Hope: Willard refutes the disconnect between life and faith

I've been reading The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard, and thought I'd share a few enlightening things I've read so far. These are things that I tend to think, "of course that's part of our faith and church!", but find that even in my own thinking I am not always where I expect to be. That may sound confusing, but perhaps as you read on you'll see what I mean.


What exactly is the central message of the gospel?
Many Christians would begin with John 3:16, and by saying that God, in his infinite love and mercy saved us from the punishment our sins deserve through the death of Jesus Christ, defeating death allowing us to have eternal life. This is true, yet Willard suggests that our focus on eternal life after death really misunderstands Jesus' main message and leads to a kind of hopelessness about how we are to live now.

"When we examine the broad spectrum of Christian proclamation and practice, we see that the only thing made essential on the right wing of theology is forgiveness of the individual's sins. On the left is removal of social or structural evils. ... Transformation of life and character is no part of the redemptive message. Moment-to-moment human reality in its depths is not the arena of faith and eternal living" (41)

Willard translates John 3:16 as follows:

God's care for humanity was so great that he sent his unique Son among us, so that those who count on him might not lead a futile and failing existence, but have the undying life of God himself (1)

Eternal, or "the undying life of God himself", life begins now. Christ healing and touching us, working in our everyday lives.

The Kingdom of Heaven
Sometimes when I'm reading I get really excited. I sense that I am finally going to have an important question I've been wondering about answered. This was the case when I read this:

The phrase kingdom of the heavens occurs thirty-two times in Matthew's Gospel and never again in the New Testament. By contrast, the phrase kingdom of God occurs only five times in that Gospel but is the usual term used in the remainder of the New Testament. What is the significance this variation in terminology? (73)

Willard devotes many pages to this, but the gist of what he is saying is this: the world translated "heavens" meant, in the context of both the old and new testaments, the space where God is. Importantly, this was considered to be the "air or atmosphere which surrounds your body" (67). "The heavens" are not far away, neither in time nor space. They are here and now. (This is really hard for me to explain in a few words; you should either read the book or talk more with me later!) When Jesus said "the kingdom of heaven is at hand", he did not mean that it was arriving soon or in the future. God is in this very real world he has created, and offers to us the possibility of living in this heavenly reality.

To more clearly answer the above quotation:

Matthew, the quintessentially Judaic Gospel, as a matter of course utilizes the phrase he kingdom of the heavens to describe God's rule, or "kingdom". It captures that rich heritage of the Jewish experience of the nearness of God that is so largely lost to the contemporary mind. (73)

The Brilliance of Jesus
I will close by leaving you to meditate on the brilliance of Jesus. Willard cautions that "The world has succeeded in opposing intelligence to goodness" (135) This discourages our faith, and doesn't really make sense. As Willard writes,

Can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uninformed? Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what we take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived? (94)

I've been reflecting on this, because as Willard also says, "It is not possible to trust Jesus, or anyone else, in matters where we do not believe him to be competent" (94)

The Spaces in Which We Live

In a book I read recently, the author quoted an unnamed friend who said that, with respect to how groups of people interact, "Architecture always wins". This got me thinking; how much are we affected by the spaces we inhabit?

I could go on and on about important this is with regards to churches. I'll briefly give a few positive and negative examples:

• Consider most large cathedrals and Orthodox churches, full of art. One is filled with awe, stimulated to worship by the beauty and care of the art. Who can feel proud in a cathedral?
• Contrast this to a local baptist church I have visited: bare brick walls, angular architectural features. Focus is towards the stage, which is adorned only by a stark cross. How does this affect worship? Are we only worshiping God's truth and seeking to learn? Are we not also praising him for his beauty and awesome glory?
• The local church I attend while in Houghton meets in an old building with stained-glass windows. My favourite part about the building is that the sanctuary is built so that all the pews are curved and the people sitting in them face one another. I think this contributes to the strong sense of community felt in that church.
• My home church met in a retirement home. While I believe that the church should care for the aging, can a space that was originally designed for those who are quietly ending their lives also serve a church, which has such an urgent and active mission?
• How much is the life and warmth of a house church due to the home in which it meets?
  

I think the excellence and craftsmanship of a space affects our behavior in it.

This week I came across an interesting phenomena: tiny houses. Watch this.

This is a relatively wealthy person choosing to live in a small space because he wants to. How does the chosen size of our dwelling affect our values? What do you think about his motives?