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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Powerful Book on Spiritual Formation, July 19, 2003
This is, without doubt, one of the most powerful books on Spiritual Formation that has ever been written. Dallas Willard tackles issues of discipleship and discipline in a fresh and invigorating way. Willard is rightly convinced that "the practical irrelevance of actual obedience to Christ" has weakened the effectiveness of Christianity in today's culture. "Discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus is, in our day, no longer thought of as in any way essential to faith in him," Willard says. "It is regarded as a costly option, a spiritual luxury, or possibly even an evasion." This concern led Willard to write the third book in his trilogy on the spiritual life (along with In Search of Guidance and The Spirit of the Disciplines) which "presents discipleship to Jesus as the very heart of the gospel." Willard's path is a well-traveled one, though he views some of the familiar sights a bit differently than most of us are accustomed to. The Kingdom of the Heavens is seen primarily as the realm of God's rule (kingdom) which is as near to us as the atmosphere around us (the heavens). A new thought for me, and one I'm still mulling over. Eternal Life is mainly a quality of life - an eternal kind of life. Willard's reading of the Sermon on the Mount is certainly unique. Frankly, his understanding of the Beattitudes is one of the more novel and unbelievable parts of the book. But his analysis of Matthew chapters 6 and 7 is very helpful. The heart of the book, found in chapters eight and nine, tackles what it means to be a student, or disciple, of Jesus, along with developing a curriculum for Christlikeness. Those two chapters alone are worth their weight in gold. I found them immensely helpful. Willard stresses the necessity of intention in our pursuit of the disciple's life and the importance of changing beliefs in order to shape behavior. Regarding a curriculum for Christlikeness, Willard helpfully shows that the objective is NOT "external conformity to the wording of Jesus' teachings about actions in specific contexts" or "profession of perfectly correct doctrine." Not that these things are unimportant - but they are not the goal. The goal is not faithfulness to activities in church or special religious experiences, either. The goal, very simply, is coming to "dearly love and constantly delight in" the Father and removing the "automatic responses againt the kingdom of God" so that we are free from the dominion and enslavement of "old habitual patterns of thought, feeling, and action." The goal is to develop automatic, reflex responses to life that mirror those of Christ. Willard's exposition of this is very good and will be eye-opening for many young disciples. The strategies which help us develop this Christlike character are the spiritual disciplines. The disciplines, which Willard groups into two catagories (disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of engagement) are designed to help us enthrall the mind with God and aquire new habits of goodness, as we interact with both the work of the Holy Spirit and the testings and trials of life in our pursuit of Christlikeness. Willard fleshes this out briefly with a discussion about the disciplines of solitude, silence, study, and worship. The final chapter is a glorious discussion on the Restoration of All Things, as Willard describes where this whole Christian thing is headed. Now, my brief caveats. I do have a couple of qualms about this book, but I tack them on the end and really do not want to overplay them, because they are really peripheral to Willard's message. My concerns are these: 1) In the helpful chapter "Gospels of Sin Management," I think Willard overreacts to Evangelicals (the Right, as he calls us) in his discussion of the atonement and "Lordship Salvation." In particular, the criticisms of John MacArthur seem completely unwarranted to me. I wondered if Willard had really read or heard anything by MacArthur apart from this one issue. 2) In chapter four on the Beattitudes, Willard is just out to lunch. I think he totally missed it on this point. 3) Willard's discussion (very brief) on the relationship of God's sovereignty and human responsibility reflects a very Arminian perspective. "God has paid an awful price to arrange for human determination," says Willard. Other statements hint at a sympathetic view of Open Theism. Disappointing. In Willard's zeal to preserve the truth that prayer does change things, he has gone to the unhelpful and unbiblical extreme of elevating human autonomy too high. 4) In the midst of a very good discussion on the "elephant in the church" which everyone tries to ignore (namely, the lack of discipleship) Willard strongly states that he does not believe that only true disciples make it to heaven after death. In light of the overall message of Willard's book, it is hard to see how he can say this. It certainly doesn't comply with Jesus own words in John 8. So, those four things give me a little pause concerning this book. But not much. Just enough to make it a four star instead of a five star recommendation. The material I balk at could be contained in less than thirty pages of the book (out of 400!). So, I still say "read it." Just be careful on the finer points of Willard's theology.
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by Jan Johnson
by Dallas Willard
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