I recently came across a quote from Dallas Willard which I thought might be relevant to my dissertation project about habit formation and spiritual disciplines:
"Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are getting."
Although it was credited as coming from his book The Divine Conspiracy, no page number was cited.
So I checked it out on Amazon, read a sample, and thought it might be worth buying - so I did.
The book has me intrigued so far and might prove to be useful to me beyond my project.
In assessing the current weakness (as of 1997) of American Christianity, Willard writes:
"[Jesus] is automatically seen as a more or less magical figure - a pawn, or possibly a knight or a bishop, in some religious game - who fits only within the categories of dogma and of law. Dogma is what you have to believe, whether you believe it or not. And law is what you must do, whether it is good for you or not." (xiii)
Willard sadly nails the contemporary definition of "dogma" here!
I am anxious to keep reading - I am not terribly familiar with his work in general but I have found the first few chapters insightful.
No comments:
Post a Comment