A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

How to Inhabit Time with James K.A. Smith

• Randy Knie & Kyle Whitaker • Season 3 • Episode 5

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We speak with philosopher James (Jamie) K.A. Smith about his new book How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now. It's a contemplative exploration of what it means to be a temporal creature, a being constituted by a past and oriented toward a future. If that sounds heady, it's honestly one of the most spiritual and restful books we've featured on the show, and it's also philosophically informed and beautifully written. Jamie also loves music, and certain songs are featured prominently in the book, and there's a Spotify playlist that accompanies it which you can find here. The books, articles, songs, and films mentioned in the conversation are:

  • Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
  • Image Journal
  • The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Letter from Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • The Maternal Eye of Sally Mann - Sarah Boxer
  • Every Time I Hear That Song - Brandi Carlile
  • We Americans - The Avett Brothers
  • If We Were Vampires - Jason Isbell
  • I'm Not My Season - Fleet Foxes
  • Wading in Waist-High Water: The Lyrics of Fleet Foxes
  • About Time (movie)

The beverage we tasted is Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel bourbon.

The beverage tasting is at 4:10. To skip to the interview, go to 7:10.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.

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Randy:

I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my friend Kyle is a philosopher. This podcast hosts conversations at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.

Kyle:

We also invite experts to join us, making public space that we've often enjoyed off-air around the proverbial table with a good drink in the back corner of a dark pub.

Randy:

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar. I loved the guest that we spoke to today. We--you saw on the title, it's no, no mystery, we're talking to James K.A. Smith, Jamie Smith, he's a philosopher at Calvin University--and I, I just have grown to love him just from reading this book, which blew me away. I genuinely love this book, and I'm looking to recommend it to everyone. And just talking with Jamie, he's just a winsome, wonderful, smart, articulate, intellectual guy. It was, I could have talked for another couple hours.

Kyle:

Easily. Yeah. Atfirst, we got a little confused about time zones and thought we had more time with him, and were like, oh, this is gonna be great, but unfortunately, we realized we only had an hour, but we filled it up, and it's fantastic. Not exaggerating, I cried more than once reading through this book. It's, it's philosophy, but it's, it's not what you're used to with philosophy. It's all about living in the now, inhabiting time, as the title says, recognizing that you're a person who carries a history with you and that is always moving forward into a future. And it's, the style of writing is, it kind of embodies a lot of what I aim for in my own writing honestly; it's poetic, and it's contemplative, and it's spiritual, but it's also, it, I mean, it doesn't shirk on the philosophy. There's a lot of kind of really good exegesis of some pretty difficult to read philosophers. I mean, he's dealing with people like Husserl and Heidegger and people that really give you a headache, Kierkegaard, when you try to read through them, and so if you're maybe a little intimidated by those thinkers, this might actually be a decent place to start to get an entrance into some of the main themes of their thought.

Randy:

Oh, yeah.

Kyle:

But it's also the kind of thing you would just sit down and read snippets of over, you know, some quiet moments in the afternoon over like, a month or something.

Randy:

Yep.

Kyle:

I think that's kind of what it's intended for.

Randy:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And it would suit that purpose. fantastically.

Randy:

Yeah, no, I mean, he is what he said he was, which is a translator of philosophy for the church. And as a non-philosopher speaking here, he did a brilliant job at taking complex, high-minded philosophical concepts and thoughts and making it understandable for me. So I appreciated it. It's...

Kyle:

And it's a short book, it's less than 200 pages.

Randy:

Oh yeah. The book, by the way, is How to Inhabit Time by James K. Smith. And I think it's a, it's a book about how to live in a contemplative way. And I promise everyone your, your life will be better for having read it, like your, the way you look at the moment, the way you look at yourselves, the way you look at--I didn't get to ask this, even though I kind of regret it, we could only ask so many questions, but he has four kids, but a lot of it, especially the first chapter, freaked the shit out of me as far as being a parent, right? Like this idea of thrownness, I don't know what philosopher that was that talks about how...

Kyle:

It was Heidegger, I think.

Randy:

... we are not, we're not these, we don't just kind of combust out of nowhere and can kind of, you know, manifest our own destiny and do whatever we want. We are actually formed by choices, hundreds, thousands of choices that were made before us. And we're kind of a product of our history, we're a product of our family, we're a product of our parents. And I, as a son, I resonate with that; as a parent, it freaks me out majorly.

Kyle:

Yeah. I can see that, for sure.

Randy:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah. One of those times I cried might have been related to something like that, because you do, you carry history in with you and pretending that you can cut it off and just start from scratch is just that, it's a pretense, I mean, it'll just surface in other ways that will require therapy later on if you don't deal with it head on.

Randy:

Absolutely. And it's one thing to talk about myself as being a product of my family, my family's history, what they did, what the choices they made, but then to think about how I'm, I'm passing on some of that stuff is both inspiring and beautiful, but also terrifying in many ways. So we'll let, we'll launch into the, into interview briefly, but we'll do what we do around here, which is try a delicious spirit or what we think will be a delicious spirit.

Kyle:

I'm pretty confident this one's gonna be delicious.

Randy:

Let's be honest, we've had this before; it's delicious, not on the air. So Kyle, what are we, what are we tasting today?

Kyle:

Yeah, so this is called Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel. So toasted barrel is that thing that everybody's doing--well, not everybody but it's kind of a popular thing--you take the normally aged whiskey and then you finish it in an extra charred fresh barrel and it just puts a whole lot more oaky woodiness into it. It gives it some spice, generally, some strong vanilla flavor. They generally just taste richer and more complex than other kinds of bourbons that have the same age on them.

Randy:

Is this barrel proof?

Kyle:

No, this is, comes in at 94 proof. So Elijah Craig also makes a barrel proof which is also freaking fantastic.

Randy:

Okay, that's, that's what I...

Kyle:

And I also have a couple bottles so, so in future maybe that'll make an appearance as well.

Randy:

Nice, alright, well, cheers.

Kyle:

Cheers.

Randy:

I mean, the nose smells so much like Woodford and like the really oaky bourbons I love so much.

Elliot:

It's a mouthful of sweet, cinnamony deliciousness.

Randy:

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Kyle:

It just keeps going. I love that about this bourbon, it just doesn't stop.

Randy:

Holy moly, it's, it brings, it transports me to autumn and tart apples, spices like cinnamon, like you said Elliot, and just this beautiful, oaky, smoky potpourri that I want to just, I want, I want more of this. This is delicious.

Kyle:

Yeah. You say autumn, and that's right there, man. That's so accurate. I'm gonna revisit this when the leaves change for sure.

Randy:

I mean, so when I see Elijah Craig, I'm instantly like, oh, that's the bottom shelf, that's, you know.

Kyle:

I know, but they have so much good stuff that people aren't aware of or just overlook that's more limited release, a little harder to find, but if you can snag it, man, it's totally worth it.

Randy:

And this is not super cheap, right?

Kyle:

Uh, this will run you 70-80 dollars probably if you're gonna find it.

Randy:

In my world, that's not super cheap.

Kyle:

Not super cheap, but easily, easily worth it in my book.

Randy:

We have a different book, but I'm glad I have a friend who thinks this is easily worth it in his book. Because this is delicious.

Elliot:

Works out well for us.

Randy:

This is one of my favorite bourbons I've had in a while I would say.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's just, it's, smooth is a stupid thing to say about a whiskey, but it's so easy to drink this, it just, there's no sharp edges or anything.

Randy:

It's why I prefer bourbon over any other whiskey. This is right here. It's got all that complexity. It's got all the, like you said Elliot, sweet but spicy. It's got the full range, which, I don't know if you Scotch lovers would, would disagree with me, but I haven't seen that so much in Scotch, certainly in Canadian or Irish whiskey. This has so much flavor and character.

Elliot:

Yep. Everything from the brightness of orange to the depth of pumpkin pie spices. It's like...

Randy:

There we go.

Elliot:

Yeah. Autumn. I think we're on theme here.

Kyle:

That's what it is, yep, for sure.

Randy:

Yep, well, one more time.

Kyle:

This is the Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel.

Randy:

Cheers. Well Dr. James K.A. Smith, thank you so much for joining us on A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar.

Jamie:

Yeah, this is, uh, this is like a prime opportunity for me, you guys. I, where's the bar is the only thing I'm wondering.

Kyle:

It's right here man, right here.

Jamie:

Ah, there it is, Elijah Craig is not a bad opener. Very good.

Randy:

Are you, do you, do you enjoy bourbons or whiskies, Jamie?

Jamie:

Very much.

Randy:

Oh, what's your favorite?

Jamie:

I involve, I enjoy many spirits actually. I'm more of a cocktail guy than a sipper, but my, my favorite jam right now is what my best friend Mark introduced me to, Uncle Nearest.

Kyle:

I've heard of this. Yes.

Randy:

I've heard of it too.

Kyle:

So this has a really interesting backstory. So apparently this guy was the first master distiller at Jack Daniel's, literally taught Jack Daniel how to distill, and then they kind of washed him from their history until just recently.

Jamie:

Because...he was black.

Kyle:

Because he was a slave.

Jamie:

Yes.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Randy:

This I've heard. Yep. Okay, fun. And it's good whiskey?

Jamie:

Yeah. It's a really, it's a great, great bourbon. I'm glad to see it revived in that way. Yeah.

Randy:

Awesome. Well, so now we know what your favorite whiskey is, but can you tell our listeners just a little bit about you, Jamie, your, your background, what you're doing, where this book came from? The book is called How to Inhabit Time, and I can tell you, Kyle and I loved it. I mean, just really loved it.

Jamie:

Oh thank you so much. Thank you.

Randy:

Give our listeners just a little bit about James K.A. Smith's world.

Jamie:

Yeah. My, my day job, so to speak is I'm professor of philosophy at Calvin University, just across the lake from you guys. I've been here for 20 years. I teach, my training is continental philosophy, French and German phenomenology. But I have, I guess for probably the past 15 years or so, sort of, as a writer, leaned into doing more work as a translator of philosophy for the church, I would say, because I think philosophy offers a lot of resources for spiritual counsel. And this book really kind of grows out of that. The other, the other sort of passion work that I have is I'm editor in chief of something called Image Journal, which is a quarterly journal of art and faith, literature, poetry, visual arts. So the imagination means a lot to me as well. And I hope How to Inhabit Time reflects some of that investment in poetry, songwriting, and so on.

Randy:

It sure does. Yeah. The quotes, you could do a whole book just on those quotes. But you said something that fascinated me, as a philosopher, you said you want to translate philosophy for the church and to the church. Tell us about why you think philosophy is important for the church.

Jamie:

Yeah, I mean, I think philosophy has always been a spiritual endeavor. I think its, its most ancient history is that it was a spiritual endeavor. So when Socrates is inviting people to live an examined life, or when Pierre Hadot talks about the spiritual exercises that comprise philosophy, that's kind of the school of thought that I come from. I'm not so interested in logic chopping and you know, solving little puzzles to get tenure. I'm interested in philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom. And it seems to me that there has been a long and ancient conversation between Christian spirituality and philosophy. My kind of patron saint, if you will, is St. Augustine. And is he a philosopher? Is he a theologian? Is he a pastor? He's, and the answer is yes, he's all of those things. So I've, I've just come to realize, I think, you know, the, the American church could never be said to be guilty of thinking too much. And, and so it seems to me that philosophy also represents a little bit of an infusion of reflective capacity that the church is in need of. So I've always just tried to bring, I think, what are some of the treasures of insight from philosophy down a few shelves, so that it could be more accessible, because I think it changes how you live. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think philosophy is ultimately about how you live, a way of life. And so it's trying to be in the service of the church as a philosopher in that way.

Kyle:

That's pretty much exactly what we're trying to do on this podcast.

Jamie:

Yeah, no, I love the whole setup.

Randy:

Yeah, if I were to describe this book, again, just really genuinely loved it, was sucked up into that world that you created, and it just called me to notice common little things around me in greater ways. It drew me into the present moment, into looking at green leaves and, you know, there's just so much to it that I loved about this book, Jamie, but I would call it kind of a guidebook for contemplative living, in many ways.

Jamie:

You just made my day.

Randy:

Did you have that intention? Did you have that in mind? And if so...

Jamie:

Yeah.

Randy:

... what, what does contemplative living look like for Jamie Smith?

Jamie:

Thank you very much for that, by the way, I appreciate it. Yes. I think it is, it's about living both with intention and attention. So I think what the book is trying to do is to kind of cultivate a posture with respect to ourselves, our world, our environments, which then helps us to just pause and slow down and attend to realities, and to realize things about the histories we've inherited, about the futures were hoping for, to sort of zoom in and be slowed down enough that you have that capacity to attend carefully and closely. And then to emerge from that with new intentionality to say, this is what it means to live as somebody who is aware now that I am a mortal, that I have a history, that, that I have an inheritance that has been passed down to me, that I have things I need to reckon with. So I think, yeah, that combination of attention and intention, maybe, is a way of describing it.

Randy:

I like it.

Jamie:

Excellent. So let's dig into the book a little bit. Before I do that, though, I want to say we could easily spend this entire interview talking about music. And part of me wants to just ditch the whole outline and just talk about music. Let's do it.

Kyle:

Like reading through this, there, we're eerily similar in some ways, and we have some very similar taste in music. At one point, you said something and then you had a footnote, and I was going to look up the footnote and I thought, I bet$100 he quotes Jason Isbell right here, and sure enough, that was the footnote.

Jamie:

Yes, yeah, and by the way, the line was originally there, but eventually, I can't tell you, just so you know how much I love music, I paid thousands of dollars to include these song lyrics, because the permission, it costs a lot of money...

Kyle:

Just to include the lyrics?

Jamie:

... to include, but I just, the two in particular, I didn't know how to do the chapters I wanted to do without that Brandi Carlile song, and without that Avett Brothers song, and so I was like, whatever it takes, this is my, you know, devotion to the arts kind of thing. But yeah, I appreciate the resonance.

Kyle:

Okay, well...

Randy:

Well let's, let's just get into that question right away.

Kyle:

Well let's make a note to get into it, because I don't want to, like, waste too much time on that, but, but definitely let's try to get back to that towards the end. So I want to ask you about something you say at the beginning of the book, and it kind of comes up a few times after that, too. So you talk about growing up in a dispensationalist context that was superficially fascinated with history, but in actuality committed to a kind of ahistoricity, but unacknowledged. And so this reminded me of one of my favorite novels, which I was happy to see came up later in your book, and that's Marilyn Robinson's Gilead. Changed my life, loved the novel, kind of want to be the main character when I grow up, and his name, he's an old congregationalist minister named John Ames. And he says at one point, I wrote a paper, like, based around this idea at one point, he talks about being "at home in the world," is how he puts it, and how it took him a long time to get to that place. But as he's reflecting on his long life, he finds that he's gotten there, and he's able to see certain things as beautiful that wouldn't have even caught his attention before. Like, he sees some, some, you know, youths kind of rough and, roughhousing and goofing off or whatever, and he just sees kind of a deep, divine beauty in it. And that, when I first read it, kind of struck me--that idea of being at home in the world--struck me as unChristian, because I had been enculturated in the church that I spent most of my youth in to think that I'm a traveler on the earth, I have a true home somewhere else, I should never get too attached to anything, especially things that are merely of temporal significance, you know, which just means fleeting. But that book really kind of reoriented me, and it made me think about what it means to be a creature and what significance individual actions and events have. Do you think, is this what you're trying to do in your book? Is that consonant with what you're trying to get at?

Jamie:

Very much, very much. And I would say, to set it up, yes, so I think a lot of renditions of American Christianity, particularly ones that have been shaped by dispensationalism, are mostly waiting for history to end, right? Do you know what I mean? They're waiting to get skyhooked out of, out of time and to escape the world. So yeah, you would never, you know, you're just a-passin' through. Whereas, you know, my, my theological framework is shaped by both the Augustinian Catholic tradition, and then this sort of continental Reformed tradition of which I'm a part, Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck. And for us, it's, it's about a theology of creation that says, no, wait a second, this is affirmed as very good. And in many ways, I think my book is trying to think through a theology of creaturehood, an affirmative theology of creaturehood, and why that entails an affirmation of our temporality, our historicity, so it will also change your eschatology. It's not, it's not like you're not longing for kingdom come, but the coming of the kingdom is not an utter burning up of everything that's come before. So as my friend Rich Mauw likes to point out, you know, in Isaiah 60, the ships of Tarshish sail right into the kingdom of God; there's, there's a, there's a continuity that allows that kind of flow. And I think you're right that, sometimes I forget, actually, how many people still inhabit that atemporal, you know, I, we're floating above it all, kind of posture.

Randy:

So many. Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah. Or they, they are functionally at home in the world, but they feel guilty about it. Right?

Jamie:

That is so true.

Kyle:

They enjoy, more than anything else, campfires with their friends, and you know, all the stuff that humans like, you know? If you look into any ancient philosophy about what a picture of the good life is, they're remarkably similar. I remember, you know, I was showing my, my students what Confucius said about what a, you know, an ideal day looks like, and it's just goofing off with your friends. You know what I mean? Everybody knows that. But like, we're enculturated in this tradition to pretend that it's something else.

Jamie:

Yes, I think that's really good. And in, and in some ways, they don't have theological permission to affirm what yet their own embodiment kind of is saying yes to.

Kyle:

Yeah. So I want to ask you about a puzzle that you raise. And I don't know if, I just want to get your, get your take on unpacking this, because it's kind of a thing that you mention and then move on. So it's about being born again. And it's related to something that's kind of bothered me, and I'm not sure what I think about it. So you mentioned that being, this idea of being born again, is miraculous, precisely because it sounds like an impossible thing. How I, as a being that carries its history with it--hat's a big theme of the book, right, I am a temporal being, which means I'm formed by my history, it's not a thing back there, it's a thing that I carry around with me all the time--so how could I, with a history, begin again? And this, you know, confuses Nicodemus or whoever it is that Jesus says it to. And it confuses me, frankly. And I want to connect it to the idea of resurrection because I think the same paradox happens there. And I think in that case, it has particularly disturbing implications, at least for me, in thinking about how an afterlife could be good, or just, or how we can make sense of providence, right? How, because I don't believe--and this is both philosophical but also deeply personal for me--I don't believe that making things great in the end is actually any kind of response to things having been bad in the past. I'm very much a, you know, Ivan Karamazov kind of thinker in that way, like, making things better doesn't change the fact that they were once evil. And so, if we carry the history of all of the evil and suffering into whatever kind of afterlife there may be, or into this new life in Christ, and we call it a new beginning, I just don't understand that. It's a kind of paradox that I don't see my way through, ethically, frankly. And so...

Jamie:

Yeah, I, and I, I think I can appreciate the, you know, the skepticism about it. I think that's right. I think it's not just a matter, though, of sort of, it's not a some sort of Jedi mind trick, it's like, no, you have a new life now. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's not just a descriptive pronouncement. There's something, because the mechanism here is--by the way, this answer is not going to satisfy you, but let me, let me try to articulate where I'm--the, the answer is bound up with the dynamics of grace. And so grace isn't just now somebody pronounces a new status on who I am. Rather, there is some kind of, I almost want to say reenchantment, there's something that gets reconfigured, and probably, if we had more time, you would want to talk about ontological implications of this, but we'll just set that aside for a second, but there's, there is, there is this sense that there is a reconfiguration of my being in the world, such that I have possibilities and capacities, living forward, that on the one hand take up what has been my past, that bears forward what I've inherited, but does not reduce me to those possibilities, and has, honestly, I do think the language of healing would have to be one of those things that, that you would talk about. So I wouldn't ever want it to just be framed as well, no, we just said this is a happy ending, but rather that there's a sort of new possibilities that are infused. I suppose there's, there's probably a parallel conversation to be had here between, say, Afro-pessimism, which looks at the long history of anti-blackness and says, I don't ever expect this to ever be different, Ta-Nehisi Coates, versus, say, a Cornel West, who says, well, no, I am a prisoner of hope, because I still keep imagining that despite all of that we could be differently going forward. And, and it's trying to live into that space and possibility. I don't, I'm not saying that I think it's rational, or predictable, or even something that you could merely extrapolate from what has come from the past. That is why there is a kind of miraculous element to it, which is, which is scandalous, I realize.

Kyle:

Sure, yep.

Jamie:

I don't know if that, that, as I say, that won't address the concern, but it might at least fill in some of the picture.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Randy:

I don't care what Kyle thinks, I like the answer. Jamie, in the, also in the introduction, you talk about faith and Christianity being more about how we live than what we believe. I, I've, I guess you could say got in trouble, I was preaching through the parables for the last year and got confronted over and over again by Jesus saying things like, hey, there's two sons, a father has two sons, asks both of them to go work in the fields, one said, yep, I'll do it, but didn't, the other said, no, get lost, I don't care about your fields, and then he goes and does the work. Which one did what his father wanted to do? You come across these all the time in the, in the gospels, where Jesus basically--David Bentley Hart said something to the effect of Jesus clearly in the gospels believes in salvation through actions, which is scandalous for evangelicals. I had somebody emailing me back and forth saying, well, what about what Paul said, and all that stuff. And I just said, well, what about what Jesus said? So tell us what your thoughts are on...

Jamie:

You win!

Randy:

Right. So two, two questions: flesh that out a little bit, that you think Christianity is more about how we live than what we believe, and do you think Jesus and Paul are at odds or have we read Paul wrongly?

Jamie:

Okay. Let me start with the first one. So, yeah, I think that Christianity is not a metaphysical system that you decide to ascribe to.

Randy:

Just explain that for us non-philosophers.

Jamie:

Yeah. Okay, sorry. So yeah, I don't, I don't think Christianity is primarily a set of ideas about the world...

Randy:

Okay.

Jamie:

... that you now are checking off and say, I agree with this and this and this, you know, it's not just propositional assent to, to statements or beliefs. I think that mostly, to be a Jesus follower, is to be the kind of person for whom you are living out a life of dependence on the grace of God. And that happens by living a certain way more than it is about what you articulate. Now, I also don't think there's a dichotomy between thinking and being. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think we can articulate an integrity about that. But so for me, Christianity is much more about a set of practices than it is a collection of beliefs. And those practices, those rhythms and rituals and routines, are really just means of us putting ourselves at the disposal of grace, and then being committed to, so I also don't want, I don't want to be a moralist about Christianity, either. Do you know what I mean? Like, I, I think, if being a Christian means that I'm always ethical, I'm screwed. It's more like, no, I'm just this person who constantly avails himself of the sacraments, or you know, I'm, I put myself in the way of this community. And oftentimes, there are Sundays I show up, and I'm not sure I believe this. But my feet are sort of saying something or doing something because I'm, because I'm here. So I think probably so much of American Protestantism is Pauline to the exclusion of Jesus. I think there's a way to narrate the continuity between them. It's just that so much American Protestantism has happily set the Jesus stuff aside and sort of fixated on epistles. Why? Because they look like they're about didactic propositions and beliefs and statements when I actually don't think that's the way to read Paul either.

Randy:

What is the better way to read Paul then?

Jamie:

I mean, I think Paul is also proclaiming, here is a story that you should live into. I mean, he's giving you kind of the grammar of it, but I think it's only because Paul is presuming these communities that are living out ways of life; we're just getting the epistles, right, we're getting the kind of like, the, it's like imagining you got a Greek grammar and you knew how to speak the language. It's insane. You've gotten this distilled little piece that really is almost like an artifact of what was a living, robust, messy community that lived out a way of life. And that just couldn't be handed down in quite the same way. So I think we get skewed perceptions...

Randy:

That's good.

Jamie:

... in a sense.

Kyle:

Yeah. So another recurring theme in the book is a distinction you draw about thinking about the church's relation to history. And on one side is what you call primitivism, and on the other side is what you call catholicity. Can you draw that distinction for the listeners and explain why you're more in favor of the latter?

Jamie:

Yeah, so for me primitivism is, and by the way, you could also call this originalism.

Kyle:

Oh, okay.

Jamie:

But so primitivism is, is a posture to the past in which you assume or believe that there was this kind of original pure deposit of the truth, usually in the first century, up to the first century, and now--it's also why it always goes along with revivalism; so revivalism is always primitivist because what happens is somebody comes along and 1750 or 1828 or 1906, and all of a sudden, they're the ones who figured out what the pure original first century deposit said--now, what happens is, if you have that primitivist view, you really think you're leapfrogging all of history to get back to that original pure deposit. And it's like, all the centuries intervening in between are Ichabod, right, the spirit has left the building, a pox on all those houses. Catholicity, in contrast, is really rooted in Jesus's promise in the upper room discourse that the Spirit will guide you into all truth over time. Right? So it's, it has this deeper sense that the Spirit is present to the church across time, including all of those intervening centuries, and that there is a kind of unfurling and unfolding of illumination and insight. So it means that there are all kinds of gifts that keep getting handed down across time, rather than the leapfrog back to some sort of original pristine pure deposit. Does that, is that helpful?

Randy:

Very helpful. It sounds quite progressive.

Jamie:

Yeah, I, um...

Randy:

I don't mean that in a bad way, personally.

Jamie:

What if it is? I'll just say this. I do think, so here's, I would love to stay with this for a second, because on the one hand, I really am committed to describing that as catholicity. Do you know what I mean? Like, I do think that that's the best form. I just don't think Rome or Constantinople own catholicity. Do you know what I mean? I think this is available to wider Christian streams. I do think it's exactly why reform is always ongoing, as we are inheriting what has gone before, and it is exactly why I don't think the expression of the faith is just static. And you probably noticed, I mean, one of the key threads of the book is discernment. I think most of our work is trying to discern what it means to be faithful now, and I don't think that is ever just a matter of repristinating what we've done in the past.

Randy:

Yes.

Jamie:

So yeah, it's, it's progressive, but, but only, in the sense that, oh, I just think we're always getting smarter and better and, do you know what I mean, like, because do you see how it's actually a posture to the past that receives the gifts of history gratefully, but for the sake of a future?

Randy:

Yeah.

Jamie:

It's also why I'm very critical of nostalgia, right? Yeah, I think nostalgia is another way of being pointed to the past, where you're just trying to claw your way back to some sort of mythical Golden Era.

Randy:

Yep. Let me, let me bounce to that question then, Kyle, quick, because I loved what you had to say about nostalgia. That's one of those threads that gets woven throughout the book. And you speak of it, obviously, in less than glowing terms, particularly in regard to looking back and trying to get back to the good old days. Can you tell us why you think that's an unhealthy perspective for Christians or for the church to have?

Jamie:

It, first of all, you can see why it's a, it's a constant temptation for Christians, because we are a people of memory, right? Like there's so clearly a call to remember: "do this in remembrance of me." But it's a disordered way of remembering, mostly because it is a romanticizing and an editing of the past, right? So it romanticizes some past as a Golden Age, as, you know, the faithful times from which we have fallen, but it also is so selective and edited. And it turns out to be somebody's version of when it was really good for them in the past.

Randy:

Yes.

Jamie:

Right? And, and by the way, that also usually turns out to be it was really good for white men. So it's as if somebody watches Mad Men, and thinks, oh, man, look, I wish I lived then.

Kyle:

Sides with Don, yeah.

Jamie:

Clearly...

Kyle:

Thinks he's the hero.

Jamie:

... I know who you are. I don't even have to see you to know who you are if you think that that's a recipe for something to go back to. So I think nostalgia is really alive and well today. I think it's a very reactionary posture, and it needs to be countered.

Randy:

So here's, just similar to the last question that I just popped in there about progressivism--and this is not asking you to make a political statement--but as I read your stuff on nostalgia, it made me think, does your idea of nostalgia equal conservativism? This ideal that we have to get back to...

Jamie:

For, um, who knows what conservativism means anymore? But yes, if, if, I do think the notion that the only way to be faithful is to conserve and turn back a clock and sort of repristinate a past, absolutely. I think that's not, well, I'll, I can say this, the big thread for me is not letting faithfulness be defined by being static, or recovery, or mere conservation. Instead of conserving a past, I am more interested in how we inherit a past for the sake of a future that we are called to. And I hope that feels different, right?

Randy:

It does.

Jamie:

Like I, I think the difference with certain unthinking forms of progressivism is that they just throw away all the gifts of the past, and the sort of let's burn it all to the ground and start anew well, you know, you can usually see how that works out.

Randy:

Yes.

Jamie:

I'm trying to sort of chart this, not, not a bland middle way, but I, I think that there are gifts, both in the past and that we are called to in the future.

Randy:

Yep.

Kyle:

So this is a decent segue into the next thing I wanted to ask you about, which kind of revolves around--and this came up in the middle of the book, but then a few times towards the end as well--revolves around maybe the confidence that the more progressive among us might have in our ability as a community to bring about the kind of eschaton we're looking for. So in the middle of the book, you, you quote Charles Taylor, the great Canadian philosopher, who says, "There's a difference between a view which sees widespread willed social and political transformation as something to be done by those who would achieve regeneration and a view which sees the relevant social and political transformations as needing to be discerned and hence accepted and lived in the right spirit." I think he's talking about Hegel there.

Jamie:

Yeah, exactly.

Kyle:

And then you go on and you say, "There's a difference between believing we're the ones we've been waiting for, and realizing we're called to join the Spirit of God coursing through history." You ascribe the latter thing to Augustine, you call it the kind of Augustinian view, and the former thing you call Pelagian. Now this would not be the first time I've been called Pelagian, but I think I take the former view more than the latter. But to frame it up, I want to, I want to read something, a famous passage from Martin Luther King Jr., and then I want you to tell me how what you said is consistent with what he said, because I suspect you think it is consistent. So he says, he's talking about people who will say "Give it time," right? That's their counsel. And he says "Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be the coworkers with God." And he goes on in a similar fashion. And I suspect you think what you're saying is totally consonant with that. But that, to me, sounds more Pelagian than Augustinian. So explain to me how it's not.

Jamie:

No, no, no, no. So--and by the way, Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of our great Augustinians, honestly, like, I mean, he's, I think he's pretty explicit about that in some places--so I, I would completely sign on to the way Dr. King articulates that. I think the difference is, did you see, how, what was the end of the phrase,"God's coworkers"?

Kyle:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. So that, what I'm calling cultural Pelagianism there is where one is overconfident in the ingenuity and willful resourcefulness of humanity on its own. Right? So the difference for me between a kind of rationalist Enlightenment progressivism versus an Augustinian orientation to reforming the future hinges on how much confidence you have in human ingenuity and willpower. And we might disagree on how much confidence to have; I'm just looking at history and thinking, eh, I don't see a lot. Instead, I think what Dr. King would say, is saying there, is it is a matter of us getting caught up in the way the Spirit wants to reform the world and bend the arc of justice. Do you know what I mean? So there's, we want the same thing. We want the same thing, which is a world where injustice is ebbing. I'm just less confident that humanity has the resources to do that on its own. That doesn't mean that we're sitting around twiddling our fingers waiting for God to come do it. No, it's precisely why we have to answer the call of the Spirit in history, and join, we are co-participants in that work together, and we, but we do need the infusion of grace for that to happen.

Kyle:

Yeah. So let me try to say why maybe thinking of it in that way makes me a little bit uncomfortable. So you cite Niebuhr--Reinhold, I believe--as saying that we have to remember that we're both creatures and creators.

Jamie:

Of time, of history, yeah.

Kyle:

And then you, and you, and you really stress the remembering that we're creatures part. And in my experience, the bigger danger is forgetting that we're creators. But that probably has to do with my history. Which is kind of the point of the book.

Jamie:

So yeah, I think this is helpful. I think we're always exercising demons. So the question is which, right? So I'm, if I'm, if I'm offering caution to what I think might be an overconfident progressivism at times, I'm gonna lean into the fact to say, let's remember we're creatures. If I'm confronting a quietism, passivity, you know, dispensationalist who cares, it's all going to burn up, I'll be like, no, no, no, you are called to make this work, we are shaping this world, and actually, right now, the only thing God has in the world is us. So yeah, I think it's probably a difference of emphasis on, given the context.

Randy:

Let me ask then, Jamie, you know, you say, you look back at human history, and you doubt humanity's capacity to bring about that change and justice and all that stuff. The question I have in that is, why do you think it is that when we look at our world today, the ones who are doing more--and I know that Christians do a lot of good work, I really do; I lead a church and like to think that we've done good work--but why do you think it is that it seems like people not in the church, and people not following Jesus or supposedly not in tune with the Holy Spirit, are doing more work of justice and liberation than the church itself? That it seems like the church is actually fighting against works of justice and liberation? How does that work?

Jamie:

Yeah, I would say, I know exactly what you mean, I would say, first of all, let's not let our purview be limited to the American, American Christianity. And let's also not let our purview be limited to right now. Because I think the fact is, if you think of the deep, long legacies of so many institutions of mercy, care, and justice, they have long Christian legacies, do you know what I mean? And if, and if you and I went to wartorn regions right now, in the horror of, of Ukraine, for example, you are going to find a lot of Christians on the front lines doing work that you and I would never think, we might be tweeting about whatever, we're outraged about the United States today, but they are on the front line doing that. So I think empirically, if we were going to settle it out, thankfully, I think the body of Christ is doing better than what you would guess from looking at, you know, America.

Randy:

Yes. Okay. I fully agree.

Kyle:

Yeah. So I want to ask you about iPhones real quick.

Jamie:

Sure!

Kyle:

So, somewhere in the middle of the book, you, you cite that famous picture that circulated, it was a contrast of two pictures, one, both of Tiger Woods, one from when he was winning whatever, I'm not a sports guy, so whatever tournament he won, and everybody was, like, rapt with attention to what he has going on, everybody in the crowd...

Randy:

In like 1997.

Kyle:

... and then, and yeah, in the 90s, and then just a couple years ago, I guess he did it again, and everybody in the crowd is holding up their phone, recording and taking pictures of it.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And of course, the point of the meme is some version of"kids these days." Right? Like, you know, they're not actually there to experience the moment because they want to capture the moment so they can experience it later. And that is a point that you kind of defend in the book. And I guess I'm less convinced of that. So have, have the observers in situations like that actually missed the opportunity to experience the moment, as you put it, or have they experienced the moment in a mode that earlier humans might have had a harder time recognizing? And I'm wondering this because, one, I'm a millennial. And I used to be very much against taking, I wouldn't take my phone anytime I was gonna--like, the practice you describe having gotten to used to be my practice--I would never take pictures. And then I gradually learned to value that kind of experience, and now I get a much richer experience of having the record. And I don't feel that it necessarily takes away from the experience. There are probably a handful of experiences I still would keep it in my pocket, but, but they're the minority. And also, I've been kind of convinced by extended mind arguments in philosophy of mind about, we really need to take seriously how much of an extension of ourselves these devices are at this point. And so I'm just curious if you're willing to fudge on that at all.

Jamie:

No, I still take pictures, I would say that the context of the conversation in the book is, more importantly, is Sally Mann, who's a fine arts photographer, who, of course, was struck by the fact that she couldn't just conjure up memories of her father in the same way because in an ironic way, she had outsourced all of her memorization of her father to the photographs she had taken of him. So that's an interesting dynamic, because I think you're right, embodied, extended cognition in our devices, we all do, I'm all for it. Like I don't ever want to have to, like, try to memorize directions anywhere. It's just a stupid use of brain capacity to do that. On the other hand, if I'm ever in prison, I want to be able to remember poetry. And so I'm a little worried that I'm losing some certain kinds of capacities of what I can carry with me, in my body. I, this is, I have no strong feelings about this, except I do think there's something about a kind of attention that happens--and if you go back to what we were saying before, you know, I'm kind of interested in attention and intention--I do think there's a kind of attention that happens when I know, you know, I'm thinking of this summer, I'm paddleboarding up the Frio River in this unbelievable canyon in the Texas hill country, and at the time, I'm trying to be quite intentional about the fact that I'm not taking photos, and so I'm absorbing it. And now in a cold February Michigan winter, I'm going to be able to sort of call that up for myself in a way that feels different than just looking at my iPhone memories from that day. But, you know, let many flowers bloom. I just think there's something about a way of attending to the world that makes us available to the experience, which is all that I'm interested in.

Kyle:

Sure.

Randy:

Yeah, and I think that story is super interesting, of that photographer being able to picture her friend, who she has no photos of, like he's right there with her, rather than her father. That's...

Jamie:

Yeah, so interesting.

Randy:

Yeah. Jumping forward to your chapter in the book called"Embrace the Ephemeral," I loved it. I could have just read...

Jamie:

Thank you. It's kind of my favorite chapter, so that really means a lot.

Randy:

It's not even kind of my favorite chapter; it's by far my favorite chapter.

Jamie:

That's awesome.

Randy:

It rooted me in the beauty of now. I mean, even just this thought of autumnal leaves turning colors and dying as they're doing that and giving us these gifts of color. And it caused me literally to raise my eyes and look up at my oak tree leaves that I was canopied with as I was reading your book and just enjoying those leaves for what they are, you know? But in it you say, and I love this quote and I want you to just elaborate for our listeners, you say "The trick is to live fully present in the moment without being defined by the zeitgeist." Can you flesh that out for us a little bit?

Jamie:

Yeah. So first of all, I think it's helping, going back to something you said earlier, in a way, sometimes people who are believers experience this tension between what they think they're supposed to affirm theologically and what they actually like. And so this is about trying to put these things together and say that to embrace the ephemeral is to appreciate the fleetingness, and there's nothing in Christian hope and eschatology that prevents us from saying, even though this is going to pass away, it is a good gift to me right now in this moment. So I want us to sort of lean in and say, that's part of the beauty of being mortal. But to then, so to, to receive the now without being defined by the now. That's where the resistance to the zeitgeist... it's not, I don't want you to think that I don't think we should be attuned and attentive to what's happening around us. We always need to be speaking to that. But we need to have resources that stretch us beyond just our temporal moment. Otherwise, I think what happens is, we become so susceptible to the tyranny of the present and the tyranny of the urgent and what, what starts happening is you fritter away your identity because you don't know who you are until somebody tells you how you're supposed to be reacting right now. And I think that's, that's a, that's a very disempowering place to be. I think folks need a kind of capacity to be stretched beyond just the present.

Randy:

That's brilliant.

Elliot:

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Randy:

You, in the book, you use Ecclesiastes and the voice of Qohelet, the teacher, as kind of a anchoring point, you know, meditations before, between chapters, and it's brilliant.

Jamie:

Oh thanks.

Randy:

I love Ecclesiastes, but it's a, it's a rough book, you know? And it's, it's very...

Jamie:

It is. Which is why it hardly ever gets preached on, it seems to me, in a lot of Protestant churches.

Randy:

I would agree. We were, I was preaching through Ecclesiastes, and right in the middle of our study in Ecclesiastes, COVID happened. And it was perfect. It was just perfect. But I mean, Ecclesiastes is littered with landmines for a Christian bookstore version of Christianity that tells us that everything's going to be great and we'll all be swept up on eagles' wings if we just trust in Jesus, right? What is it about Ecclesiastes and the voice of Qohelet that you find profound and speaks to you?

Jamie:

Yeah, I, I like the way you framed that. It is such an utterly honest appraisal of the human condition. And there is, it's not a mistake that it's grouped in what we call our wisdom literature, right? So there is this kind of sort of philosophical, reflective capacity about it. I think the other thing that attracted me, so I'm in my 50s now, which feels ancient, and it is the voice of an old person. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's the voice of someone who's been through it. And the older I get, the more I'm interested in shutting up and listening to the people who've been through it, you know, who have undergone, and to realize that I have many gifts to receive from what they have endured, and made it out to the other side. And that's why I, I think reading Ecclesiastes felt like, oh, no, this is somebody who's been through it, and is now sending a message in a bottle back across the river to--maybe I haven't gone through it all yet--and he sort of like, be prepared. And I guess I appreciate the utter honesty and that, that the, that the history of the church saw fit to include that in the canon of Scripture...

Randy:

Yeah.

Jamie:

... says something about an honest Christianity, I think.

Randy:

Yeah, yeah. Something that we've lost. Yeah. I mean, some think that Qohelet was actually a heretic and didn't really believe in the go... Right? But we've included that into the narrative, it's fascinating.

Jamie:

It's like, it's like Psalms of lament too. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think those are such an integral, minor chord moments of the scriptures, and as you say, in American Christianity, in particular, it seems to me, we want to race ahead to the happy ending, and to be reminded of these difficult moments is important.

Randy:

Yep. So we hinted at this at the beginning of the interview--we're coming to the close of our time--but the music you highlighted, you spent thousands of dollars, it blows me away, that, that shows the love and importance of music in your world.

Jamie:

Don't tell my wife, by the way, please.

Randy:

We, we love...

Kyle:

You know this is public right?

Jamie:

She's not listening to my podcasts, just to be clear.

Randy:

I was gonna say, if she's listening to all your podcast episodes, good on her. But we love music, and the ones that stuck, I love the Avett Brothers, that spoke so much to what it means to be American and what it means to live in that tension and dilemma, but the ones that I was drawn to, because I love these songs and these artists, is Brandi Carlile's "Every Time I Hear That Song," you said it's become like a sacrament to you. And then I want to hit on the Fleet Foxes, "I'm Not My Season." Why has "Every Time I Hear That Song" become like a sacrament to you, first off?

Jamie:

Man, I have to tell you, so part of the, I'm not gonna treat you as my therapist, but like, I'll just say, I've got some shit in my life, do you know what I mean, like...

Randy:

Amen brother.

Jamie:

... really, really, pretty deep, traumatic stuff. And, and that song is about the possibility of moving forward in a way that both names why it shouldn't have to happen, why it couldn't possibly happen, and then how it might happen. And to me it's, it's, and Brandi's voice is actually, I think, a really, really important part of it. Part, part of the struggle of just citing lyrics in a, in a book is you don't get the voice. What I do is I create a Spotify playlist to go with the book so that people can go and find the songs and listen to it, because I think the, the range and timbre of Brandi's voice so embodies the brokenness and hope at the same time. And so honestly, she, that song kind of helped me imagine a way forward in a relationship that I didn't know might have been possible. And music, a lot of music has done that for me, do you know what I mean, like, music has probably been just such a constant companion. Jason Isbell, the Avett Brothers, it's, it's all part of the sonic wallpaper of my life. And I think it's means of grace.

Randy:

Yeah, no, I mean, that song in particular sounds like somebody who's done the hard work of trying to fit this traumatic experience into her story, and doesn't end it even on "By the way, I forgive you," but then says, and by the way, I'm also kind of grateful for what happened, because now I'm, now I am who I am.

Jamie:

It's incredible. "Maybe I should thank you."

Randy:

Right. Yes, "Maybe I should thank you," yeah.

Jamie:

And I remember when I first kind of, you know how you hear a song a few times and you're not really listening, and then you listen to it and you're like, no, that's, that's wrong, you shouldn't be saying, that's absolutely wrong, you shouldn't be saying that. And then you stay with it a few more times, and you're like, okay, I think I maybe understand how somebody could say that. Could I say that? What would it look like? Yeah. It's powerful.

Kyle:

You noted in the book how, the flippancy with which the lyric comes across, "By the way," this such deep, profound thing, and it hadn't occurred to me, like, that's the, that's what she titled the album. I've listened to that album probably 100 times, and it had never occurred to me to see that insight in it. So yeah.

Jamie:

Yes, yeah. No, it's beautiful.

Randy:

And then probably my favorite band, Fleet Foxes, you speak to, I think the, some of their most profound lyrics, the"I'm not the season that I'm in." I love that so much. Tell us about how that came out in your chapter.

Jamie:

Well, and it's, it's, and again, they're very kind of plaintive, I would almost call it a contemplative sound. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's a, there's a, there's almost a hint of a kind of chant about

Randy:

It's haunting.

Jamie:

It's haunting. It's very haunting. And so then when you kind of keep dwelling with it, and the insight sort of swells for you, right? And then you just hear it as this incredible, it's almost like a benediction.

Randy:

Yes.

Jamie:

"You are not what you're going through right now. You are not defined by this moment. You are not your season." You're in a season, and I think a lot of people need permission to recognize that. I think that's the other chapter that means a lot to me is the chapter on seasonality where it's like, okay, what does it mean to take seriously the fact that I'm in the middle of a season? And it gives you permission to both name it but then also say I'm not defined by this, and I, sometimes I just have to get through it. It's a really beautiful... I'm very excited, by the way, did you see, they're publishing a collection of Fleet Foxes lyrics as sort of poetry, and it's going to be introduced by one of my favorite contemporary writers, Brandon Taylor. So I'm very excited to see that come out.

Randy:

That's fun. That's super fun, yeah.

Kyle:

Really cool. Before we let you go, I have to ask, have you seen the movie About Time?

Jamie:

I, no, I haven't. So tell me...

Kyle:

Oh my God, you have to watch it. You could call it a rom-com, but it's not. I'm not gonna describe it for you.

Jamie:

Okay, okay, I've gotta look this up.

Kyle:

It transcends genre barriers, has a wonderful cast, and it's the best movie about nostalgia ever made.

Jamie:

Fantastic. I might download this for my next flight. Okay, great.

Kyle:

Do it.

Randy:

There you go.

Jamie:

Thanks for the tip.

Kyle:

I think we're at the end of our time, so thanks so much for joining us.

Jamie:

This was wonderful.

Kyle:

I gotta say, man, the book is really good, moved me to tears more than once, and you could...

Jamie:

Thank you so much. No, I really appreciate, you guys were very, very close readers. So that's an honor. That means a lot as an author to be able to interact with folks who take...

Kyle:

And it's a great model of how philosophy can actually transform a life.

Randy:

I think so, yeah.

Jamie:

Let's have more of it, I hope, yeah. Thank you so much.

Randy:

Once more, the book is How to Inhabit Time by James K.A. Smith. Jamie, thank you so much for joining us.

Jamie:

Really my pleasure. Thanks for a rich conversation. I appreciated it.

Kyle:

Well, that's it for this episode of A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar. We hope you're enjoying the show as much as we are. Help us continue to create compelling content and reach a wider audience by supporting us patreon.com/apastorandaphilosopher, where you can get bonus content, extra perks, and a general feeling of being good person.

Randy:

Also, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, and Spotify. These help new people discover the show and we may even read your review in a future episode. If it's good enough.

Kyle:

If anything we said really pissed you off or if you just have a question you'd like us to answer, or if you'd just like to send us booze, send us an email at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com.

Randy:

Catch all of our hot takes on Twitter at@PPWBPodcast, @RandyKnie, and@robertkwhitaker, and find transcripts and links to all of our episodes at pastorandphilosopher.buzzsprout.com. See you next time.

Kyle:

Cheers!

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Kyle Whitaker

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