Formation of Person's Worldview: Perception of James K. A. Smith

The essay discusses the perception of James K. A. Smith on how a person's worldview is formed and shaped by spiritual belief system. It emphasizes the importance of Christian education and worship practices in shaping one's perception towards the world. The essay also highlights the impact of cultural liturgies and habitual practices on an individual's perception.

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
How is a person worldview formed?.........................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The essay brings out the perception of James K. A. Smith on formation of person`s
worldview. The book written by James K. A. Smith known as “you are what you love.” The
book elaborates that a human personality is formed and shaped by sweeping Augustinian
perception. The Augustinian perception is formed by what a person love rather than what a
person think or do. Smith emphasized the importance of spirituality, which can affect the
thinking process of a person. Before the process of viewing world, consider human a first and
foremost lover. The behaviour of a person is influenced by his motives, visions, and goals. J.
K. A Smith gave greater importance to christanity, disciples and virtues to shape the
perception of an person towards the world.
How is a person worldview formed?
According to Smith, a person`s worldview is formed by spiritual believe system of an person.
When a person commits sin crossing the right virtues, the only way to change the behaviour
and perception is to change the way a person worship. This will lead to rethink the virtues of
Christianity. Moreover, James gave some core ideas on how worship or Christian education
will affect the corporate life. When the perception is wrong, it demands change. The
Augustinian defines a person what he/she loves. It is the role of inner love to govern the
actions and pursuits. Daily routine and activities have lasting effect on the souls. Worship is
the outcome of desire and wants. A person adores and worship those things that they desire
(Smith, 2018). Human spirits are not caged in bodies made up of sand. Many people consider
the notion of worship a bit undefined and odd. An intellectual approach to Christianity that
emphasizes the transmission of worldview through moral and spiritual formation. An identity
of a person drive the actions from soul to body. The identity is comprised of thoughts and
ideas through which the perception of a person is formed towards the world. Identity of a
person discovers vision, passion, motive, and will of a person, which further shapes the

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perception of a person towards the world. Most people look at the practises of worship as a
routine work and believe that they can control the process (Parsons, 2017). Whereas, smith
does not follow the same root of thinking. He draws the attention of people towards
protecting the environment. The environment includes the mall, military-entertainment
complex, the university, and the church. The impact of these environment influences what
they think to attain the advantage. Worship is the product of want. A person worships what he
wants or needs because it is a tool of desire. The process of desire and want is similar to the
will to work such as a person earn to eat, live, buy, Worship, travel, and retire. This worship
is the active pursuit of what a person desire. A person usually worship for a reason either to
strong the inner soul or to fulfil a desire. By continuing the process of worship for a gain, a
person seeks to see the same desires and benefits in the surrounding world. The desire and
will of a person forms the perception towards the world. Thoughts and ideas are influenced
by the social events and at the same time, it affects the society. An individual cannot affect
the society solely, therefore, a group or a union has greater impact on the society (Afsar,
Badir, & Kiani, 2016). A human personality is moulded according to the society. Instead of
assuming that humans think things, the foremost thinking process should consider the human
being a first and foremost lover. The author emphases that Christian disciples start from the
wrong foot, it assumes that the changing behaviour of people is derived from learning new
things, whereas the people grow by loving different things. These lovers are not emerged
through new data or information, but through new routine and habits. Some Christian piety
and disciplines are doubtful from the theology and the higher education. New loves develop
with the passage of time such as playing a piano, driving a car, swinging a golf club (Bhatti,
Aslam, Hassan, & Sulaiman, 2016). This learning attitude becomes an integral part of one’s
personality through habituation and sometimes ending up the things and doing them without
thinking about them. Through the above discussion, the author also focuses on that not every

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sin committed by a person is a self-decision. Any sort of habitual behaviour is be attained and
achieved only through repetitive attempt of the same deed. Repeated activities such as
shopping, working, eating and more things, which we do, can teach us to love, what our live
could be. For example- suppose a person walk into the room in which his deepest desire that
he never expected to find was there in the room (Vitell et al., 2016). Therefore, sometimes the
deeper desire may be more selfish and dark. This behaviour forms the worldview in the eyes
of human being. Human desires are more like golf swings rather than solving equation and
reading books. These desires keep changing their path because every time a person desire
differs with the passage of time. These life experiences through various different desire forms
the worldview imposing huge implication on human disciples. Smith suggested that this book
“you are what you love” starts with the vantage matter of Christian education. The book
focuses more on interpreting and relying on Christian education. This education promotes
ideas and information that would help to emerge as leaders, and their adherents. Christian
education is about Christian ideas of spending and living life that will lead to develop a
Christian worldview based on Christian belief, doctrines, and ideas. It is more about forming
and shaping heart and desires, hopes and passions that would reflect intellect for what a
person do he loves. Human is created by desire, love and affection rather than intellect and
the believe system. The main emphasis argues that humans are lovers before anything else.
As a part of religion, it considers a community named people of god made by love and
affection for kingdom of god. The worldview is based on the perception of what and how our
ultimate identities are formed, what makes a person to realise what he is, ultimately a person
is what he loves (Pawar, 2014). The perception and identity is formed by what a person love,
as love is the ultimate goal and gives the sense of interpreting the world`s meaning, purpose,
and what the love as ultimate. The worship practises of church is the core claim which recalls
all styles of worship practises whether it is secular or sacred. A human personality is shaped

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by most fundamental desires and basic attunement of the world. These worship places make a
person of such type that it defines what love is. The ultimate love is what we adore and
worship. These cultural liturgies, which include habitual practises in the society that has a
formative influence on life of a person. For example- as per the cultural liturgy which offer
fascinating view of different temples through the eyes of Martian anthropologists. A temple,
which is a place of worship for consumerist religion (McDonald, & Crandall, 2015). The
perception of people wants to accomplish an allurement of good life accomplished by
display, money, purchase, and lightning. Smith calls the temple as education of desire where
persuasively the allurement of good life can be fulfilled. As per the book, the writer
exclusively focuses on North American culture and the Christianity. The principles outlined
in the book can be applied cross-culturally. It depends on an individual from which
community he or she belongs. Each community is inculcated with different set of cultural
liturgies. Each religion consists of different set of cultural liturgies through which a true
counterculture influences the people away from biblical priorities. This reprogramming of
thoughts occur mostly through the rituals and liturgies of the Christian worship practises. A
person`s sensibilities depends on the recognition and acceptance of whatever is true, which
deeds are honourable, what is a pure though, whatever is commendable, if there exist any sort
of excellence (Hulett, & Armer, 2016). Being a follower of Jesus, it is no more about getting
the right ideas and beliefs into the mind in order to give a guarantee of proper behaviour
(Aune, 2015). Moreover, it is beyond the right beliefs extended to be a good human being
who can love god and neighbour rightly without any allurement. The love of primacy towards
the world including the love towards god and neighbour (Kaak, 2016). As far as the priority
and importance of worship is considered, a person should have the combination of intellect,
doctrinal conviction, and the belief system to form a view towards the world. The historical
observation of a person interact with the anthropological view of wants and desires to come

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over the doctrine of human nature. Before setting any view towards the world, we worship
(Stroumsa, 2015). Before theorising and reciting the stories of god, people usually praises
god. General modern culture assumes that a person is what he/she thinks (Gaisina,
Mikhaylovskaya, Khairullina, Ustinova, & Shakirova, 2015). Education and disciple is
considered to be reduced to simplify transferring, retrieving, and storing data and knowledge.
Most importantly, close aligning of human nature is the ultimate goal of one`s life. The
emotions of achieving ultimate goal should not replace and focus on emotions over faulty
reasons. These deep realisations of long lasting emotions and worship persuasions are
fostered through emotion and reason which exist somewhere in the corner of the heart
(Wood, 2015). Consciously or unconsciously, worship persuasions guide both emotion as
well as the reason because our love is unconscious which lead Smith to introduce the habits
of discovering oneself, reform, and redirect the unconscious love to develop oneself. This
way of unconscious love is a one way, whereas on the other side, virtues define the moral
practises that influence the perception of a person towards the world. The primary need is to
realise the importance of following a particular religion. This will lead to imitate the changes
the practise them (Smither, 2017). Changing the desires includes discipline and adopting
changes reflect the emerging changes in the current environment. A person is creature of the
world who is constantly informed to change the behaviour to find the ultimate good in only
God. These habits of changing and adopting the changes have greater impact on individual`s
perception (Kelley, Lambert, & Pransky, 2015). These habits emerge and originate on a
religious place such as church or a secular culture. Liturgies and worship places train the
human hearts to worship god for what he has given us. A person do not confirm all the
changes occurring in the world rather he transforms through the renewal of mind by testing
and knowing the will of god and finding what is good, perfect and acceptable for oneself. The
life of Christian disciple is more about thinking the right thoughts. The importance of

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thinking about the right thoughts brings the crucial role of Christian in worldview training
(Sui, & Humphreys, 2015).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that J. K. A smith establishes the connection
between what an individual loves and the way he/she lives. It was an effort to rehabilitate the
Christian virtues that are found common in bible, Augustine, and church practises because a
human perception is influenced by western consumer culture such as education. The goal is
to re-establish the importance of ancient Christian rituals and inculcate the faith to adopt the
daily secular culture of liturgies.

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References
Afsar, B., Badir, Y., & Kiani, U. S. (2016). Linking spiritual leadership and employee pro-
environmental behavior: The influence of workplace spirituality, intrinsic motivation,
and environmental passion. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 45, 79-88.
Aune, K. (2015). Feminist spirituality as lived religion: How UK feminists forge religio-
spiritual lives. Gender & Society, 29(1), 122-145.
Bhatti, O. K., Aslam, U. S., Hassan, A., & Sulaiman, M. (2016). Employee motivation an
Islamic perspective. Humanomics, 32(1), 33-47.
Donnell, J. J. O., (2018). Augustine: Christianity and Society. Retrieved from:
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/twayne/aug3.html
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McDonald, R. I., & Crandall, C. S. (2015). Social norms and social influence. Current
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Parsons, T. (2017). Christianity and modern industrial society. U.S.: Routledge.
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