"Like Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, this book is a masterpiece and a wonder. And like those famous frescos, it presents God as real and present and ever reaching out to all humanity. A soul-satisfying banquet… a feast for the mind and the heart…
'The Divine Conspiracy' is the book I have been searching for all my life.
FROM THE FOREWORD BY RICHARD FOSTER
Reviews
Review by John Olhausen:I hate it when people refer to me as someone who is "religious". And the reason I hate is because I struggle with the meaning of the word, "religious". It can mean and this could well be what people are referring to when they use it about me adherence to various practices like going to church, reading my Bible, engaging in rituals of various kinds, even holding some dogmatic views. In other words, it can simply mean what, in my behaviour, is visible getting into my car religiously at 10.10 every Sunday morning, or audible holding forth on some controversial topic related, say, to creation or some Bible statement. The reason I dislike this word "religious", then, is because the very thing that is precious to me is not visible at all. It's relational, not religious. And it's related, not to what I do, but what, by God's grace, I am.
In The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard does not so much contrast "religion" and "relationship", as "religion" and "reality". Time and again, he exposes the deception and unreality that can, so often, confuse and cloud faith and, indeed, the whole religious/church scene. But Dallas Willard does far more than that. He analyses what the phrase Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of the Heavens as he often calls it, actually signifies. And his analysis is incredibly helpful. When he then goes on to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, what had been, for me, a confused mishmash of half-understood and half misunderstood takes on Jesus' teaching suddenly came alive and took on a whole new light. And I don't think you will find Dallas Willard's exposition and understanding of Matthew chapters 5-7 anywhere else.
For me, the delight of reading The Divine Conspiracy is that he is continually shining light into darkness. This is a book, not to be read through at one sitting, but picked up and picked through again and again.
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ISBN: 9780006281146
Catalogue code: N/A
Publisher: HARPER - published N/A
Format: Paperback