THE SPIRIT OF THE DISCIPLINES
An outstanding book on spiritual discipline has recently been published by Harper and Row, entitled The Spirit of the Disciplines, by my friend Dallas Willard who teachers philosophy at the University of Southern California. Early in the book he shares these helpful insights: Centuries ago, disciplines such as fasting, service, and giving were confused with meritorious works, as well as with a useless and destructive “penance.” So what resulted was a general failure to understand or accept the wonderful, positive functions of those disciplines as part of the course of the human personality’s full redemption. We’ve all heard of “cheap grace.” But “cheap grace” as a concept didn’t just come merely from our wanting to have God’s mercy and bounty at bargain basement prices. I believe that the misunderstanding of the spiritual disciplines’ place in life has been responsible for Protestantism’s adopting “cheap grace” as the dominant mode of its recent existence. “So what is needed, then, is a…
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