Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms

by E. James Wilder

“The Holy Spirit is constantly active in this process, as are all the instrumentalities of the Kingdom of God. So you’re not alone in it; this isn’t a solitary trip.

And indeed, a major part of our process of growth is our relationship to other people.” But

When we are troubled about the past, thinking about it with God restores our joy.

When we see others as enemies, mutual mind with God gives us hesed.

Jesus had a complete human identity. We read in Luke 2:52 that Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, and favor “with God and men.” The sense given by this passage is that Jesus became fully human. Jesus had no deformities (iniquities) of character. His life demonstrates all the identity and relational skills needed to be a human person. Jesus practiced the spiritual disciplines that prevent striving. He did not rely on human strength and ability.

Holes in our identity must be filled for us to become mature.

Identity requires a great deal of training from those who have skill and practice being human.

Acquiring identity skills can be compared to learning to read the Scriptures in English, ...

Dallas tells us, “Disciplines are not like muscle exercises, where if you do certain ones, you strengthen certain muscles. Disciplines are ways we learn of our dependence on God.”

Becoming disciples involves growing in human identity. Again, we must ask, “Does Scripture speak of this?” The answers come from (1) understanding how the brain transmits character from generation to generation and (2) studying how the Bible speaks of deformed and missing character (called iniquity). To become mature, we need to learn and exercise our missing capacities. We will first examine how character is formed, so we can understand how it becomes deformed.

Attachment begins with grace—being the sparkle of joy in someone’s eye. Joy is relational. Someone is very glad to be with me. Joy is a high-energy state and must alternate with quiet rest. Energy from joy must be limited to the abilities of the weaker member of the bond, so the stronger member doesn’t overwhelm the weaker. Attachment begins long before birth and continues developing across our entire life. Attachment is exclusive. Although we may have many attachments, one attachment cannot be exchanged for another. Attachment links us to the flow of life; it grows identity and builds resilience, and it governs what gets our attention and forms our thoughts. Attachment is the strongest force in the human brain.

The enjoyment of God is foundational to transformation of character. The enjoyment of God is a primary part of what is required if we are going to be emotionally mature people.”

Now surely you see why a positive and loving God-image is absolutely necessary for creating happy and healthy people. Without it, we will continue to create lots of mean Christians who have no way out of their hall of negative mirrors.[10]

The brain develops in stages. Stages include critical periods when essential abilities are growing.

Very specific conditions are needed to acquire relational-brain skills. The same conditions are not needed to use relational-brain skills. Acquiring skills requires interaction with a better-trained brain. Identity and character-building, relational skills are almost entirely nonverbal and are learned in the first two years of life. When missing skills are remediated, the process is still nonverbal, based on attachment, and requires real joy but needs much more practice because the brain is no longer in the critical-growth phase.

A full set of human emotional skills produces a consistent life. Most people fall into sudden immaturity precisely when they need a skill they neither possess nor know exists.

Dallas acknowledges this group-identity influence when he says, “The configuration of disciplines needs to be done in the context of a community. You need friends who themselves are living a disciplined life with whom you can share and discuss what’s happening. Even solitude has a communal quality.”

maturity requires mastery of identity expression (staying relational) under increasingly difficult circumstances.

A deformed identity may break down for almost no external reason or may run persistently in the wrong way. Healing and deliverance may be needed before we can form new attachments, learn relational skills, and develop the character of disciples.

Once grown into a shape it was not intended to have, the tree trunk cannot be changed. This shape is an iniquity. Iniquity is deformed growth—in particular, both character and identity. Transgression is not doing what we should and could do. Sin is falling short of what we aimed to do.

Jesus used physical deformities to make his point about deformities of the soul.

Jesus made the point that iniquities are more difficult to correct than sin is to forgive.

He said, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’;...

pick up your pallet and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—He said to the paralytic, ‘I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.’”[18] By doing the harder activity (hea...

Discipleship must also deal with iniquities of character to produce the character of Christ. Let us return to Peter and John as they encounter an iniquity (paralysis) by the gate called Beautiful. The disciples, in mutual mind with God, responded with God’s response. Disciples have authority to address iniquities.

Raising a baby, doing medical work, or farming helps us build relationships while cleaning up disgusting messes. Most of us can imagine using sadness, fear, and disgust to improve relationships.

When the conscious mind is driving us to constant activity, the indirection from disciplines of abstinence will reduce our striving. Dallas then says about solitude, “Another thing solitude does is to help you be quiet. Quietness is an essential condition of

the spiritual life; it represents a peace that our bodies and our souls hunger for.” He also says, “You have to practice solitude in order to know its benefits. Solitude

is not righ...

If our means of transformation are to succeed, then

we

must train the brain the way...

Striving is exactly what is best corrected by spiritual disciplines. Striving is not a righteous motive.

Yet, immaturity causes a different sort of striving.

If we saw someone who could not swim thrashing in the water, the problem is different. Both make an intense effort. The expert swimmer strives doing too much with the skills he or she has. The drowning person strives exactly because skills are missing. The answer is not to stop striving but to acquire skill. The need to acquire identity and character precedes the need to manage them.

With or without relational skills, there will be striving. When we simply need to stop striving, we need disciplines to create enough space to redirect our attention.

We overdevelop some abilities when we lack others, and that leads to striving.

A complete set of relational-identity skills still cannot replace dependence on God. Is it time to practice the reliance on God that Jesus developed when he was older?

A living identity moves into the fast track of our brain, creating Christlike character. All our moral choices and first reactions begin resembling our new people—let us hope they are disciples of Jesus.

The problem for our character is that diversity will not replace relational practice. Belonging to everyone does not provide enough practice to belong to anyone.

It is simply not possible for every generation to figure out these relational skills for themselves during the critical periods of development.

Problems accumulate from generation to generation because we pass on only the character we have. Skills will not be passed on without attachment. Skills will not be learned while we or they are watching a screen, away at school or work, in a retirement home, loaded on drugs, or living

in a different town. Christlike character will not be passed on if we were never disciples.

Examining Christian practices based on how the brain creates human identity and character reveals that Christians are not very attached to God or one another. We

already know that a

loving attachment to God and others is good doctrine. Disciples need more practice ...

become the sacred cows of the future. Our practice gets cluttered with solutions to problems that no longer need the same attention. Every generation discovers overcorrections from previous generations that produced unintended deformities in character. These corrections are the means (M) that, as Dallas told us, are not righteous and are to be selected according to wisdom so they will fit the need.

We kill the church when we make Christianity about fulfilling a vision. When a church, staff, program, or outreach is forced to service a vision, striving is about to begin. Joy and peace levels fall—casualties of striving to fulfill visions. The impetus of attachment love gives way to burnout. People who question the vision risk being downgraded as Christians. Justifications begin to multiply—both for visions and for having enough to do. Justifications come with a great deal of “Christianeze”—pious language intended to make supporting (or avoiding) the vision a righteous act. This is striving.

The mission vision is strong on love for God and for outsiders. Yet, building hesed relational skills and loving attachments in their group identity has proved inadequate. Building a lasting group identity would take them away from their vision to reach the world. The mission vision is focused like a flashlight on people who do not know God. Vision thus becomes a destructive master. Serving the vision gains the world by trading their souls for results.

Many churches close as spinners go from gray to white hair. Spinning churches age but do not produce disciples. One can be a pacifist, evangelize heathens, and worship and feed the hungry while “the people we help” never become “my people.” There is no load on our character. By contrast, attaching to our enemies with love reveals our hidden character flaws. Staying in a comfort zone results in overlooking our own iniquities. Our children and grandchildren are led to believe these iniquities are Christian character. “That is how Christians are!” our children think and tell their friends. Churches who make disciples must neither strive nor spin. Actively practicing spontaneous, loving attachment to our enemies will keep us on the right track. We are training character in the fast track. Only a mutual mind with Jesus provides spontaneous, loving attachment to “horrid people.”