Divine Conspiracy 7
My plan to read Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy during Lent has run aground. It was an artificial timetable anyway. I’m reading more slowly now and have resolved to end the book when I end it.
In chapter 7 he describes ‘The Community of Prayerful Love,’ his vision of what the society of Jesus’ apprentices should look like. They refrain from judging others (Mt 7:1-5), believing such judgments are best left to God; they realize, too, that when human beings judge one another, self-righteousness and condemnation are always present. They do not push their agendas onto other people — this is how Willard interprets the enigmatic phrase about not throwing our pearls to pigs (Mt 7:6).
Instead of judging and pushing, students of Jesus live in the realm of request. The act of asking (Mt 7:7) characterizes their relations with others and with God. Asking implies and involves humility, vulnerability and love. This brings Willard to an extended discussion of prayer, which he sees chiefly in terms of requests of God made in the context of an intimate relationship.
Prayer is a matter of explicitly sharing with God my concerns about what he too is concerned about in my life. And of course he is concerned about my concerns and, in particular, that my concerns should coincide with his. This is our walk together. Out of it I pray.
Willard uses the walking imagery also when he says, “We are simply children walking and talking with our Father at hand.”
A word about his approach to scripture is appropriate here. Often today I hear the phrase, “We take scripture seriously, but not literally.” Willard doesn’t follow this line, but his way isn’t that of a benighted fundamentalist. It seems rather the simplicity of a child, or a second naivete. For example, when scripture portrays God’s mind changing as a result of human requests, Willard takes this seriously and literally. Prayer doesn’t simply change us, as is often admitted; prayer can change what happens.
In this discussion of prayer, Willard offers his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer. While treating the request ‘thy kingdom come,’ he makes these comments about human cultures:
Culture is seen in what people do unthinkingly, what is ‘natural’ to them and therefore requires no explanation or justification. Everyone has a culture — or, really, multidimensional cultures of various levels. These cultures structure their lives. And of course by far the most of everyone’s culture is right and good and essential. But not all. For culture is the place where wickedness takes on group form, just as the flesh, good and right in itself, is the place where individual wickedness dwells. We therefore pray for our Father to break up these higher-level patterns of evil. And, among other things, we ask him to help us see the patterns we are involved in. We ask him to help us not cooperate with them, to cast light on them and act effectively to remove them.
This is the first time he’s spoken of a social dimension to the faith. I hope he addresses this further.
Also worth pondering is his contention that human beings need pity more than they need compassion:
I have used the word pity through much of this discussion of ‘forgive us our sins,’ rather than the word mercy or even the more dignified compassion. This is because only pity reaches to the heart of our condition.
This comment was refreshing, and it made me realize how wary I have become of the word compassion. Pity is more apt.
