Book review

GSEM541 Spiritual Formation

Student: Daniel Cirț

Title: The Spirit of the Discipline

Author: Dallas Willard

Publisher: New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. ISBN: 978-0-06-069442-5.

General subject matter: Spiritual life

Content:

Dallas Willard begins his book from the fact that Christianity is far back from accomplishing

what Christians believe about how they should be. Theoretically we know the characteristics

of a Christ follower, but none of us, or very few, are really doing what they say. The Spirit of

Discipline tries to respond to the question: How God changes lives? In this respect, the

author builds a theology of spiritual growth, and challenges the reader to think his

spirituality in practical terms. Also the line of argumentation shows on every step why we

Christians fail on living a christlike life.

The theology of spiritual growth is based upon the way we see our salvation, not as a

moment in our life history, but an entirely life process. This is a result not only of the death

of Christ, but also of His life. Christians should be Christ followers in regard to His life. The

everyday life is where spirituality is expressed, and it has a great connection with our body

as the locus of our life. When God created man, He endowed him with a body, which is the

source of our perceptions and life experience. The statement “there is no life outside the
human body” is the essence of the spiritual life. What we do with our body, to our body and

for our body influences our entire being. That’s why the true spirituality is not outside the

human body, nor only a part of our life, but the whole of our life. The body is not to be seen

as a source of sin, but a battlefield where the old tendencies to sin and the new life in Christ

fight against each other to take supremacy over the body. The way in which we prepare our

body to accept the divine ruling is the discipline, the spiritual disciplines. These are not the

purpose, having value in it selves, but the training for us to develop connections between

our body and the Holy Spirit.

The life of Jesus and the life of Apostle Paul are two examples on how this discipline has

practical purposes. Christians usually think that some practices of our Savior, or of Paul’s life

are not applicable in our days. We wonder why there are no direct interventions of God in

our work like in the apostles’ time, but we do not follow apostles’ example in everyday

living. The theology of Paul is a theology of the body. We can find in Paul’s teaching a three

steps process on how our body becomes the place in which the law of God is accomplished.

First, we are baptized in Christ, liberating us from the power of sin. Second, we make a

distinction between our body and the sin tendencies inside it, reckoning that this is not our

body that pushes us to sin. Third, we submit our members to righteousness, in which we

consciously exercise our body to obtain a real automatism of doing the will of God.

Our fail to accept some ascetic disciplines for our life is due in large portion to the historic

misconception and malpractice of ascetics. The monastic movement put the wrong accent

on spiritual discipline especially in order to obtain divine grace and forgiveness. On such

background, the Protestantism took away the importance of spiritual discipline for spiritual

growth. Discussing some of the most important disciplines for spiritual life, the author

systematizes them in two categories: disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of

engagement. All of them are necessary to develop a basis for spiritual growth, the firsts

making space for the seconds. Each person must decide what disciplines are fitted to his

experience, because every individual has his own tendencies and sins to fight against.

The author then wants to clarify that poverty, as it was practiced along Christian history, is

not a spiritual discipline. He makes distinction between possessing, using and trusting in

riches. The last chapter tries to envision a different world in which Christians have

accomplished their calling to be like Jesus. This will be the establishment of the Kingdom of

Grace on earth.

Evaluation:

The book succeeds to point a good and practical theology of spiritual growth. It affirms the

right place of the human body in the plan of redemption. Anyone who reads it has to put

himself a serious question on immortality of the soul. The author made an excellent work

demonstrating the importance and purpose of spiritual discipline and gathered a sufficient

base of evidence and arguments on that.

In spite of the assurance of the author that the term “theology” shouldn’t be frightening, the

book is not so easy to read for the ordinary reader. Although there is no heavy theological

language, there is a dense line of argumentation with too few illustrations. The final chapter

fails to see the eschatological dimension of the Kingdom of God, tending to affirm a

triumphalist view of the church mission.

As a final evaluation, the book is a great source of deep thoughts and profound Scriptural

knowledge on spiritual growth. It does respond to the question how God is changing people

in the image of His Son. It really helped me to rethink my spiritual life and to change it in

some practical aspects.