The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu put it this way. Each of us has what he called a habitus: a set of dispositions to respond more or less spontaneously to the world in particular ways, without much thought. Your habitus is trained into you starting from childhood. Parents tell you not to speak with your mouth full, to sit up straight, not to touch your food with your left hand, and so on, and thus form table manners that are likely to stick with you all your life.
Once they are inculcated, these habits aren’t consciously associated with an identity: middle-class English people don’t consciously decide to hold their knives in their right hands in order to act English, any more than Ghanaians use only their right hands to eat in order to display that they’re Ghanaian. But these habits were nevertheless shaped by their identity.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity, Liveright.
Looking for More Inspiration?
Don’t Miss
The Latest From Our Blog
Check out articles, featured illustrations, and book reviews on all different topics related to ministry.
How Canonicity and Love Go Together
Love Loving the Word of God is a great pursuit, but it’s not always easy. Like most love relationships, there are inevitable highs and lows. And as teachers of the Bible, many of us walk a delicate balance between scouring and savoring the Scriptures. We carefully...
Preaching on Proverbs
How Will We Preach and Teach from Proverbs? Reading, let alone preaching, from The Book of Proverbs comes with its challenges. Sometimes those sayings can seem just plain obvious and not much help in making real life change. John Goldingay’s new commentary reminds us...
Four Years Later: Reflecting on Pandemic Ministry
Lessons Learned in Quarantine and Beyond Do you remember that first Sunday when you stayed cloistered in your home with the immediate family, when you exchanged your dapper church clothes for a pair of pajamas and made pancakes in the pan instead of preaching from the...