How many people in our churches could give a Sunday school answer to the question, what is the kingdom of God? In this episode Michael Stewart Robb talks about why Dallas Willard thinks this is a worrying question and what its cause is. The gospel of Jesus, discipleship to him and the fulfilled life all depend on the kingdom of God making sense to people. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

What is it about church that keeps it from producing the kinds of people that the Old and New Testaments talk about?⁠ Dallas Willard grabs a saying from management experts, "Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are getting" and applies it to church. In this episode, Michael Stewart Robb shares Willard's diagnosis and he explains why Willard thinks that the solution must be natural. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

Any interested in bringing the spiritual and the secular together must first be able to say what exactly the spiritual is. This is the task that Dallas Willard wants to help us with in The Divine Conspiracy's chapter three. But that's where James Catford and Michael Stewart Robb pick up the conversation and start looking around modern society for the spiritual. We talk about her majesty the queen, architecture, going to hell and even punk rock. As James once told Mike (and Mike won't let James forget), "We have to blur the divide between the sacred and the secular." BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

For all of its talk of spirituality and spiritual formation, western churches aren't known for their interest in Jesus as someone whose thoughts matter. The boom in spiritual formation has us discovering new spiritual disciplines, seeking new experiences rather than puzzling over the Sermon on the Mount. By and large our churches are not known as places where Jesus's teaching is studied and brought into connection with our moment-to-moment existence. Have we substituted spiritual liturgies or a rule of life for an everliving teacher? It makes you wonder if Dallas Willard's "Case of the Missing Teacher" is still unsolved, 25 years after Dallas Willard wrote The Divine Conspiracy. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

"There is very little that is new" says Dallas Willard at the beginning of The Divine Conspiracy. Roy Searle, a founder and former leader of the Celtic-influenced Northumbria Community and a mentor for pioneering British churches, and Michael Stewart Robb explore whether that's true. We set the Celtic Christian view of the world up against Dallas's own view of "Our God-Bathed World" and look for wisdom for modern Europe, where we must "sing the Lord's song in a strange land." Imagine Dallas Willard and St. Cuthbert sitting in a room together and chatting. This isn't that but it might be the closest you'll come this side of eternity. Or so we hope. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

Spiritual formation is hardly a cure-all. ⁠There is in many churches a gap between what people believe and the abundance and obedience that ought to come with trusting Christ. What's the disconnect about? How can we find the personal integrity and whole life discipleship which seems appropriate to Jesus's spirituality? Some say the missing link is spiritual formation. But it could be much deeper than that, suggests Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

Does it make any sense to follow Jesus but without the classical understandings of a transcendent God and prayer? Some think it does or at least have resigned themselves to the idea. What they believe we should hold on to is Jesus's notion of love. But what is love, if you've given up the metaphysics of Jesus's spirituality? Dallas Willard thinks this "love" can't rise above support for the reigning ideology. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

Is love all you need? For some people, explains Dallas Willard, there is nothing more important about Jesus than that he "identifies with and loves oppressed people and those who are different." What these people say with all seriousness is "Get with the program! God is found in our attempts to accept all people, especially those who are having a hard time. Get rid of the oppressive and exclusive social structures and life on earth will be great." While there's much to applaud, it is hard to see why this is not an incredibly naive view of humanity and a reductionistic view of God. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute

Guest Ville Kavilo discusses Dallas Willard's perspective on 'heaven' as our human environment, making our universe a perfectly safe place to be. They also talk about starting spiritual formation groups, beer and personal experiences, differences between Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland, finding peace in God's plan, practicing the presence of God, shaping the mind and trickery to believe in God's existence, different levels of experiencing God's presence, and expressing gratitude.

Dallas Willard taught at a university where the gospel on the left had a foothold. He has a lot to say about how the Christian left (in America) became what it is. And "become" is the word that stands out the most in this little history. BE INFORMED and PRAY for us better by signing up for the Sanctus newsletter: https://sanctus.institute