Certainly the Best Book I Have Ever Read | The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God |...

Deserving of all praise | The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God | Dallas Willard

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	• The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God Dallas Willard HarperOne, 1998 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 137 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Everyone should read

...for points to consider; whether you're Christian or not.

Certainly the Best Book I Have Ever Read

My mother bought this book for me about a year ago when she attended a teacher's conference in California. She heard Willard speak and decided that since I was into philosophy, that she would buy it for me. I neglected to read the book until about a month ago. Since then I have found a book that has truly brought back joy into my life as a Christian. It is so easy, in this ungodly world that we live in, to only see your Christian walk as something that only gets you into heaven and forget the fact that Jesus tought us exactly what to do while we are waiting. Willard has constructed here a work that i would place on my shelf of honor along with C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and Thomas A'Kempis' Imitation of Christ. This book is truly one of the classics in Christian literature. If you are a Christian already then don't let this great opportunity pass you by. This book will open your mind on how to be a direct apprentice to your King and Savior and bring untold amounts of joy into your life!

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Deserving of all praise

This is a vastly rewarding book. I have already started re-reading the last two chapters where Willard gives the best advice I've ever come across on how we are to "live in the Kingdom." You will be challenged by The Divine Conspiracy - it is not an easy read. However, it is also generous, gracious and quite possibly life transforming. It has been a blessing to me and is now my number one recommended book.

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Deep Truths in an Easy to Read Format

I like Dallas Willard. He couples philosophy with theology and offers a Christian voice of amazing depth to our sometimes shallow world. However, like other deep thinkers he can often be hard to read. . . . BUT, . . . this book is not like that. In this book Willard hits a literary home run by coupling depth with clarity. So far, this is my favorite of all of his books.

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Venture on 'the kingdom of the heavens'.

Dallas Willard is rightly seen as one of the finest theologians of our day. Philosopher (USC) and philologist, he is a sagacious student and teacher of Christ's invitation to citizenship in The Kingdom Among Us, "the kingdom of the heavens."
"The Divine Conspiracy" may be one of the most powerful and accessible works of exegesis written in the past century. As Richard Foster has said of the book, it may, in some sense, stand with even the great works of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. Such praise seems too lofty until one has ventured into Willard's exposition. The book is rigorously and beautifully organized, and astonishingly broad in scope. To be sure, this has more than a little to do with Willard's logic and language skills, but mostly it is because he does such a wonderful job of examining and explaining Christ's teachings, particularly focusing on the so-call Sermon on the Mount. (After previewing Christ's manner of teaching and describing the topography of the location, Willard refers to it as The Discourse on the Hill). Willard wisely leads the reader toward the mysterious profundity of the Discourse by first explaining the serious inadequacies of the "sin management" poles of the Christian "right" (Bible-thumpin', bumper-sticker faith) and "left" (the exclusively material, social gospel). This alone is a highly important treatment, but Willard is only prefacing a journey into deeper waters. Before traveling into the Discourse, the author's significant philological insights illuminate certain poor translations of scripture and, most particularly, what rightly was (and is) meant in language concerning a God of/in "the heavens", and "the kingdom of the heavens." The final preface to his examination of Christ's teachings is an argument as to why these teachings beg our attentions. Jesus Christ, "the master of molecules", is uniquely seen as the most intelligent man to have ever lived on Earth. He was "nice" essentially because he was "brilliant." (If he was truly who he and his followers say he was, how could we think otherwise? His knowledge of nature would transcend the 'uncertainty principle' and Einstein's energy/matter equation, and his knowledge of the human mind [i.e., heart, will, psyche] must be unmatchable.) The strength of this view grows greater upon closer examination and, upon reflection, it is rather odd that few have thought of Christ in this way. Having laid this sound foundation, the author at last turns to the wisdom and beauty of the Discourse itself.
This reviewer found a point or two of disagreement with the author (as is nearly always the case, regardless of subject), but the book as a whole is simply too beautiful, wise and true for me to capture in my own words. I will cite passages from the text which will speak for it better than I obviously could. This of rejecting obsession, anger, and the violence done within one's selfish "heart":
"And in every situation we have the larger view. We are not passive, but we act always with clear-eyed and resolute love. We know what is really happening, seeing it from the point of view of eternity. . . We can be vulnerable because we are, in the end, invulnerable. And once we have broken the power of anger and desire over our lives, we know that the way of Christ in response to personal injury and imposition is always the easier way. It is the only way that allows us to move serenely in the midst of harm and beyond it." (p181)
And this having to do with withdrawing from condemnation, "that you be not judged":
"Now a moment's reflection is all that is required to make one realize how terribly powerful condemnation is. It knifes into vulnerable areas at the core of our being. That is why it hurts so badly and at the same time why we rely upon it so heavily. The decision to step aside from it, neither giving it nor receiving it, is a major turning point in one's life. If, as Christians say, we are really 'different' as followers of Christ, this is a point where it should be most obvious. We would not condemn, nor would we 'receive' condemnation directed upon us. Of course more than half of the battle with condemnation is won once we have given up anger and contempt. Condemnation always involves some degree of self-righteousness and of distancing ourselves from the one we are condemning." (p221)
"This explains why discriminating against people because of the kind of person they are, their identity, is so hateful and destructive. It also explains why the gospel of the kingdom has such transforming power in human life." (p222)
A visionary and transforming book to be meditated upon -- take your time with it.

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