Knowing Christ Today by Dallas Willard

This was a very good book ... not consistently or at least some parts were less interesting than others. His explanation of spiritual life is solid and refreshing and his history of the "disapearance of moral knowledge" is very important. I see in the acknowledgments that this was adapted from 8 talks he gave on the topic and it does feel like that in some parts. BUT, there is much to recommend and as far as something readable like this, I know of no better book to show us some ground to stand on.

Overall he helps me see that academic and high culture has effectively killed all knowledge beyond narrow physical and scientific truth and has failed to replace it with anything solid ... and so effectively has left us to the wolves. By wolves I mean advertising and media ... they are the new meaning makers since all other traditions have been exploded. No wonder we are in deep need of a shepherd. Another way to put it, to borrow from Dorthy Sayers, is that society increased literacy with a decrease in ability to reason and judge truth ... leaving us as unarmed children in the face of the onslaught of the biggest media-blitz ever.

How can we see it any other way? Symbol is lost and replaced with logo. Moral judgement loses out to truth based on desire and what feels good. I am sure I sound like an old man, but I have trouble seeing it any other way. He ends by explaining that the call to discipleship is for the sake of the world, not for the church. The Kingdom of God is for "the whole life and for all of life. Jesus is not just a sacrificial lamb whose death gets us off the hook of our guilt. He is also the reigning Lord of all."

I am reminded of Bonhoeffer in some of his later letters from prison. He tells Eberhard (his best friend) that he is tired of the god of the gaps ... there to meet us at the limits of life (sin and death). God is a God of life and so the church should not be off to the side, ready to receive us when we are pitiful and broken, but at the center of life. "The church stands, not at the boundaries where human powers give out, but in the middle of the village." Dallas Willard is always calling us to live at the center of the village. Perhaps it goes back to his own choice. When he was younger and trying to decide which path to take between philosophy and theology, he decided that if he went with theology the world would never listen to him, but if he went with philosophy he could speak to the world and the church. This isn't everyone's choice, but it was his and he has taught at University of California in Berkeley for most of his life.