How to Inhabit Time - by James K. A. Smith (Hardcover)

About the Book

Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith helps Christians and the church develop a sense of "temporal awareness" that is attuned to the texture of history, the vicissitudes of life, and the tempo of the Spirit. Smith shows that awakening to the spiritual significance of time is crucial for orienting faith in the 21st century.

Book Synopsis

★ Publishers Weekly starred review

2023 Christian Book Award(R) Winner (Christian Living)
Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist (Christian Living & Spiritual Formation)
Outreach 2023 Recommended Resource (Christian Living)
A "Best Book of 2022," Englewood Review of Books

"This incisive and eloquent volume will expand readers' minds."--Publishers Weekly

"A beautifully written book. . . . [Smith] offers a good, pastoral word to Christians today."--Christian Century

Many Christians live a faith that is "nowhen." They are disconnected from the past or imagine they are somehow "above" the flux of history, as if every generation starts with a clean state. They lack an awareness of time and the effects of history--both personal and collective--and thus are naive about current issues, prone to nostalgia, or fixated on the end times and other doomsday versions of the future.

Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith explains that we must reckon with the past in order to discern the present and have hope for the future. Integrating popular culture, biblical exposition, and meditation, he helps us develop a sense of "temporal awareness" that is attuned to the texture of history, the vicissitudes of life, and the tempo of the Spirit.

Smith shows that awakening to the spiritual significance of time is crucial for orienting faith in the twenty-first century. It allows us to become indebted to the past, oriented toward the future, and faithful in the present.

From the Back Cover

The Spiritual Significance of Time

Many Christians live a faith that is "nowhen." They are disconnected from the past or imagine they are somehow "above" the flux of history, immune to it, as if self-starters from clean slates in every generation. They lack an awareness of time and the effects of history--both personal and collective--and thus are naive about current issues, prone to nostalgia, and fixated on the end times.

In How to Inhabit Time, popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that awakening to the spiritual significance of time is crucial for orienting faith in the twenty-first century. He helps us develop a sense of "temporal awareness" that is attuned to the texture of history, the vicissitudes of life, and the tempo of the Spirit.

"James K. A. Smith shows us that time is a gift waiting to be redeemed, and a central conviction of this book is that 'the Lord of the star fields' is intimately attuned to our haunted, beautiful histories. Dwelling with these lucid, winsome meditations on 'spiritual timekeeping' was like listening in on a lively conversation between St. Augustine, Gustavo Gutiérrez, James Baldwin, and Marilynne Robinson, while Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon played in the background."
--Fred Bahnson, author of Soil and Sacrament

"James K. A. Smith's inspired work examines time not as hourglass sand running hopelessly through our fingers but as a divine gift that we can capture just enough to recognize the pearl of life that time shapes. A thoughtful and engaging book."
--Sophfronia Scott, author of The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton

About the Author

James K. A. Smith (PhD, Villanova University) is a popular speaker and the award-winning author of a number of influential books, including Desiring the Kingdom, How (Not) to Be Secular, You Are What You Love, On the Road with Saint Augustine, and How to Inhabit Time. He is professor of philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he holds the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. Smith served as editor in chief of Comment magazine (2013-2018) and Image journal (2019-2024). He has written for Christianity Today, the Christian Century, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.