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The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God Kindle Edition
The Divine Conspiracy has revolutionized how we think about the true meaning of discipleship. In this classic, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our times and author of the acclaimed The Spirit of Disciplines, Dallas Willard, skillfully weaves together biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice, revealing what it means to "apprentice" ourselves to Jesus. Using Jesus’s Sermon of the Mount as his foundation, Willard masterfully explores life-changing ways to experience and be guided by God on a daily basis, resulting in a more authentic and dynamic faith.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperOne
- Publication dateFebruary 6, 2009
- File size936 KB
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From the Inside Flap
A renowned teacher and writer of the acclaimed The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers now offers a timely and challenging call back to the true meaning of Christian discipleship. In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard gracefully weaves biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice into a tour de force that shows the necessity of profound changes in how we view our lives and faith. In an era when many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Masterfully capturing the central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way for today's seekers, he helps us to explore a revolutionary way to experience God--by knowing Him as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only as a part of the hereafter.
The most telling thing about the contemporary Christian, Willard writes, is that he or she has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to [their] life, and certainly not that it is in any way essential . . . Such obedience is regarded as just out of the question or impossible. Christians, he says, for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But, as Willard clearly shows, a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, is nothing more than consumer Christianity and bumper-sticker faith.
Willard refutes this fire escape mentality by exploring the true nature of the teachings of Jesus, who intended that His followers become His disciples, and taught that we have access now to the life we are only too eager to relegate to the hereafter. The author calls us into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan by which we can become Christ-like. He challenges us to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too common lukewarm faith of our times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.
--Christianity TodayFrom the Back Cover
A renowned teacher and writer of the acclaimed The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers now offers a timely and challenging call back to the true meaning of Christian discipleship. In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard gracefully weaves biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice into a tour de force that shows the necessity of profound changes in how we view our lives and faith. In an era when many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Masterfully capturing the central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way for today's seekers, he helps us to explore a revolutionary way to experience God--by knowing Him as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only as a part of the hereafter.
"The most telling thing about the contemporary Christian," Willard writes, "is that he or she has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to [their] life, and certainly not that it is in any way essential . . . Such obedience is regarded as just out of the question or impossible." Christians, he says, for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But, as Willard clearly shows, a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, is nothing more than "consumer Christianity" and "bumper-sticker faith."
Willard refutes this "fire escape" mentality by exploring the true nature of the teachings of Jesus, who intended that His followers become His disciples, and taught that we have access now to the life we are only too eager to relegate to the hereafter. The author calls us into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan by which we can become Christ-like. He challenges us to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too common lukewarm faith of our times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.
About the Author
Dallas Willard (1935-2013) was a professor at the University of Southern California's School of Philosophy for forty-seven years. His groundbreaking books The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines forever changed the way thousands of Christians experience their faith.
Thomas Penny is an audiobook narrator whose readings include The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, Fighting for America by Christopher Moore, and Forged by Fire by Sharon M. Draper, among others.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Entering the Eternal Kind
Of Life Now
God's care for humanity was so great that he sent his unique Son among us, so that those who count on him might not lead a futile and failing existence, but have the undying life of God Himself.
JOHN 3:16
Jesus' good news, then, was that the Kingdom of God had come, and that he, Jesus, was its herald and expounder to men. More than that, in some special, mysterious way, he was the Kingdom.
MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE,
JESUS: THE MAN WHO LIVES
Life in the Dark
Recently a pilot was practicing high--speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent--and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.
This is a parable of human existence in our times--not exactly that everyone is crashing, though there is enough of that--but most of us as individuals, and world society as a whole, live at high-speed, and often with no clue to whether we are flying upside down or right-side up. Indeed, we are haunted by a strong suspicion that there may be no difference--or at least that it is unknown or irrelevant.
Rumors from the Intellectual Heights
That suspicion now has the force of unspoken dogma in the highest centers of Western learning. Of course, one has to assume in practice that there is a right-side up, just to get on with life. But it is equally assumed that right-side up is not a subject of knowledge.
Derek Bok was president of Harvard University for many years, and in his "President's Report" for 1986-1987 he referred to some well-known moral failures in financial circles and the political life of the nation. He wondered out loud what universities might do to strengthen moral character in their graduates.
"Religious institutions," he continued, "no longer seem as able as they once were to impart basic values to the young. In these circumstances, universities, including Harvard, need to think hard about what they can do in the face of what many perceive as a widespread decline in ethical standards."'
Bok points out that in other days "the instructors aim was . . . to foster a belief in commonly accepted moral values" (p. 10). Now all is changed: "Today's course in applied ethics does not seek to convey a set of moral truths but tries to encourage the student to think carefully about complex moral issues." One senses that the governing assumption of his discussion is that these two objectives are mutually exclusive.
"The principle aim of the course," Bok continues, "is not to impart 'right answers' but to make the students more perceptive in detecting ethical problems when they arise, better acquainted with the best moral thought that has accumulated through the ages, and more equipped to reason about the ethical issues they will face" (p. 10).
Later he quotes Carol Gilligan to the effect that "moral development in the college years thus centers on the shift from moral ideology to ethical responsibility" (p. 30). One should not miss the point that Bok puts "right answers" in queer quotes, and that Gilligan holds what one has before college to be "ideology"--that is, irrational beliefs and attitudes. They are faithfully expressing the accepted intellectual viewpoint on the common moral beliefs that guide ordinary human existence.
Finally, in coming to the conclusion of his report, President Bok remarks, "Despite the importance of moral development to the individual student and the society, one cannot say that higher education has demonstrated a deep concern for the problem . . . Especially in large universities, the subject is not treated as a serious responsibility worthy of sustained discussion and determined action by the faculty and administration" (p. 31).
But the failure of will on the part of educators that Bok courageously points out is inevitable. Had he strolled across Harvard Yard to Emerson Hall and consulted with some of the most influential thinkers in our nation, he would have discovered that there now is no recognized moral knowledge upon which projects of fostering moral development could be based.
There is now not a single moral conclusion about behavior or character traits that a teacher could base a student's grade on-not even those most dear to educators, concerning fairness and diversity if you lowered a student's grade just for saying on a test that discrimination is morally acceptable, for example, the student could contest that grade to the administration. And if that position on the moral acceptability of discrimination were the only point at issue, the student would win.
The teacher would be reminded that we are not here to impose our views on students, "however misguided the student might be." And if the administration of the university did not reach that decision, a court of law soon would.
Of course, if a student seriously wrote on a test that 7 times 5 equals 32, or that Columbus discovered America in 1520, we would be permitted to "impose our views" in these cases. It would not matter by what route the student came to such conclusions because these cases concern matters that--quibbles aside--are regarded as known. That is what marks the difference.
Why Be Surprised?
But if indeed there is now no body of moral knowledge in our culture, then a number of things highly positioned people express surprise about are not surprising at all. Robert Coles, professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard and a well-known researcher and commentator on matters social and moral, published a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education on "The Disparity Between Intellect and Character."' The piece is about "the task of connecting intellect to character." This task, he adds, "is daunting."
His essay was occasioned by an encounter with one of his students over the moral insensitivity--is it hard for him to say "immoral behavior"?--of other students, some of the best and brightest at Harvard.
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Product details
- ASIN : B001RS8KRO
- Publisher : HarperOne (February 6, 2009)
- Publication date : February 6, 2009
- Language : English
- File size : 936 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 482 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #58,747 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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About the author
DALLAS WILLARD (1935-2013) Dr. Willard has deeply affected many people through his writing and speaking. He displayed a scholarly acumen and a pastor's heart, seeking to integrate philosophy, theology, and ethics with practical discipleship and Christian day-to-day living.
Dr. Willard studied at William Jewell College, Tennessee Temple College, and Baylor University before earning a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He was a professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California from 1965 to 2012, working in the fields of logic, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. He loved teaching and considered it a noble profession responsible for the condition of the world in years and centuries to come. His teaching, writing and research continues to nurture young minds towards truth, reason and God, and his groundbreaking books have forever changed the way thousands of Christians experience their faith. Richard Foster, author of the book Celebration of Discipline, says of Dallas, “Rarely have I found an author so penetrating in his intellect combined with so generous a spirit.”
The life of Dallas Willard had a radically life-changing effect on those who came in contact with him, and many of his former students are now university professors committed to furthering the ideas they learned from him. His books will touch both your mind and your heart.
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Willard's title arises from his thesis that Jesus presents God as doing something radical and unexpected in the world. The common muddle of popular religion and superficial reading of the Gospels has obscured and muddled, even reversed the meaning of the Good News of the Kingdom as Jesus presented it.
Willard shows here how the whole activity of God in history, as portrayed in the Old Testament and New Testament, is consistent, and these beatitudes express that consistent intention of the Conspiracy. The modern naturalist, materialist mindset has no category for the non-material realm, which leads to a simple dismissal of God, or a puzzling difficulty in making sense of the concept of God and his relation to the world.
A common magical concept of God that is all many people are left with. Willard attempts to reclaim and clarify the New Testament concept of a living God active in the world in practical ways. So Willard's analysis is practical at every point.
Willard declares that the thrust and focus of the "Beatitudes" of Jesus are virtually the opposite of how they have generally been interpreted over the years in popular tradition. Willard then backs up every detail of this claim and its implications through artful exegesis of the passages and related texts in the New Testament. He presents enthralling analysis confirming every detail and captivating life and drama applying the implications.
This can be considered from several views. Initially we can consider this a Bible study, the topic of which is the Beatitudes. These statements of "blessing" are found in Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" (the popular name from the setting of these teachings in Matthew's Gospel) or the "Sermon on the Plain" (the name often used in scholarship for the setting of the version in Luke's Gospel).
Willard contends that the reason these "Beatitudes" tend to be so ignored or dismissed is that they have been notoriously misread. They seem unconnected to real life, too fanciful and idealistic to have real application to everyday life. Basically, the problem is that the popular concept generally holds that the groups mentioned as "blessed" are receive the Kingdom of God as a reward for being this way. Or alternatively, this is the character or quality expected of those who coming into the Kingdom of God.
Willard makes sense of them, consistently and meaningfully, by showing us that these statements focus on groups in society TO WHOM the Good News of the Gospel has come. The "poor in spirit," for instance, are "blessed" because they have such good reason to welcome the Kingdom of God, the personal Rule of God over their lives, because the Rule of God promises vindication and justice. for the exploited and downtrodden.
Willard's work can also be thus considered Theology. And he is philosophically adept, skilled in logical analysis and critical comparison. But this is not "theology" in the sense of dry, academic, medieval abstraction. This is dynamic, powerful, life-changing interpretation of Divine Power in human contemporary life.
Willard makes amazing connections at every point with current and common life examples, showing how the intent and meaning of these declarations of the Rule of God among us present a Good News that can restore and integrate our lives.
I first picked up this book when it came out in the late 1990s. Back then, I think I got about 50 or 100 pages in, and gave up. I couldn't take it. Its truth; its perceptiveness; its vitalness. Twenty years later I regret not sticking with it.
This book is a heady read. The breadth and depth of Dallas Willard's insights into human psychology is simply and plainly ... amazing.
The Divine Conspiracy is one of the richest spiritual reading experiences I've had in my life. There is not a page that goes by--really, hardly a paragraph--where I wasn't putting the book down and musing over what I'd just read, or making a note, or underlining something in the text or in the footnotes.
His explication on correction love .... left me appalled and disappointed...at how we live.
His exposition on corrective love in Chapter 7 will leave you sad and wondering if there is any Christian community in the U.S. practicing such techniques. I've read that house churches in China are close-knit communities. Where else are they?
Some gems to share:
"God has paid an awful price to arrange for human self-determination. He obviously places great value on it. It is, after all, the *only* way he can get the kind of personal beings he desires for his eternal purposes." (p. 220)
"Human life is not about human life. Nothing will go right in it until the greatness and goodness of its source and governor is adequately grasped. His very name is then held in the highest possible regard. Until that is so, the human compass will always be pointing in the wrong direction, and individual lives as well as history as a whole will suffer from constant and fluctuating disorientation. Candidly, that is exactly the condition we find ourselves in." (p. 259)
"Who teaches you? Whose disciple are you? Honestly. One thing is sure: You are somebody's disciple. You learned how to live from somebody else. There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live." (p. 271)
As other reviewers have noted, Willard has problems with both the Christian Left and the Christian Right in America. The Left, for its push of social activism (the "social gospel") bereft of the active person of Jesus Christ; the Right, for its "faith alone" approach that abandons any active work in the Christian community and world at large here on earth.
If you're not near tears in many passages while reading this book, your heart is too hard.
Richard Foster provides the Foreword and compares The Divine Conspiracy to the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and even Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. I have to agree.
The Divine Conspiracy is that rare book where the standard rating system's words actually meet stars: I did love it, and it was amazing.
I loved it/It was amazing
5/5 Goodreads
5/5 Amazon
Five stars for the book
Zero stars for it only being the first four chapters
Top reviews from other countries
His chapter on “Gospels of Sin Management” is a pungent critique of today’s churches’ obsession with what he calls a “bar-code faith” – how to get your ticket to heaven. Willard shows a different, and altogether more gripping way. If we change the focus of our gospel to Jesus and his invitation to enter the kingdom of God by faith and repentance, then people will hear a message about *how heaven can get into them*!. They can hear a message about the availability of eternal and abundant life, with Christ, that begins right now.
This is not an easy read, partly because Willard thinks things through and encourages us to do the same, and partly because his book challenges deeply held complacencies in us all and points us to the true, biblical way of following Jesus in today’s world. I highly commend it.
Places the essential questions of life in Christ back in perspective.
Great for an examination of our modern society and its ideas of faith!