In the midst of a contentious election cycle, theologian and scholar Michael Robb, author of The Kingdom Among Us: The Gospel According to Dallas Willard, draws out some of Dallas’ most important philosophical and theological insights for our times.
How did you first come in contact with Dallas Willard?
I encountered Dallas when I was in college. Professors were excited about him as a new author. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, and they were trying to get us as students to like his stuff. I read The Spirit of the Disciplines first because I read the short portion of it for class. And I thought, I need to know more about this.
Then a research assistant for one of my professors said, “Could you read The Divine Conspiracy for me?” And so he paid me to read that book and take notes on it. I earned $10 an hour to read that book, which I already wanted to read. It was great. Dallas came to speak while I was there as a student, and I met him very briefly.
Dallas helped me discover Christian history. He taught a DMin course at Fuller Seminary, and he had a syllabus of 30 to 40 books from throughout Christian history. I wasn’t able to be in the class, but I got my hands on the syllabus, and I just read through that list of books. It opened up my world to what had happened before.
You know how you read some authors early in your life and they kind of fade? You grow up a little bit and you discover other things? That never happened with Dallas. As I was reading Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth and Martin Luther, Dallas never seemed to diminish. I wanted to know why his books had staying power. Why, when I read a paragraph again, did I still want to know more, to explore where this stuff came from?
In writing your book, what were you trying to reveal about Dallas? How do you hope it affects your readers?
One of the arguments I was trying to make was that Dallas Willard should be taken seriously as a theologian. It was an argument to people in the world of theology— theology nerds like me—to say, “Look, there’s some serious ideas in here that aren’t being said by other people. This isn’t just a popular author who’s popularizing some smarter person’s work.” That was a good bit of the argument I was trying to make. John Ortberg famously described some of his work as “Dallas for Dummies.” And I thought, well, shouldn’t we have a “Dallas for Smarties” book? I was essentially trying to tease out Dallas’ intellectual side.
I also personally wanted to understand what Dallas meant by “the gospel of the kingdom of God.” I saw that as the heart of what he was saying theologically, and I wanted to be able to position it against what other theologians were writing about. I wanted to understand the metaphysics of it, where it fits in salvation history. I hope people walk away saying, “OK, now we get what Dallas Willard’s doing because we’ve been able to see it in a larger theological context.”
In the midst of an election cycle, we’re in a season of anxiety and fear. What would Dallas Willard say about living in this landscape?
I think the gospel of the Kingdom is really crucial in this. A lot of our fear and anxiety comes from seeing our world too small. We’ve limited it to things like a dispute with a neighbor about an election cycle. I think the kingdom of God allows us to step back and to see this too shall pass. We will continue to go on living in the kingdom of God. Or, maybe the worst really will happen to me in an earthly context, but I’m not primarily a citizen of that context. I’m primarily a citizen of the kingdom of God.
There’s lots of pressure on clergy these days, eroding their confidence. How can the gospel of the kingdom speak to that condition?
There’s a phrase Paul uses: “We’re always confident.” I think confidence can be a gift of God, a gift of the Spirit that isn’t dependent on our family upbringing, on our political context or where we are in our church context. It’s something we can and should be seeking from the Lord. We can ask him, “OK, Lord, how can I be more settled in where you’ve put me and who you’ve made me and what my current abilities are and who I currently have around me?” There isn’t really, in the context of the kingdom of God, a reason why we should be suffering from an inferiority complex, or a lack of confidence. We need to dig down to find out what’s happening in us that’s making us feel like, within the context of our church, our congregation or the world around us, we’re lacking something.
What do you think Dallas Willard would say to us about how we treat each other in this cultural moment when we’re feeling a lot of inner anxiety?
Dallas would say that character really does matter. And it doesn’t just matter because it will help our political situation be improved, but because you’re going to be stuck with you for the rest of eternity. That’s why God is interested in your character and why he’s so concerned that you become more like his Son.
Our current situation is a fabulous opportunity for Americans or those concerned about American politics to work on some issues in their character—whether that’s contempt toward other people, fear or anxiety, etc. That’s what God is really interested in. God is much more interested in you and me than he is in us having an easy life. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but he really does care more about us than our ease.
As Dallas says, our most essential identity is disciples or apprentices, students of Jesus. Based on your knowledge of Dallas, how does that help us to be good citizens?
Dallas would ask the question, “What sort of contribution is your life going to make to society?” Your life is the one for which you have the most responsibility, the ability to change things. We first consider being a part of society in its smallest form—families, the people that you’re living with—then widening out to other circles. Some of us are involved in higher levels of politics or civic issues, but the rest of us are really in charge of very little. And so we focus on, “OK, am I honoring God, honoring Christ in the small space in which He has made me responsible?” And we should not try to do this on our own. God has created us to be people that work with him, whether our world is small or whether we are in charge of great things.
I am continually impressed by how God was using Dallas Willard. I’m sure he didn’t know how far his words would go. I’ve been listening to some cassettes of sermons that he preached in 1974 in the little church where Richard Foster was pastor. I’m pretty sure Dallas didn’t think his words were going to go beyond that little church. But they did, and they were a major inspiration for Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline.
How can a conversational relationship with God impact how we live our everyday lives?
One side of having a conversational relationship with God is that we have to make decisions, choices about what we’re going to be involved in. Where are we going to spend our time? There may be multiple good ways we can devote our energies. That’s where this idea of seeking God for guidance comes in. You certainly will see that theme through my book. We’re asking God to weigh in on our decision-making process—how we’re going to spend our money, how we’re going to spend our time, what sorts of social issues we should champion and which ones we shouldn’t.
Personally, I have a very small role in what’s the equivalent of the Parent-Teacher Association in one of our children’s schools. In that context, I have to pick battles. Once they’ve been picked, I have to decide, how should I push this kind of thing? That’s where Divine input, hearing what God has to say about what I should say in an upcoming PTA meeting, becomes so important.
What do you see as our primary role as apprentices of Jesus in these troubled times?
We don’t have many leaders who are sharing hope, giving people a larger vision for their life. In previous generations, the church was there to help these segments of society make sense of who they are, but now people listen to sports stars, YouTube influencers, celebrities.
For us as evangelists, those interested in church for the sake of others, this is an opportunity to see that people are really looking for something. We need to be there and say, “We’ve got something that can help with confidence, that can help with anxiety, that can help with contempt, that can give you a vision and future and hope. We’ve got it.”
Michael Stewart Robb is a Munich-based theologian and writer, mainly of books you haven’t read or seen. His first published book, “The Kingdom Among Us: The Gospel according to Dallas Willard,” is the culmination of 10 years of research and writing on the philosopher and bestselling spiritual writer Dallas Willard. He is also the author of “Something to Say: A Comprehensive Bibliography of Dallas Willard,” available exclusively through the theology and spiritual formation institute he leads. Learn more about Michael Robb.