Review: The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This 1998 book by Biola philosophy professor Dallas Willard has become a Christian classic, so I purchased it several years ago and it sat on my shelf until I read a book by John Ortberg who mostly talked about Willard's influence in his life. The book was "meh," but Willard seemed like someone I might like to read.

I pulled the dusty tome off my shelf and started the book last April. I am finally finishing. It took me a long time to get through the book for several reasons: 1) the book is big and long and heavy; 2) I have been traveling and did not want to take the book on airplanes; 3) it is deep and I needed to think about the ideas Willard was putting forth in order to hold them and let them speak to me.

That is not to say that the book is hard to understand; it's just that the ideas are deep. We can skim over a book on discipleship, or we can let the book disciple us. I wanted to do the latter, so I read short sections and mulled them over. I realized I was forgetting most of what I was reading.

After getting back from Colorado Springs at the beginning of June, I started blogging through some of the chapters to sort through the ideas, synthesizing other things I was reading or thinking about. That was helpful, and I think I should go back to the ideas in the blog and reconsider them.

Overall, the book is very good. Although Willard's ideas might have been groundbreaking in 1998, they are not new to me. In fact, Willard reinforces many of the things I have been reading (Dekker, Wright). I think I prefer some of the other thing with regard to style, but someone else might prefer this style.

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