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Author: Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

Simplicity

Posted by | Mar 2, 2010 | |

“Keeping it simple has fallen on hard times.” says Adele Ahlberg Calhoun (Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us p75)  I think most of us cannot adequately participate in the spiritual disciplines of Lent because life is too busy and complicated.  Basketball practices, workout, go to work early, go to a church meeting, run to the store, get gas… you know the drill.  Eugene Peterson thinks the To-Do list is sacred, and not something we get done and out of the way so we can be spiritual. A fellow Presbyter recently told us that travel is a part of what it takes to stay connected as fellow churches, that we should put forth the effort to go be with other churches.  He mentioned the beauty of ancient Jews traveling to Jerusalem for Purim or some other annual festival.  I can’t help but imagine a long three to five day walk with my family and my village’s families all hiking and camping along the way, settling in around the fire at night by the well or spring, perhaps thousands of others doing the same thing – it was a national rhythm.  That sounds simple and refreshing.  Of course they had their hassles: who will water the garden, feed the flock, tend the chickens, protect the house?  Grandma?  Who knows.  Maybe they thought Purim was a big hassle.  But in my imagination...

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Dallas Willard and Monasticism part 2

Posted by | Mar 1, 2010 | , |

Last entry I stated that Dr. Dallas Willard, Dean of Philosophy at University of Southern California (Los Angeles), soundly rejects monasticism (see last entry).  Willard believes the monastics (6th c) erred on seeing the body as bad and in need of purification, “mortification” – putting to death the flesh rather than putting to death the deeds of the flesh.  According to Dr. Simon Chan the Roman Catholics view sin as “spiritual pollutant” (Spiritual Theology). Even though the Catholics and western Benedictine monks perceive sin as forgiven through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross, the issue of continued fleshly sin must be dealt with through spiritual disciplines.  As Thomas Merton (Sayings of the Desert Fathers) puts it… “the desert fathers and mothers saw the world as a sinking ship from which one must swim to save one’s life” (my paraphrase). From my readings of the monastics over the past few years I am not convinced they see the body as evil, but the monks see the body in need of “training” – disciple, like athletes training to compete.  I find monastic communities understand well the influence and power of the flesh for spiritual training.  Certainly the body is the locus of temptation and sin.  But the monks leverage the bodily rhythms of food, manual labor, sleep and then the power of communal chant and the singing of the...

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Willard and Monasticism, part 1

Posted by | Feb 25, 2010 | , |

“Solitude is choosing to be alone and to dwell on our experience of isolation from other human beings.  Solitude frees us actually.” – Dr. Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines, p160 Willard soundly renounces and condemns monasticism.  He says that it misunderstands and misrepresents what it looks like to imitate Christ.  He lists many examples of early abuses and just plain ‘strangenesses’ of the desert fathers… letting worms eat you, sitting on three foot square platforms sixty feet in the air for years… picturing St. Benedict with switches and so forth. Abuses happen for sure.  But I also think Willard doesn’t understand vocational prayer.  He presents a classic Evangelical assessment of monasticism. Willards then attacks Protestantism stating “Here is where the Protestant reaction against asceticism comes in: it was a reaction against any essential role of spiritual disciplines in the process of redemption.” p144  Willard says that not only Lutherans but Baptists and Pentecostals fell into the anti-Catholic “disciplines” that left little to do but “think” and go to church.  “Protestantism made the mistake of simply rejecting the disciplines as essential to the new life in Christ.” p147 How do we proceed forward with the spiritual life, with spiritual disciplines?  More on this next...

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Lent: The Model of Paul

Posted by | Feb 24, 2010 | , |

“I beat my body and make it my slave.” – Paul, 1 Corinthians 9:27 Paul spends years in the desert after his meeting the risen Christ.  This came after three days after his Damascus road experience, three days of fasting – no food or drink.  Fifteen years later his spends time teaching in Antioch (Syria).  Some where in those years he is beaten five times by his fellow Pharisees attempting to bring him back from Christianity.  Fasting and prayer accompanied the sending of Paul and Barnabas from Antioch to evangelize Asia Minor.  Paul and Barnabas ordained leaders in those cities with fasting and prayer.  Paul sacrificed, was frugal and lived simply.  He worked for his food.  He did not take a wage as an evangelist. We have a long way to go if we want to “imitate Paul” as he implores his letter readers to do.  Dr. Dallas Willard: “We talk about leading a different kind of life, but we also have ready explanations for not being really different.” (Spirit of the Disciplines, p108)  Are we not following the same Jesus and believing in the same Jesus as Paul?  How can we escape following Jesus like Paul? Paul had a rhythm of fasting, solitude and prayer.  It is no fabrication to say that Paul was the original desert father.  After his desert preparations THEN he began his ministry.  And...

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Tradition and the Church as Christ

Posted by | Feb 22, 2010 | , |

Evangelicals believe church traditions are unbiblical because tradition is only human interpretation of Scripture.  Simon Chan quotes former president of Dallas Theological Seminary, Lewis Sperry Chafer who  speaks the Evangelical mind toward church tradition The very fact that I did not study a prescribed course in theology made it possible for me to approach the subject with an unprejudiced mind and to be concerned only with what the Bible actually teaches. Chan: “…evangelicalism accepts an ahistorical view of the church supported by an ahistorical view of Scripture, cut off from [church] tradition.  As a result, the church is constantly being created by one’s own action in the here and now on the basis of a Bible viewed as a deposit of propositional truths and timeless principles that can be transposed into any time and situation.” (Liturgical Theology, IVP, p30) This ahistorical church and Bible is detrimental because life and meaning are never without context.  The failure to perceive one’s own situational interpretation of Scripture leaves the present-moment church without a healthy identity.  Identity is always formed out of history.  Always.  We Evangelicals have fallen into the trap of recent modernism’s “myth of objectivity.” My friends in China believe they are ‘just reading the scriptures’ meaning they believe the Scriptures have a single pure meaning, with perhaps even NOT considering the historical context.  Evangelicals scholars however, place a high value...

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