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Foster: The problem today is that evangelism has reached the point of diminishing returns. I talk with people and they say, "What am I to be converted to? I look at Christians and statistically they aren't any different." You want to be able to point to people who are really different. Willard: … and people who are running a bank or a school, or functioning in government, maybe even in the military. What we need is more examples of people who actually have character that is Christlike. Isaiah brought up this problem of people whose lips are "near me" but...

Your Place In This World -- Dallas Willard Not so long ago, you have participated in commencement. I don’t altogether like the word commencement that suggests beginning. It doesn’t do justice to what you have already done. Nevertheless, there is a certain point to the word. You’re going through a change; you are commencing. I think perhaps the words that best capture the change are words like responsibility, effectiveness, and opportunity. You’re going out and will be on your own in a way you haven’t been before. That is what we were made for. Consider the wonderful words in Ephesians...

Some time ago I came to realize that I did not love the people next door. They were, by any standards, dangerous and unpleasant people—ex-bikers who made their living selling drugs. They had never tried to harm my family, but the constant traffic of people buying drugs, a number of whom sat in the yard while shooting up, began to wear down my patience. As I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation, the Lord helped me see that I really had no love for them at all, that after "suffering" from them for several years I would secretly...

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, God will honor.” Jesus (John 12:26) In July, 2002, Dallas Willard spoke at the Washington, D.C. Servant Leadership School. In conversation over lunch one day, Gordon Cosby asked Dallas, “Why do churches and ministries so often lose the essence of their founding vision, to the point that the resulting institution, years later, is quite unlike the original dream? What happens along the way?” This essay is Dallas’s response to that question. We are grateful to him for his gift of words...

If we are Christians simply by believing that Jesus died for our sins, then that is all it takes to have sins forgiven and go to heaven when we die. Why, then, do some people keep insisting that something more than this is desirable? Lordship, discipleship, spiritual formation, and the like? What more could one want than to be sure of their eternal destiny and enjoy life among others who profess the same faith as they do. Of course everyone wants to be a good person. But that does not require that you actually do what Jesus himself said and...

Interviewed by Andy Peck for Christianity + Renewal magazine, a United Kingdom publication, May 2002. Kingdom Living AP: In your first book, Spirit of the Disciplines, you pose the question "are we disciples of Jesus or merely Christians by modern standards?" Clearly you are concerned about the state of discipleship in the American Church. What alarms you most? DW: That the issue of discipleship is thought of as totally irrelevant to being a Christian which carries over to obedience to Christ’s teaching. The basic question ‘will I obey Christ ’s teaching?’ is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example,...

In the fall of 1999 a small group of Christian teachers gathered in retreat near Idaho Springs, Colorado to prayerfully reflect on the meaning and prospects of Christian spiritual formation today. With no human authority, but deep concern for the life of Jesus Christ in his people, and for the world-wide understanding of his Gospel, we sought for clear and helpful responses to several questions about spiritual formation that now confront us. Our hope is that these responses might serve to direct us in meeting the challenges of our day to profoundly Christlike being and living and in gaining maximum...

Craftiness of Christ (The) To be included in a volume entitled Mel Gibson's 'Passion' and Philosophy: Challenges in the Trial, Conviction and Crucifixion of Christ, edited by Jorge Gracia, published by Open Court Publishers, forthcoming. ----------------------------------------------------- The Passion of the Christ is a work of art. This means that it utilizes a medium to convey a vision of some serious aspect of the human condition. The medium in the case of a film has several levels: the roll of celluloid that can be produced, maintained or destroyed like any other physical object; the visual and auditory images that appear to...

SUBVERSIVE INTERVIEW - DALLAS WILLARD PART 1 Dallas Willard has spent the best part of his life getting down to business. That has meant stepping down from a pastorate involved in trying to attract people to his church, and immersing himself into the culture around him armed only with a Bible and a desire to make his faith more real. Having spent over 30 years as a professor of Philosophy at USC, Willard has become known as something of a controversial figure in Christian circles. Not for any overtly radical teachings or practices, but simply because of his call for...

How To Be a Disciple by Dallas Willard Dallas Willard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. This article is adapted from The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, by Dallas Willard. Reprinted by arrangement with HarperSanFrancisco, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers. This article appeared in The Christian Century, April 22-29, 1998, pp. 430-439. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation, used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This article was prepared for Religion Online by Harry W. and Grace C. Adams. ------------------------- Being a disciple or apprentice of Jesus...

Spiritual Formation in Christ: A Perspective on What it is and How it Might be Done ----------------------------------------------------- "... until Christ be formed in you." (Gal. 4:19) "Spiritual formation" is a phrase that has recently rocketed onto the lips and into the ears of Protestant Christians with an abruptness that is bound to make a thoughtful person uneasy. If it is really so important, not to mention essential, then why is it so recent? It must be just another passing fad in Protestant religiosity, increasingly self-conscious and threatened about "not meeting the needs of the people." And, really, isn't spiritual formation...

The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language' This paper has been read to the University of Southern California philosophy group and the Boston 1972 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, as well as to the Houston meeting of the Southwestern Philosophical Society. Appeared in The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, IV(1973), pp. 125-132. Numbers in "<>" refer to this journal. Among the principal assumptions of major portions of philosophy in recent decades have been: (1) That philosophy somehow consists of (some sort of) logic, and (2) that logic is a study of and theory about (some sort of) language. There, of...