I think Dallas Willard is right on.
The Divine Conspiracy is a tough book. And by tough I mean challenging. And by challenging I mean it's the real deal stuff that most of us would rather not talk about. Or maybe I mean the stuff that's easier to talk about than do anything about.
Mike Cope posted this quote on his blog today, and I felt like copying him.
From Dallas Willard:
“Nondiscipleship is the elephant in the church. It is not the much discussed moral failures, financial abuses, or the amazing general similarity between Christians and non-Christians. These are only effects of the underlying problem. The fundamental negative reality among Christian believers now is their failure to be constantly learning how to live their lives in The Kingdom Among Us. And it is an accepted reality. The division of Christians into those from whom it is a matter of whole-life devotion to God and those who maintain a consumer, or client, relationship to the church has now been an accepted reality for over fifteen hundred years.”
And then this:
“Consumer Christianity is now normative. The consumer Christian is one who utilizes the grace of God for forgiveness and the services of the church for special occasions, but does not give his or her life and innermost thoughts, feelings, and intentions over to the kingdom of the heavens. Such Christians are not inwardly transformed and not committed to it.”
(From The Divine Conspiracy, pp. 301, 342)
Willard Rocks. Conspiracy is one of my favorite books. Right up there with JFK.
Hope all is well!!!
I remember reading DC when I first started ministry, and I didn't understand anything but the direct exegisis of some of the sermon on the mount. In the following 6 years, nearly everything I have read has explained and informed his book. In other words it has taken me 6 years of pretty extensive reading to begin to unfold Willard's first four chapters. My favorite take home point from Willard is that Jesus is a genius and everything he did and said had genius strategy behind it. Maybe we should listen and watch when a genius speaks and acts. Maybe we should trust this guy Jesus.