Review of The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God by Dallas Willard
Title: Simply amazing book on modern Christian living
This is one of "those books." It might change your life. So it's a dangerous read. Highly recommended.
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
This is one of "those books." It might change your life. So it's a dangerous read. Highly recommended.
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
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