The Dallas Willard Revolution in Christian Spirituality Part 1: Framing the Problem of How to Live

Abstract

Dallas Willard was professor of philosophy at USC and an influential Christian teacher. His ground-up reexamination of the teachings of Jesus led him to an understanding of living which has proven helpful to many people, including me. He identified practical means of becoming transformed into the kinds of persons who would naturally and easily co-operate with the Holy Spirit’s guidance in daily life. This article (Part 1) discusses the background concepts for such kingdom living. A future article (Part 2) describes the specific actions that Christians can take in order to live as apprentices to Jesus.

Introduction

Dallas Willard (1935 to 2013) was a remarkable man. Born in the dirt-poor Ozarks region of southern Missouri, he possessed a highly capable mind. As with C. S.  Lewis, Willard was reputed to have read everything, and remembered everything he read.

As a very young man, Willard was a Baptist minister. He became dissatisfied, however, with what he was doing, in two ways. First, he felt a need for a deeper understanding of God and related metaphysical subjects, so he went off to the University of Wisconsin for a PhD in philosophy. He went on to become a pillar of the University of Southern California philosophy department for many decades. I will have more to say about his philosophical output, particularly in the area of epistemology, at some other time.

For now, I will focus on his other dissatisfaction as a young minister. He observed that his preaching, although based on well-established evangelical themes, was not actually having much of an effect on his hearers. He saw very little in the way of changed lives, even among those whose lives would clearly benefit from changing. The amount of anxiety and stress and self-centeredness and anger and sadness, and all the behaviors that go with those internal states, stayed about the same in his congregations.

This deeply troubled Willard, and it drove him to set aside everything he had been taught about Christianity and to pick up the New Testament and read it (especially the Gospels) with a fresh eye, to re-examine what Jesus taught about how to actually live life. He came to the devastating conclusion that the gospel he had been preaching was not the gospel that Jesus preached.

Physical Evidence Shows No Global Flood of Noah. Does It Matter?

Summary

Tens of thousands of annual layers of sediments in lake bottoms, and hundreds of thousands of annual layers of summer/winter snow pack in glaciers have been analyzed. If a year-long global flood had occurred, there would be clear disturbance in these layers, but no such disturbance is observed. This shows there has been no such flood.

Some groups suggest that much of the layered sedimentary rocks were deposited during a Noahic global flood. However, observation and thought regarding thick limestone layers, and caves and sinkholes found withing these layers, show that this is not plausible. These formations were formed over millions of years. Moreover, the order of plant and animal fossil in the rock layers comport with evolution and deposition over long periods, not with mass burial in one large inundation.

The theological significance of these findings is discussed. It is noted that there are multiple instances in the Bible of stories being told which are not factually accurate, but which convey moral or spiritual truths. These include Ahab and the prophet (I Kings 20), Nathan confronting David (II Samuel 12), and the parables of Jesus. It is suggested that the creation and flood narratives in Genesis 1-8 fall into this category. This poses no challenge to the authority of the Bible: an examination of II Timothy 3:15-17 shows that the Scriptures were not given to us to teach geology and biology, but rather to convey spiritual and moral truths that could not be inferred from observations of the physical world.

Cooking with Just the Sun’s Rays: GoSun Sport-E Solar Oven Review

Sections to Follow: The Case for Solar Cooking; Types of Solar Cookers; Cooking with Solar Ovens; Review of Purchased GoSun Sport-E Solar Oven; Why This Article on This Blog

The Case for Solar Cooking

Although domestic cooking in developed countries comprises only a tiny fraction of total energy consumption, this is not true in some regions. Some 2 billion people still cook over fires of wood, charcoal, or animal dung. Foraging for wood can contribute to deforestation in arid or densely-populated regions. It is usually the women doing the cooking over these fires, inhaling smoke with all its consequences. Also, it is again women who largely end up gathering the fuel. All this gathering and fire-tending consumes time which takes away from other tasks like raising food. Also, women can be assaulted in the forests while they are gathering fuel.

It is possible to construct devices which capture enough of the sun’s rays to cook food (more technical details below). Various non-governmental aide organizations (NGOs) help people in poor, mainly sunny/tropical regions and in refugee camps to purchase or construct solar cookers. It is possible to set up cottage industries for locally making and selling these devices at low cost. This a win-win.  Solar Cookers International specializes in this work, and has developed and shared some of the most useful technology here. They claim some four million solar cookers are in use, and present figures for how much CO2 emissions and money for fuel are saved.

Douglas Gresham: Stepson of C. S. Lewis, and Much More

Nearly sixty years after his death (the same day in 1963 that JFK was killed), the writings of C. S. Lewis are still readable and impactful. Enough of the shape of the modern/post-modern world had emerged at least in Europe when Lewis penned his works that they remain thoroughly relevant. Also, many of the themes he treated, such as the failings of humans and the odd divine rescue operation centered in Jesus of Nazareth, are essentially timeless. See  “The World’s Last Night”: C. S. Lewis on the Second Coming for a listing of the diverse types of literature he produced.

Shadowlands,  the movie of Lewis’s romance with the brilliant American Jewish communist divorcee Joy Davidman, includes Davidman’s son Douglas Gresham as a minor character. Also, I had been aware over the years that he had some sort of role in the movie productions of some of Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles, such as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Thus, I could identify Douglas Gresham as the stepson of C. S. Lewis, but that was about it.

Canadian Wildfires Will Likely Burn All Summer; Ways to Filter the Air in Your Home

As I write this, the U.S. Atlantic coast is again impacted by smoke drifting down from the wildfires in Quebec and western provinces of Canada. Several sources I checked indicated that it is unrealistic to expect human effort to extinguish these fires (see here , here, and here). The Canadian forests are just too huge in relation to the fire-fighting resources. What usually happens, even during a normal fire season, is that summer fires just keep burning until they are dampened down by winter rain, snow, and cold. Most of the fire-fighting efforts are devoted to saving communities that are in the path of the flames.

The Museum of the Bible (Washington, DC) on Creation and Evolution

I recently visited the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. It is large, and I did not get to tour all of the exhibits.  There are many well-done, informative exhibits on topics such as archaeology of the Holy Land (featuring a large display by the Israel Antiquities Authority), the cultural impact of the Bible, and the history of various translations.

Potent Portfolio Diversifier: Managed Futures Funds Went Up When Both Stocks and Bonds Went Down

This post is to share some observations that may be helpful to readers who, like me, depend to some degree on their investments and who were rudely surprised by the simultaneous steep decline in both bonds and stocks in the past year.

“Five Talents” Microfinance NGO Helps the Poorest of the Poor to Start Their Own Businesses

It is a pleasure to be able to report on a successful microfinance outfit that helps the poorest of the poor. I heard a talk recently from Dale Stanton-Hoyle, CEO of the Five Talents organization. (He is as nice in person as he looks in this photo).

Modern Physics and the Human Person (Arnold Sikkema, ASA 2022)

I was not able to attend the American Scientific Affiliation 2022 meeting in person, but I signed up for access to the talks on line. Here I will summarize a talk by Arnold Sikkema, titled “Modern Physics and the Human Person.”  Dr. Sikkema is a professor of physics and chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Trinity Western University, near Vancouver.

His outline notes the three major themes of this talk:

Composition is more than physical

Coherence across the multiple aspects of composition

Indeterminism

The “Wave Razor” May Explain Why Some Unconformities in Rock Layers Are So Flat

Summary

In many exposures of sedimentary rock layers there is a significant gap in age (“unconformity”) between two adjacent layers. This indicates that after the lower layer had been deposited and turned into solid rock, it was raised above water level and exposed to millions of years of erosion, and then sank again below water level to allow the deposition of further sediments which became the upper layer of this interface. Normally we think of erosion creating highly furrowed surfaces. It is therefore somewhat puzzling that the surface between old (lower) and younger (upper) rock layers is often so smooth and flat that it is not obvious that there is an eroded interface there at all.