James K. A. Smith Appointed Distinguished Associate of ICS

The Institute for Christian Studies is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. James K. A. Smith as a Distinguished Associate for a five-year term, starting on July 1, 2024, following a unanimous vote by the ICS Senate in favour of the appointment. With this appointment ICS recognizes Dr. Smith as a spiritually kindred scholar of outstanding competence and reputation who contributes to the work of ICS. The appointment follows closely after Dr. Smith’s contribution as a keynote speaker to the 2024 ICS conference Beyond Culture Wars. Dr. Smith is an alumnus of the MA program in philosophy of the ICS.

Jamie Smith is an internationally renowned Christian philosopher whose many books include The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (2000), Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (2009), You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (2016), and most recently How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now (2022).

Dr. Smith is Professor of Philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he occupies the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview, and Visiting Professor of Divinity at Trinity College at the University of Toronto. He was Editor-in-chief of Image journal from 2019 to 2024 and Editor-in-chief of Comment magazine from 2013 to 2018. In addition to many other awards and distinctions, Dr. Smith will be the Thomas F. Martin Fellow at the Augustinian Institute of Villanova University during the Fall 2024 term.

In addition to celebrating the contributions he has made as a Christian philosopher, the ICS hopes that this association will nurture scholarly friendships in our academic community and allow our Junior Members in particular to benefit from Jamie’s wisdom.