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. - from the publisher

An amazing book that I read with a book group. Willard is an engaging author with accessible style, an academic mind and passionate heart. Practical and life-changing stuff. I own it and plan to read it many times. ( )

It's a classic, but this book is blowing my mind and giving me a lot to think about and rethink when it comes to what it means to live the Christian life. It's rich and deep, so don't try to go through it quickly.

Dallas Willard's Theology in a NutsHell.

First in importance is the Gospel of the Kingdom: the Life and teaching of Jesus. Good!

He doesn't dwell on the atonement doctrine. He more or less ignores the various atonement theories and gives it little play.

He pretty much ignores the violent, vengeful, jealous, petty, angry, low end anthropomorphic god inconveniently portrayed in parts of the Old Testament.

He speaks of Consumer Christianity and Vampire Christians. They don't take the teachings of Christ seriously and play around the edges. Vampire Christian is an interesting term - those who focus only on the blood sacrifice for their sin but pay no attention to Jesus’ life and teachings.

He uses the term Kingdom of the Heavens, where God dwells and his will gets done. Dallas seems shy about using the translation where Jesus says "The Kingdom of God is in you." He prefers "among you". I believe this fits his metaphysical system better -- our immersion in God more than his immersion in us.

He ignores Hell because he says there is one universe, implying there is no Hell universe. Simply put, everyone survives death and goes to Heaven, their character unchanged. Dying doesn't make you automagically perfect.(He added a qualifier on pg 302, TDC: God will let everyone into Heaven who can stand it. Does this suggest non existence of personality for those who can't stand it?} Willard suggests that evil people are placed farther away from God’s presence in Heaven. He uses the term "The fires of Heaven", so some of Heaven isn't a pleasant place for those that don't take what Jesus taught seriously.

As for theosis, despite some of Paul's teaching, I'm not clear on Willard's belief about divinization continuing after death, because he asks, "What if death only forever fixes us as the kind of person we are at death?" Willard asks a question but doesn't explain his opinion on God's command to be perfect as God is perfect, and if that command continues on in Heaven until perfection is attained. SCB ( )

About all I can say is, "WOW!"

Never before have I got less than half-way through an audio book and said to myself "I have got to get a dead tree version of this for future reference"

I got this from a used book sale at the local library and based on the title I had a completely different idea of what this book was about. What I got was a deep edifying look at life as a disciple of Christ in the 21st century.

I "had" to stop reading this several times because it was very challenging that it "made" me feel like I'm not a very good Christian.

I ended up with 4.5 rather than 5 stars because I think he may have gone off the rails at the end with his discussion of the life after death ( )