Yesterday we learned that Dallas Willard passed away from cancer. While Willard’s day job was as a professor of philosophy at USC, he will be remembered for his writings on spiritual formation and discipleship. For those who met him, he will also be remembered for living up to what he taught.
I first encountered Willard’s writings in 2005, while I was undergoing that great personal transformation that most recent college graduates must endure. I was asked to help a church better understand the tangible ideas of discipleship that he expresses in The Spirit of the Disciplines. I went on to devour Renovation of the Heart and eventually The Divine Conspiracy. I now try to read one of them once a year.
I never had the chance to meet Dr. WIllard in person. It was heartbreaking to find out he wouldn’t be joining us at Missio Alliance this past month. Now we understand why. However, everyone who did meet him mentioned that he seemed just like he did in his writings, brilliant yet approachable, even grandfatherly.
This blog, in many ways, is inspired by his writings.
Here are five life shaping ideas I learned from Dallas.
Jesus is the smartest man who ever lived.
Can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uninformed? Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what we take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived? That is exactly how his earliest apprentices in kingdom living thought of him….Jesus was of one who made all of created reality and kept it working, literally “holding it together” (Col. 1: 17). And today we think people are smart who make light bulbs and computer chips and rockets out of “stuff” already provided! He made “the stuff”!
The Divine Conspiracy (p. 94).
Understanding Jesus’s idea of the Kingdom of God is essential to understanding Jesus.
What we have come to call the Sermon on the Mount is a concise statement of Jesus’ teachings on how to actually live in the reality of God’s present kingdom available to us from the very space surrounding our bodies.
The Divine Conspiracy (p. 97).
Jesus really meant that we should do what he said to do.
The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.
The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship (p. xiii).
Most churches, no matter their theology or politics, are in the “sin management” business.
..the only thing made essential on the right wing of theology is forgiveness of the individual’s sins. On the left it is the removal of social or structural evils. The current gospel then becomes a “gospel of sin management.” Transformation of life and character is no part of the redemptive message . Moment-to-moment human reality in its depths is not the arena of faith and eternal living.
The Divine Conspiracy (p. 40-41).
Churches should be more like AA.
Any successful plan for spiritual formation, whether for the individual or group, will in fact be significantly similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous program.
Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (p. 85).
According to John Ortberg “When Dallas Willard was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late summer of 2012, one of his reflections was: “I think that, when I die, it might be some time until I know it.”
We know it, and we miss you, Dallas.
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