Transformational Theology

Dallas Willard needs no introduction to the readers of Conversations. After all, he is responsible for the fact that our five sections correspond to his components of the person—and that we try to hear from a representative of each of the six great traditions of Christian faith in each issue. He is also responsible for the fact that I, for one, have come to believe it is actually possible to become like Jesus. I believe it because I see the way Dallas lives his life.

Dallas is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor who left the traditional version of ministry to study philosophy in the early 1960s after God told him, “If you stay in the churches, the university will be closed to you, but if you stay in the university, the churches will be open to you.” After receiving his Ph.D. in 1965, he had two immediate job offers—one from the University of Southern California and one from the University of Georgia. While some (okay, just me) think he made a mistake in picking USC, he has had an amazing academic and ministry career. Some refer to him as America’s C. S. Lewis.

Dallas Willard needs no introduction to the readers of Conversations. After all, he is responsible for the fact that our five sections correspond to his components of the person—and that we try to hear from a representative of each of the six great traditions of Christian faith in each issue. He is also responsible for the fact that I, for one, have come to believe it is actually possible to become like Jesus. I believe it because I see the way Dallas lives his life.

Dallas is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor who left the traditional version of ministry to study philosophy in the early 1960s after God told him, “If you stay in the churches, the university will be closed to you, but if you stay in the university, the churches will be open to you.” After receiving his Ph.D. in 1965, he had two immediate job offers—one from the University of Southern California and one from the University of Georgia. While some (okay, just me) think he made a mistake in picking USC, he has had an amazing academic and ministry career. Some refer to him as America’s C. S. Lewis.

C. S. Lewis once compared world religions to soups—thick soups and clear soups. The “thick” soups bubbled with mystery, matter, and ritual (e.g., ancient mystery religions) while the “clear ” soups blended philosophy, thought, and ethics (e.g., Confucianism). The truest religion, Lewis believed, would be both thick and clear because neither alone could do justice to the fullness of reality. That’s why Lewis sought a religion of sacraments and dogma, body and soul, poetry and proposition.

Lewis found all this in Christianity. What’s more, Lewis saw Christian transformation in “thick” and “clear” terms too. To “be saved” was something more than just an external pardon by God or an intellectual consent to an idea—what he might call a “clear” approach to this crucial reality. For Lewis, salvation was an inward process involving the transformation of the whole person by the Holy Spirit and leading to nothing less than mystical union with God. In other words, Lewis embraced the ancient Christian doctrine of deification (or theosis) much as it was taught by the likes of St. Basil the Great, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor, and which is still taught today in the Eastern Orthodox Church. This doctrine was neatly expressed by St. Basil in the fourth century when he said that man is nothing less than a creature who has received the order to become god (note the lowercase “g”). Similarly, Lewis asserts in Mere Christianity that the whole purpose of Christianity is to turn people into “new men,” “little Christs,” “sons of God”—even “gods and goddesses.”[1]

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Eugene Peterson lives a life of unlikely juxtapositions. He is an introvert’s introvert, yet he planted a church and served as its senior pastor for 29 years. He is a scholar of biblical languages who searches through dusty volumes for the precise meaning of a word and then, as a poet, paints meaning with colorful and imprecise strokes. He has rejected the formulaic patterns of success in the Christian publishing world, but has become an industry superstar. He eschews information technology—only his wife and children have his e-mail address (dang it!)—but he reaches out to hundreds of thousands each day through The Message and more than 30 other books he has written.

Retired from the pastorate of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, and from Regent College, where he served as professor of Spiritual Theology, Eugene lives with his wife, Jan (much more the extrovert) in the home where he grew up, on the shore s of Flathead Lake in Lakeside, Montana. It was there he wrote one of his latest books, The Jesus Way: Conversations on the Ways

Joshua Kang practices what he preaches: transformation into Christ-likeness by letting go of false securities and becoming deeply rooted in Christ. Ever since he was converted and called to be a pastor at the age of 17, he begins his day with the Lord through the “daybreak” service—every single day for more than 35 years. Because of his unique devotional time with the Lord, his message is simple but strong. He is also a “dreamer” who values the invisible aspects more than the visible elements of life. That’s why he focuses on spirituality. Joshua Kang is a marvelous person to talk about Abraham, faith and the Jesus way of relinquishment with great joy.

Abraham is often considered as “the father of faith.” Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful book The Jesus Way, starts with Abraham’s faith story to show how our faith ancestors pointed to Jesus through their life.