The Divine Conspiracy (by Dallas Willard)

(Amazon UK link)

I had never read anything by Dallas Willard, but I had come across his name more than once, highly recommended by other Christian authors whose writing I like. So a couple of years ago I put Willard’s best-known book, ‘The Divine Conspiracy’ on my wishlist, and was given it for my birthday last year. It sat on my to-read shelf, looking rather daunting (it’s not a short book!) for nearly twelve months, but I started reading it in April this year.

The main theme of the book - I think - is that we are living in the Kingdom of God now, if we are Christian believers. There is much we can do to develop and grow, so long as we accept ourselves for who we are, and attempt seriously to follow in the way of Jesus.

I say ‘I think’ because I found the book quite heavy going, and only ever read a few pages at a time. In the summer I was away for over a month, and didn’t take it with me, so that didn’t help either. And it’s an American book, so I didn’t always relate to what the author said about contemporary Christianity; I have read many other books that focus on the Kingdom of God among us now, and indeed that’s pretty much what I grew up understanding, albeit in a limited way. I didn’t come across simple modernist evangelicalism until my mid teens, and grew out of it perhaps twenty years later.

Still, I found a lot to ponder in this book, and hope to re-read it before too long, to discover what I missed. The author starts with an exposition of the so-called ‘Sermon on the Mount’, taking just a few verses at a time. He gives his own loose translations along with references, and although the book is twenty years old now, it feels quite relevant to modern society.

Dallas Willard takes the words of Jesus very seriously, and refutes some of the more popular interpretations or understandings of parts of the sermon - the ‘discourse on the hill’, as he calls it. I’ve heard many sermons on the beatitudes, but none explained or drew them out as well as this book does. The author mixes anecdotes, news stories and cultural commentary in with his biblical exposition, and does it in a masterly way. While I found it heavy going in places, that’s at least partly because I read it first thing in the mornings, before being fully awake.

While I don’t remember much of what I read six months ago, I do recall that much of it was profound; I don’t think there was anything I disagreed with, or any place where I felt the author was exaggerating. I appreciated his emphasis on finding more structure to life, of imposing some kind of discipline on oneself, whether fasting and spending time alone, or worshipping and reaching out to others.

I particularly liked the final chapter, on what we can expect to find after we finish with our earthly bodies. The author writes without sentimentality, in a way that I found immensely encouraging. Apparently he was a philosopher primarily, and I think that come across: the book is quite abstract, albeit with real-life examples, and the language quite involved and theoretical.

This review doesn’t begin to do justice to such a thought-provoking and well-written book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in knowing more about the Christian life, and willing to get into something rather deeper than many of the more popular contemporary Christian books.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews