in Christian worship we see a very different understanding of the good: humanity and all of creation flourish when they are rightly ordered to a telos that is not of their own choosing but rather is stipulated by God. Creation is created for something, for a particular end envisioned by the Creator. “You have made us for yourself,” Augustine confessed, which is precisely why “our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”