Smoothness

Bynug-Chul Han

I've just finished this afternoon at an incredible conference on ministry in a secular age with the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship at Calvin University in Michigan, where we had the privilege of learning from presenter Andrew Root. One of the concepts that has captured my attention, which I want to reflect on, is our modern obsession with what philosopher Byung-Chul Han calls "smoothness."

Jeff Koon's Balloon Dog

Han argues that smoothness is the defining characteristic of our present time, connecting everything from Jeff Koons' polished sculptures to our sleek iPhones to the carefully curated aesthetic of social media. We live in a world designed to be non-intrusive, non-confrontational, super likable, and perpetually pleasing. Everything is crafted to be frictionless, comfortable, and immediately satisfying. Our apps are intuitive, our entertainment is endless, and our consumer experiences are engineered to eliminate any hint of difficulty, resistance, or discomfort.

This smoothness manifests in our culture's obsession with making everything "really explicit and transparent." We're encouraged to share our deepest feelings and thoughts online through perfectly curated posts. Visual content becomes increasingly "laid bare"—like the endless stream of selfies that offer only a limited range of reified expressions and invite no reflection or lingering contemplation. 

What characterises smoothness is its complete absence of negativity and resistance. Smooth things "do not injure" and "do not offer any resistance." They're designed for perfect adaptability and ease, following every contour and desire without pushback. Communication becomes "smoothed out" through polite remarks and positive exchanges, creating what Han calls a "society of positivity" where any form of injury, struggle, pain, or suffering is systematically removed or avoided.

But Han's analysis goes much deeper than surface aesthetics. He argues that this smoothness represents a fundamental shift in how we experience beauty, truth, and even reality itself. Traditional beauty, linked with the sublime, had the power to shock us into profound experience—it possessed what Han calls an "erotics of veiling," where mystery and concealment created genuine captivation. Beauty required a rhythmic oscillation between presence and absence, veiling and unveiling, that kept our attention genuinely engaged.

Smooth culture destroys this entirely. When everything is instantly accessible and immediately knowable, wonder dies. Han describes smooth visual content as fundamentally "pornographic"—not in a sexual sense, but because it lacks sensuality, narrative, or seduction. It simply lays bare everything, offering nothing to truly see because the mystery that creates meaning has been eliminated. Art becomes all surface and no substance, designed to elicit a simple "wow" rather than judgment, interpretation, or sustained reflection.

This creates what Han calls the "aesthetics of the smooth," which abolishes contemplative distance. Instead of inviting us into deeper thought or meaning, smoothness creates a "haptic compulsion"—an immediate desire to touch, to consume, to move on to the next thing. The smooth touchscreen becomes a perfect metaphor: a place of "demystification and total consumption" where depth is traded for immediate tactile satisfaction.

The implications run even deeper into our social and spiritual lives. Smoothness promotes what Han identifies as a fundamentally narcissistic, "subject-centred" experience where the difference or negativity of the other and the alien is eliminated altogether. So we end up living in echo chambers that merely confirm our existing desires and expectations, never encountering anything genuinely challenging or transformative. We have, in Han's words, "communication without community"—endless digital interactions that lack the deeper bonds traditionally created through shared struggle, commitment, and the willingness to be wounded by genuine encounter with others.

Perhaps most troubling is how smoothness creates what Han calls the "ideal consumer"—a "person without character" who values "sexiness" over moral beauty or beauty of character. Where character is built through duration, solidity, and permanence, the smooth world celebrates impermanence and fleetingness. We become "smoother and slicker" for digital networking, but increasingly hollow at the core.

This isn't just cultural criticism—it's a diagnosis of spiritual crisis. Han suggests we're living in something closer to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World than Orwell's 1984. Control isn't achieved through overt surveillance but through voluntary compliance driven by comfort, instant gratification, and the systematic elimination of anything that might cause discomfort. The result? People who are, in Han's haunting phrase, "too dead to live, and too alive to die"—existing in a state of perpetual spiritual numbness disguised as contentment.

Smooth Faith

But what happens when this smooth aesthetic creeps into our churches and our discipleship? What happens when we begin to expect our faith to be as effortless as ordering from Amazon or as entertaining as our favourite streaming service? The answer should concern us: we risk losing the very essence of what it means to follow Christ.

Consider the self-talk of the smooth Christian. 

“Oh great, here we go again. The worship leader hit a wrong chord—a wrong chord—and now I’ve lost my connection with the Spirit. Now there’s static in the microphone, a crying baby echoing around the church, and the communion bread has gone a bit stale. How am I meant to experience the peace that passes all understanding if the booklet has spelling errors? The whole morning tea socialising part after the service is so awkward, I just want to leave, I can’t stand having to make small talk.”

“Last week in Community Group, Kevin interrupted me twice while I was sharing my deeply spiritual insight (that I got from a podcast). Julie still hasn’t texted back about my genius idea for the new prayer roster, and I’m starting to wonder if she’s even serious about the Kingdom of God. And during morning tea, Carl launched into another one of his long-winded mission trip stories: he’s so inconsiderate! Why did I have to be dumped in the Community Group with so many difficult people?”

When we choose a "smooth" approach to faith, we begin to sand away the rough edges that actually make discipleship transformative. Everything becomes so shiny that it’s as if we are looking in a mirror. The preacher might find themselves delivering sermons without struggle—messages that comfort but never confront, that affirm but never challenge. Discussions of sin, repentance, sacrifice, and the cost of following Jesus are downplayed; we create what Han calls a "culinary world" where everything tastes good but nothing truly nourishes.

The impulse to smoothness creates worship without wonder, where services are designed for immediate emotional gratification rather than encounters with the divine mystery. The singing is autotuned. The room is temperature-controlled to perfection. The coffee is boutique. 

True worship contains awe, reverence, and even holy fear. When we reduce worship to what's simply "likeable," we lose the sublime nature of encountering the living God. We also risk building community without commitment, where relationships are based on shared preferences rather than covenant promises. A smooth church might offer plenty of communication through social media and casual interactions, but lack the deeper bonds that come through bearing one another's burdens and speaking truth in love.

Scripture never promises us a smooth path. Jesus himself said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). The cross is anything but smooth—it's rough, splintered, and painful. Consider these decidedly "unsmooth" aspects of biblical discipleship: wrestling with God like Jacob, who limped away from his encounter but received a blessing; facing uncomfortable truth like the rich young ruler who walked away sorrowful when confronted with the cost of following Jesus; enduring persecution like the early church, which grew stronger through suffering rather than comfort; and practicing spiritual disciplines that require patience, persistence, and often discomfort.

Here's the beautiful truth that Han's critique helps us see: a faith with rough edges is a faith that will be genuinely alive. The calluses on a carpenter's hands tell the story of real work; the scars on a gardener's arms speak of wrestling with thorns to cultivate beauty; the weathered face of a shepherd reveals a life spent outdoors protecting what matters most. In the same way, the rough edges of authentic discipleship—the struggles with doubt, the friction of community life, the resistance we feel when Scripture challenges our assumptions, the discomfort of serving others at personal cost—these aren't bugs in the system of faith. They're evidence that something real and transformative is happening. Smooth marble may look pristine in a museum, but it's the stone worn by countless pilgrims' hands that tells the story of lived faith. When our Christianity has rough edges, it means we're actually engaging with the living God rather than a comfortable idol of our own making.

So, how do we resist the pull of smoothness while living in a culture that demands it? How do we embrace the rough edges of authentic discipleship?

First, we must begin by embracing the rough edges of the gospel. The gospel has rough edges because, while it is good news, it is not always comfortable news—it confronts and comforts, telling us we are sinners in need of repentance who are loved by God; it redefines what’s “good,” blessing the poor, meek, and persecuted rather than the powerful and self-sufficient; it demands total surrender, calling us to deny ourselves and take up our cross; it challenges our tribal boundaries, insisting we love across ethnic, social, and class lines; and it resists domestication, refusing to be reduced to a self-help tool or a cultural accessory. The roughness of the gospel turns our cherished idols of money, sex, status and power into rubble. These edges keep the gospel alive and untamed—both the gentle invitation of “Come to me, all you who are weary” and the unsettling call to “Sell everything you have” belong to the same Jesus, whose good news refuses to be smoothed into something safe.

Secondly, we must embrace the beautiful, rough edges of a covenant community. An authentic Christian community has rough edges because true love, belonging, and unity are forged in the midst of difference, imperfection, and the slow work of grace. It brings together people who might never naturally choose each other, confronting us with personalities that grate, needy people who drain us, and interpersonal sin that wounds. A rough-edged church has Matthew 18:21-22 as its catch phrase, which calls us to forgive seventy times seven times when we’d rather withdraw, to speak truth when we’d rather stay silent, to receive correction when we’d rather be affirmed. In a rough-edged church, we bear one another’s burdens, which means getting close enough to feel their weight, and to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, which cuts against our instinct for independence. We show up at the hospital bed. We comfort the grieving person. The beauty is real—moments of shared worship, deep friendship, and mutual care—but the edges remain, because the Spirit shapes us through the friction of difference. A smooth community may be polite, but a truly beautiful Christian community is rough enough to make us more like Jesus.

Thirdly, (and you might think this is a bit surprising) we embrace the rough edges of the church calendar by submitting our year to a rhythm we do not control—a rhythm that will not always match our mood, desires, or plans. The seasons of Advent, Lent, and Holy Week, for example, slow us down, confront us with repentance, self-denial, waiting, and lament. They insist on a fast when we might prefer a feast, or call us to sit in the shadows of Good Friday before rushing to Easter joy. In a world of constant connectivity and instant access, preserving these sacred rhythms becomes a counter-cultural act: we intentionally create space for worship, rest, and reflection. Setting aside Sunday for the church service resists the smooth world’s demand for constant productivity and availability. Unlike a “smooth” diary curated to maximise pleasure, these ancient patterns of time shape us not around personal preference but around the story of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, teaching us that spiritual maturity requires moving through seasons, not staying perpetually in spring.

The Beauty of Rough Edges

Here's the beautiful paradox: when we embrace the rough edges of discipleship, we discover a beauty far deeper than anything the smooth world can offer. The beauty of a life transformed by struggle, the joy that comes after genuine repentance, the peace that passes understanding in the midst of trial—these cannot be manufactured or consumed. They can only be received through the difficult but rewarding path of authentic discipleship.

A disciple in a smooth world stands out not by being harsh or unnecessarily difficult, but by displaying the kind of depth, authenticity, and spiritual maturity that can only come through embracing both the joys and sorrows of following Christ. There's a substance to such a person that goes beyond surface appeal, a rootedness that weather cannot shake, and a peace that doesn't depend on circumstances staying comfortable.

The call of Jesus remains the same in every generation: "Come, follow me." The path hasn't gotten smoother since the first century—if anything, the cultural pressure to make it smooth has only intensified. But for those willing to take up their cross, to wrestle with God, and to find their life by losing it, the promise remains the same: abundant life, not just comfortable existence.

In a world obsessed with smooth experiences, dare to be a disciple who embraces the beautiful roughness of authentic faith. Choose depth over surface, commitment over convenience, and transformation over comfort. Your soul—and our world—desperately needs the kind of disciples who refuse to let their faith be smoothed into something pleasant but powerless. The rough edges aren't bugs in the system of discipleship; they're features that shape us into the image of Christ.