08.17.09

The Great Omission

Posted in formation at 5:30 am by len

Mark reviews Dallas Willard at WordandSpirit,

“Dallas Willard argues that the urgent need of the church is to recover the practice of “discipleship”.

A disciple is a learner, a student, an apprentice – a practitioner, even if only a beginner. … Disciples of Jesus are people who do not just profess certain views as their own but apply their growing understanding of life in the Kingdom of the Heavens to every aspect of their life on earth.

“The book itself was not written as a book. It is a series of essays, lectures, book reviews and interviews all around the subject of discipleship.

“The second chapter deals with the question of “why bother with discipleship”. After all if you can have your sins forgiven so you get to go to heaven when you die, surely that is good enough. He strongly opposes this viewpoint:  “There is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself of his early followers taught that suggests you can decide just to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus’ expense and have nothing more to do with him.”

“He agrees with Tozer’s assessment that the idea of accepting Jesus as Saviour but postponing obedience to him as Lord is in fact heretical.

This “heresy” has created the impression that it is quite reasonable to be a “vampire Christian”. One in effect says to Jesus, “I’d like a little of your blood, please. But I don’t care to be your student, or have your character. In fact won’t you just excuse me while I get on with my life, and I’ll see you in heaven.”

“The second objection is that the call to discipleship is thought by some to be in antithesis to grace – an attempt to pay back God for our salvation which we did not earn. He repeatedly replies to this objection with the assertion that, “Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.”

(This is an interesting one in light of Andy Crouch work in “Culture Making.” Andy describes the difference between gesture and posture. Gesture, when repeated over time, becomes posture. How do we stop our actions – the way we live – from teaching us that grace is all effort? In other words, how do we stop our gestures from becoming a posture? It’s a human problem exacerbated by sin.)

Willard continues, “We must stop using the fact that we cannot earn grace (whether for justification or for sanctification) as an excuse for not energetically trying to receive grace. Having been found by God, we then become seekers of ever-fuller life in him.”

Willard uses the term “spiritual formation” to describe the process of the transformation of our spirits to become more Christlike. He sees spiritual disciplines such as solitude, silence, fasting and meditation as being key to spiritual formation.

Spiritual disciplines are activities in our power that we engage in to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.

Spiritual formation is the process whereby the inmost being of the individual takes on the quality or character of Jesus himself.

Spiritual formation does not aim at controlling action. … God is looking for those who worship him in spirit and in truth. We cannot fake before God. … To focus on action alone is to fall into pharasiasm of the worst kind and to kill the soul.

“For Willard, the most important part of spiritual formation is learning obedience. For this reason, we must regain an appreciation of Jesus as teacher. He bemoans the fact that few if any churches have any strategy for systematically teaching believers all the teachings of Jesus. He stresses the vital importance of Scripture memorisation. Being transformed in our characters so that we can obey him involves deliberate planning on our part.

We enter into each of Jesus’ teachings by choosing different behaviours that are relevant, finding the space – making the arrangements – in our lives to put them into action and re-visioning the situation in the new behavioural space that includes God.

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