BOOK REPORT (7/17/2019):

“Becoming Dallas Willard” by Gary Moon

Becoming like one who became like Christ

We all need models. We stare at them in magazine ads and on runways because they remind us, if even deep down, what human beings have the potential to look like.

There are models of other sorts, too. Dallas Willard is a supermodel of spirituality that I have been staring at for nearly 20 years, with a mixture of admiration, jealousy, and devotion. And not just me. Plenty of aspiring spiritual-types have gawked at Willard, wondering how he became the model of faith that he did and how they might come to look like him. In commemoration of his death one of his students, Gary Moon, wrote “Becoming Dallas Willard” (IVP 2018) to share lessons of his life and ministry with anybody else who might become so transfixed.

The Philosopher-Boy from SoMo

Willard, who died in 2013, hails from rural Southern Missouri. He showed a penchant for academics and philosophy early on and made his way to Baylor and Wisconsin for training. An aspiring teacher, he eventually settled in as a philosophy professor at USC, where he spent decades inspiring undergraduates to think more philosophically about the everyday matters of their lives. His area of philosophical expertise was metaphysics—the study of first principles, like being and knowing and causation, etc. He was a follower of Edmund Husserl, another philosopher, who wrote extensively on whether or not we, as subjects with limited perspective, could know anything about the objective universe. Dallas agreed with Edmund that yes, we can. (Bear with me, as this idea of objective knowledge features prominently in his teaching on Christian spirituality.)

Although he did make a contribution, Willard was not a well-known philosopher. But more importantly for us, he was a Christian who modeled faith and goodness, born out of great childhood pain. His beloved mother died when Dallas was just a lad, and his father and stepmom didn’t know how to raise him. He bounced around from one family home to another, and ultimately found his home in the Christian Church. And where he had known mostly rejection, he eventually discovered everlasting love in the encompassing and felt presence of God, which he experienced and depended upon.

As his academic career (or as he calls it, a “careen”) grew, he remained an ordinary sinner whose everyday problems—academic failure, vanity, severe depression, parenting failures—forced him to find rest and counsel in the ever-present reality of Jesus. To him, Jesus was the most interesting human being who had ever lived. His teachings on righteousness and the kingdom of God were not just esoteric notions but could be experienced in the here-and-now by normal people like us. His books—including “The Divine Conspiracy,” “Renovation of the Heart,” and “Hearing God”—explained the why and how of such kingdom-living.

Basically, Willard had the audacity to think that even terrible people like us really can live as Jesus lived, by doing what Jesus did. Jesus is our model, and as Dallas modeled Christ he become a model to us so we can be a model to others.

A Curriculum for Christ-Likeness

In “Becoming Dallas Willard,” Moon narrates Willard’s life wonderfully, and does an excellent job of tying together the strands of Willard’s philosophy and theology with Willard’s penchant for psychology. Indeed, the notion that we can know and experience God is based on the controversial philosophical idea that we can know the world outside of us, and that the kingdom of God can be grasped as objective reality. (Philosopher-types call these things “metaphysical and epistemic realism.”) Additionally, his academic interest in psychology gave him the language and concepts to discuss how life in Jesus’ presence can change who we are at the level of our wills.

For many of us in the Church, Willard seems to have come along at just the right time in the life of American Christianity. There is a severe shortage of personal transformation in most Christian churches. We are good at believing and preaching, but not so good at changing. Even those people who want to grow as Christ-followers can be thwarted by the difficulty of such a project.

In Dr. Willard, frustrated Christian leaders and laypeople alike found a practical yet intellectually-rooted “curriculum for Christ-likeness” that emphasized the availability of life in the kingdom. Dallas modeled it, too. Everyone who met him encountered his “unhurried goodness” (to borrow the words of John Ortberg). Even his non-Christian USC students visited his austere and poorly air-conditioned house for counsel. They would spend hours imposing on him, drinking in his wisdom or just being listened to, while his wife served them lemonade. One student says that talking with Dr. Willard saved his life.

Over the decades this network of Willardites grew to include some real movers and shakers, including presidential candidate John Kasich, and best-selling authors John Ortberg and Richard Foster. This informal network was formalized in the creation of the Renovare Institute which offers spiritual training for Christian leaders looking to grow. Various “Dallas Willard” organizations have been formed in the wake of his death, to keep his passion and perspective alive.

But Does It Work?

Dallas Willard is not for the faint of heart. I have read most of his books and find them powerful, insightful, correct…and dry. I tried to take a small group Bible study through “Renovation of the Heart” and it was a miserable experience for all. Potential students might consider reading John Ortberg’s Dallas Willard primer, “Soul Keeping” instead. (Part of the difficulty of his material is because his books are mostly transcripts of his lectures, compiled by publishers eager to spread his ideas. Willard was too focused on his classroom and immediate context to spend much time writing for a wider audience.)

So as much as a blessing Dr. Willard has been to me, and as much as I want to “become” more like him, even I have mixed thoughts. My life is undoubtedly better because of my time spent “living in the kingdom as an available reality,” as encouraged by Willard (and as taught by Jesus). But as much as I’ve tried spiritual disciplines of prayer, memorization, fasting, and the like, it just doesn’t seem to work as well for me as it did for him. He seemed to be blessed with a spiritual intimacy that few of us experience. Sure, I’ve had my moments, but Willard describes a level of personal transformation and divine connection that seems unique and rare. In a way, it seems that he was chosen.

Which is the gist of my question, doubling as a quibble. Some models are born with good looks. They were gifted to walk runways. Was Dallas Willard born with the character and humility and insight to model spirituality? It seems so. And is it fair for the rest of us to try to become models we never will be? It doesn’t work for young girls trying to become something they’re not. Will it for us?

Probably not. Trying too hard might lead to some version of unhealthy spiritual anorexia. I have been more frustrated by the challenges of the spiritual life than Dallas seems to think we should expect to be. Years of prayer and meditation have not made a dent in some of my most deeply-felt emotional problems. And my experience with God in prayer seems to pale in comparison to his, and not (I think) for lack of trying.

But that doesn’t mean that Willard’s example of the Christian life isn’t beautiful or something to emulate. (Even if it is hard to understand.) I will continue to quote Willard to myself as long as I’m alive, knowing that I’ll walk closer with Jesus by doing so. (One favorite: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” Oh how I fail there, despite how true it is.) But my version of spiritual beauty will undoubtedly look different than Dallas’, as will everybody’s. I might never “become” Dallas Willard. But with him as one of many models, and with years of humble devotion, I might just become Jesus’ Christ’s best version of Matt Herndon.

-MRH (7/13/2019)