The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus Hardcover – February 10, 2015

[A longer version of this review was originally published on The Englewood Review of Books' website, erb.kingdomnow.org.]As Dallas Willard’s daughter, Rebecca Willard Heatley, write in the Preface to "The Allure of Gentleness", “Gentle was a word frequently used to describe my father.” That gentleness permeates Dallas Willard’s latest posthumously published book. Allure is based on the transcription of a set of 1990 talks on apologetics in which Willard displayed his characteristic ease and thoughtfulness. Those who miss Willard’s presence and teaching will likely take pleasure in "Allure"’s prose: reading it is a nearly aural experience.Though Willard lived in a period when Western Christianity focused on the numbers of converts and cash in churches on Sundays, Willard’s passion was for developing Christlike Christians. He believed that the greatest testimony to the life of Christ is Christ displayed in the lives of his followers. As he notes in the present book, “the great problem facing the gospel of Jesus Christ is not the doubt that is outside the church; it is the doubt that is inside the church” (25). Each of Willard’s prior books speaks to an aspect of that doubt: "Divine Conspiracy" to the nature of reality; "Hearing God" to experiential knowledge; "Renovation of the Heart" to the anthropology and spiritual development of disciples; "Knowing Christ Today" to the epistemology of faith; "The Great Omission" to the shallowness of the modern gospel; and "Spirit of the Disciplines" to the practical means of discipleship. Willard’s faithful readers will hear echoes of each of earlier writings in The Allure of Gentleness as Willard addresses these concerns in turn.Allure addresses the weaknesses of modern apologetics with three primary arguments. Willard’s Christian writings tended to be integrative, describing ways of thinking rather than prescribing statements of doctrine, so the three primary arguments are woven through Allure’s chapters, not discretely presented as they might be in a systematic theology. The first argument is the one articulated above–that “the foundation for apologetics is living the new life from above” (22). The second is that apologetics is essentially collaborative, two or more people seeking truth together, whatever truth turns out to be. The third primary argument is that Christians in fact have a body of knowledge on which to found their faith and profession. Knowledge–not merely faith or superstition–is fundamental to Christian discipleship.The first section of Allure, roughly chapters one through three, addresses Willard’s understanding of apologetics. Here Willard distinguishes between the work of evangelism and its attendant requirement of proving God’s existence, and the work of apologetics. For Willard, apologetics intends to address the doubts and concerns of weaker believers. It is a ministry of encouragement, rather than of conversion. “Apologetics is not a contest of any kind, with winners and losers. It is a loving service. It is the finding of answers to strengthen faith” (17).This “loving service” is not an emotional support, but an intellectual appeal to reason designed to correct wrong ideas about God. “People are fully at the mercy of their ideas” (18), and these ideas form the lens through which we view fact, experience, indeed the whole of reality. False ideas cause us to view reality falsely, to our detriment, for reality is what you run into when you’re wrong (3). There is a truth that corresponds to reality, regardless of whether one’s ideas correctly reflect that reality. None of us has a grasp on all of truth, but Christians must be humbly aiming toward finding it. Thus both our ability to reason and our desire to work collaboratively are necessary for both knowledge and living. Willard’s insistence on collaboration is what prevents apologetics from being a contest: intellectually beating another into submission is useless if the ideas one holds turn out to be false. Doing so is also contrary to the gentle persuasion of a Christlike character.In the next section Willard presents ways to address some standard concerns of doubting Christians. These include the historicity and veracity of the Bible, the problem of evil, the nature and purpose of free will, and the validity of theories of creation and evolution. His commentary on the problem of evil and the purpose of free will is especially helpful. While it depends on classical teleological arguments, Willard’s depiction of the kind of God who would want relationship with humankind lends it an appealing winsomeness: the reader can imagine Willard’s God welcoming human companionship. The ability to describe God and God’s purposes in a loving, magnetic manner has always been one of Willard’s greatest strengths; it is used to great effect here as well.The discussion on pain and evil, comprising one full chapter out of a total of seven, is designed to answer specific concerns that a person slogging through doubt would likely have, such as “What kind of God allows suffering?” “What is the role of human responsibility?” and “Must it be so hard to live in the world?” Willard will not allow specious answers to these tender questions, so addresses them as part of an examination of God’s character and purpose, as well as appealing to the need for dependable laws of physics. Aiming to provide help to those who face such questions, he explicitly outlines reasoned answers that a disciple might give, and how they relate to the joyful splendor of eternal living in God’s presence.Willard’s arguments on the veracity of the Bible and the validity of theories of the origin of the universe are his least satisfying. This is partly a flaw of the medium: the material of a lecture need not be as thoroughly or immediately supported as that in a book. When oral presentations are transcribed, they become subject to careful reading and consideration. While the reasoning Willard provides is salve for a doubting heart, as a written text it would have benefited from precise Biblical and theological citations, rather than the more general assertions common to Willard’s talks and lectures.The final chapter of the book addresses the crux of the matter. “The ultimate apologetic–that is to say, the ultimate lifter of doubt–is the believer acting in faith in an interactive life with God. That’s it. People need to see individuals living in daily interaction with the kingdom of the heavens [emphasis in original]”(168). Here Willard discusses the experience of discipleship: how one actually learns to hear God, what a life in the present kingdom feels like, and the evidence of the power of God acting through a follower of Jesus. These themes are woven throughout Allure but here they gain direct address from a man who knew what kingdom living meant, and was himself a doubt-lifting testimony to the rightness of a life of faith.. “To enter [into God’s family] is to enter into life, for those who enter find at last what it is to be loved and to be filled with love–not with sentiment, but love–for all people, regardless of whether they too are members of God’s family or not” (169). That love is Willard’s true legacy; may it be the legacy of all followers of Christ as well.

Dallas Willard`S work has always been a blessing. His encouragement to practice gentleness while helping others' understanding of who God is and His great love for us is a good reminder. He ends with the point that people really want to know how you and God relate to each other.

The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith In the Manner of JesusBy Dallas WillardA review Dallas Willard received his PhD in Philosophy from Baylor University in 1964. He served as Philosophy professor from 1965-2012 at the University of Southern California. In addition to The Allure of Gentleness, Willard wrote 13 books including The Divine Conspiracy, Renovation of the Heart, and Spirit of the Disciplines. He passed away in 2013. The Allure of Gentleness was put together by Willard’s daughter from a series of talks given in 1990, along with notes and a list of additions Willard wanted included. Willard’s purpose in writing this book was to return to a sense of apologetics as a shared journey of exploration, where we invite people to examine their doubts, welcoming the questions that trouble believers and seekers. The main thesis is that a gentle spirit and a kind presentation of the intellectual aspects of apologetics make them more effective. The book is short, just seven chapters in 170 pages of content. Chapter 1 lays out Willard’s case for using our rational faculties in service of Christ. Chapter 2 applies this idea to apologetics as a practice. Chapter 3 offers a biblical model for apologetics. Chapter 4 explores the relationship between faith and reason. In chapter 5, Willard defends divine revelation. Chapter 6 addresses pain, suffering and the problem of evil. Finally, chapter 7 explores the ongoing interaction between the disciple and his Lord. I really like reading anything Willard writes. When I read his work, I feel like I am having a conversation with the Christian grandfather I never had. I always come away challenged and feeling motivated to strive to do better, to seek God more fervently, and to emulate his manner. This book is no different in that respect. However, for those very reasons, there are a few things in this book that bother me.One of the less troubling comments Willard makes is with respect to cosmic evolution. He notes that, “The suggestion of cosmic evolution (order out of chaos) as an alternative was not presented until the nineteenth century.”(76.) But it seems as though Willard is conflating the idea of cosmic evolution with biological evolution. Until the early 20th century, the reigning paradigm was that the universe was eternal and static. It was not until the work of Einstein and Hubble foreclosed on the steady state model that theories like Big Bang cosmology were proposed. Another place where Willard’s views could bring about confusion is in his section “Reading E=MC2 From Left to Right.” Here Willard asserts that God is energy. This lends itself to confusion because of equivocation of “energy.” If by energy one means the ability to do work, this is not a problem. However when physicists speak of energy in the context of E=MC2, energy is a form that matter can take. However, I do not believe Willard means to say that God is a physical being.In addition, Willard has a section he calls, “There is No “Good” Without Evil.” However, if it is the case that evil is a deprivation of good, how is good dependent on evil? Willard seems to be arguing that human evil is necessary. I can see his argument that certain goods require evils, such as courage requiring threats, mercy requires wrongs, and generosity requires needs, but a world without threats, wrongs and need could still be good.The most troubling thing Willard writes is in his discussion on the hiddenness of God. Willard argues that God “…is capable of not knowing whatever he does not wish to know—should there be any such thing.” (66.) This idea is not even coherent. For in order for God to choose not to know something, he would have to know it and when it would obtain in order to be sure he does not know it. This is a strange departure from the classical view of divine omniscience. Willard defends the view by drawing a parallel to divine omnipotence, noting that on omnipotent God is able to do anything power can do, but it does not mean he does do everything his power allows him to do. However, omniscience is not the ability to know, but the possession of the knowledge.Finally, Willard gives a weak defense of the idea that God speaks to individuals. I say weak because the Bible passages offered do not support his argument. I do not mean to say that God does not, or cannot speak to individuals even today. What I am saying is that the passages Willard cites do not teach that every believer can expect to experience this. (For a more detailed treatment of this issue, see http://www.str.org/publications/does-god-whisper-part-1#.VOUFmVPF9Oh)These concerns aside, I highly recommend this book, as well as anything else Willard writes. It is written at a level that a high school student can understand it, and an academic can enjoy it. It is an encouragement for those considering apologetics as a part of their skillset, and a challenge to those of us who have developed some skills to apply them in a more Christ-like manner.

I've read much of Dallas Willard's writings and I have to say that this is definitely one of his best. The section on speaking with God was fascinating. I found it particularly enlightening to hear him say, God had been speaking to me for years and I didn't know it. I thought it was just my own thinking." I makes me think that even I can establish regular 2-way communication with God right here on earth before I go to heaven. I would highly recommend this book, particularly to those who are beginning to understand that there is more to God's plan than just squeaking your way into heaven by the skin of your teeth. Clearly, we don't have to wait until we die to have a real relationship with our creator

I confess to being a fan of Dallas Willard. I have enjoyed all of his books, although none can equal the first I read 'The Divine Conspiracy' , for which 5 stars would be woefully inadequate. This book is written in a beautiful, clear, concise style. It wins over doubters by its lack of unnecessary confrontational language, and so illustrates its title and subject.

5 Stars does not do justice to the excellence of this text. The compiler of this book from Dallas' notes and presentation recordings has done an excellent job and I suspect this will be another of Dallas' works that will illuminate the path of disciples for many years.

With the acrimonious levels of debate and disagreement in our public life this is a welcome corrective to followers of Jesus to seek a better way to interact with those with whom we may disagree.Well worth the read

beautiful book and a real needy message to those in ministry today.

Dallas Willard - anything he writes is worth reading and this is another gem