This year’s Faith in Life lecturer is co-sponsored by the Philosophy/Religion Department and the Sociology and Social Thought Program.

James K. A. Smith

James K.A. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin University where he holds the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair.

Smith will deliver the 2023-24 Faith in Life lecture, “How to Inhabit Time: The Lure of Nostalgia and the Work of Hope,” on Monday, April 15th at 4:00pm in the Hoynak Room in the Dow Center. A reception will follow in the Dow Center Upper Lounge.

He will also deliver a philosophy/religion lecture, “Between Augustine and Hegel: The Spirit of History and a History of Spirit,” on Tuesday, April 16th at 4:00pm in Lane Hall, room 125.

As a scholar, Smith has embraced the vocation of being a “translator” of philosophy for wider audiences. As a cultural critic and commentator, he explores the tensions of modern life, inviting readers and audiences to more intentional practices of faith and flourishing.

He is the award-winning author of a number of influential books including How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (2014), You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (2016), On the Road with Saint Augustine (2019) and, most recently, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now (2022). He is currently at work on a book about contemplative spirituality and contemporary art. Smith served as editor in chief of Comment magazine (2013-2018) and Image journal (2019-2024). His essays and criticism have appeared in magazines that include the Christian Century, Christianity Today, America, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, LitHub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His writing has also been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.

Smith’s more academic philosophical and theological works include Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism, Who’s Afraid of Relativism, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic, The Nicene Option: An Incarnational Phenomenology, and his Cultural Liturgies trilogy (Desiring the Kingdom, Imagining the Kingdom, and Awaiting the King).

James K. A. Smith’s website

Local Arrangments: Dr. Peter Blum