“Contemporary scholarship in a plurality of fields demonstrates that how we think about the body has a direct impact upon our politics and our construction of social reality. In other words, dualistic understandings that devalue embodiment often give rise to totalitarian organizations of social arrangements.” — James K.A. Smith, “Will the Real Plato Please Stand Up?” in Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition, edited by Smith and James H. Olthuis
Today I was rereading Smith’s chapter, and it struck me that, despite how difficult the above quotation might be for some readers, working through it would be worth the struggle because it explains the root of much religious abuse, as well as the root of cult formation.
liturgical 