Who Are We To Be?

 

As important it is to know and understand contemporary culture it is of greater importance to know the condition of the “deepest level of life and power”, one’s soul.

 

Philosophy professor Dallas Willard’s insightful new book, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ, (NavPress, 2003, ISBN #: 1-57683-296-1) takes readers on a This Old House approach to spiritual transformation, issuing a clarion call to Christ-likeness through an apprenticeship under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Willard spells out the book’s thesis: “spiritual transformation only happens as each essential dimension of the human being (mind, heart/will/spirit, body, social, and soul) is transformed to Christ-likeness under the direction of a regenerate will interacting with constant overtures of grace from God”. Willard goes on to explain that spiritually transformed individuals - who make a conscious and deliberate decision to submit to Christ’s orderly pattern of inside-out character renovation - will, in turn, transform social structures.

 

Willard provides critical analysis of the current contemporary spiritual/cultural landscape. One compelling chapter-and elsewhere-focuses on the “blessing and problem” surrounding the postmodern ethos of elevating feelings to irreverent, if not idolatrous, heights. Another chapter warns the visible Christian world that “(suffers) far too much from the influence of a surrounding culture that thrives on confusion”. Willard also issues biblical, yet realistic solutions as he expects wholeness not perfection. This book is an invaluable tool for those seeking to know the living God and incarnate the Word as “children of light” in a fallen/lost world.

 

-Doug West