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8Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship WorksBaker Academic. 2013.2013 Word Guild Award (Academic) How does worship work? How exactly does liturgical formation shape us? What are the dynamics of such transformation? In the second of James K. A. Smith's three-volume theology of culture, the author expands and deepens the analysis of cultural liturgies and Christian worship he developed in his well-received Desiring the Kingdom. He helps us understand and appreciate the bodily basis of habit formation and how liturgical formation--both "secular" and Christian--a…Read more
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8The past several decades have seen a renaissance in Christian philosophy, led by the work of Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, William Alston, Eleonore Stump, and others. In the spirit of Plantinga s famous manifesto, Advice to Christian Philosophers, James K. A. Smith here offers not only advice to Pentecostal philosophers but also some Pentecostal advice to Christian philosophers. In this inaugural Pentecostal Manifestos volume Smith begins from the conviction that implicit in Pentecosta…Read more
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227Is the universe open for surprise? Pentecostal ontology and the spirit of naturalismZygon 43 (4): 879-896. 2008.Given the enchanted worldview of pentecost-alism, what possibility is there for a uniquely pentecostal intervention in the science-theology dialogue? By asserting the centrality of the miraculous and the fantastic, and being fundamentally committed to a universe open to surprise, does not pentecostalism forfeit admission to the conversation? I argue for a distinctly pentecostal contribution to the dialogue that is critical of regnant naturalistic paradigms but also of a naive supernaturalism. I …Read more
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22Between predication and silence: Augustine on how (not) to speak of GodHeythrop Journal 41 (1). 2000.Throughout his corpus , Augustine grapples with the challenge of how to speak of that which exceeds and resists conceptualization. The one who would speak of God is confronted, it seems, by a double‐bind: either one reduces God's transcendence to the immanence of language and concepts, or one remains silent. Even to call God ‘inexpressible’, he remarks in De doctrina christiana, is to predicate something of God and thus make some claim to comprehension. ‘This battle of words’, he continues, ‘sho…Read more
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73The End of EnclavesFaith and Philosophy 26 (4): 457-461. 2009.In reply to Benson’s response, I agree that we should be seeking the dissolution of all enclaves in philosophy of religion—whether continental or analytic. But I continue to suggest that continental philosophy of religion bears special burdens in this respect.
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88Liberating religion from theology: Marion and Heidegger on the possibility of a phenomenology of religionInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 46 (1): 17-33. 1999.
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16Between Predication And Silence: Augustine On How To Speak Of GodHeythrop Journal 41 (1): 66-86. 2000.Throughout his corpus, Augustine grapples with the challenge of how to speak of that which exceeds and resists conceptualization. The one who would speak of God is confronted, it seems, by a double‐bind: either one reduces God's transcendence to the immanence of language and concepts, or one remains silent. Even to call God ‘inexpressible’, he remarks in De doctrina christiana, is to predicate something of God and thus make some claim to comprehension. ‘This battle of words’, he continues, ‘shou…Read more
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7The End of EnclavesFaith and Philosophy 26 (4): 457-461. 2009.In reply to Benson’s response, I agree that we should be seeking the dissolution of all enclaves in philosophy of religion—whether continental or analytic. But I continue to suggest that continental philosophy of religion bears special burdens in this respect.
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13Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 40 (3): 383-385. 2000.
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70Re-Kanting Postmodernism?Faith and Philosophy 17 (4): 558-571. 2000.This essay considers the legacy of Kant’s philosophy of religion as appropriated by Jacques Derrida in his recent, “Foi et savoir: les deux sources de la ‘religion’ aux limites de la simple raison.” Derrida’s adoption of this Kantian framework raises the question of how one might describe this as a postmodern account of religion, which in turn raises the question of the relationship between modernity and postmodernity in general, and Derrida’s relationship to Kant in particular. Following an exp…Read more
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60Taking Husserl at His WordSymposium 4 (1): 89-115. 2000.For Husserl, the natural attitude - and hence any further explication of it - is put out of play, bracketed by the phenomenological epoché, which, of course, is not to deny its existence, but only to turn our theoretical gaze elsewhere. As Husserl remarks, “the single facts, the facticity of the natural world taken universally, disappear from our theoretical regard” (Id 60/68). The project of the young Heidegger, I will argue, is precisely a concern with facticity, taking up this forgotten proje…Read more
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16Is There a Sabbath for Thought? Between Religion and Philosophy – By William DesmondModern Theology 24 (1): 146-149. 2008.
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94A Principle of Incarnation in Derrida’s Jugendschriften : Towards a Confessional TheologyModern Theology 18 (2): 217-230. 2002.
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38Speech and theology: language and the logic of IncarnationRoutledge. 2002.This important contribution to the ground-breaking Radical Orthodoxy series revisits the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Augustine and Derrida to reconsider the challenge of speaking of God through predication, silence, confession and praise. James K. A. Smith argues for God's own refusal to avoid speaking as well as for our urgent need of words to make Him visible to us. This leads to a radical new "incarnational phenomenology" in which God's love endows imperfect signs with the means to indicate …Read more
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25How religious practices matter1: Peter Ochs' “alternative nurturance” of philosophy of religionModern Theology 24 (3): 469-478. 2008.
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18The Quest for Meaning: Friends of Wisdom from Plato to Levinas – By Adriaan T. PeperzakModern Theology 23 (2): 296-298. 2007.
Areas of Specialization
Continental Philosophy |
19th Century Philosophy |
Augustine |
Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
19th Century Philosophy |
Pragmatism |
Aesthetics |