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The revered Christian author whose bestselling classics include The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines provides a new model for how we can present the Christian faith to others.
When Christians share their faith, they often appeal to reason, logic, and the truth of doctrine. But these tactics often are not effective. A better approach to spread Christ’s word, Dallas Willard suggests, is to use the example of our own lives. To demonstrate Jesus’s message, we must be transformed people living out a life reflective of Jesus himself, a life of love, humility, and gentleness.
This beautiful model of life—this allure of gentleness—Willard argues, is the foundation for making the most compelling argument for Christianity, one that will convince others that there is something special about Christianity and the Jesus we follow.
- Sales Rank: #44960 in Books
- Brand: HarperCollins Christian Pub.
- Published on: 2015-02-10
- Released on: 2015-02-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x .77" w x 5.50" l, .65 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 208 pages
Review
“It was Willard’s habit to take an issue and cast it in a light that no one had ever thought of before; he does this here with key apologetical issues, and places apologetics against the backdrop of pastoral care. This is essential reading.” (JP Moreland, author of The God Question)
“As an adult I discovered Dallas Willard. Unfailingly gentle and respectful, he transformed the apologetics of my generation as many of us ‘laid down our swords and shields.’” (Eugene Peterson, translator of The Message)
“Dallas Willard was a true Master. Who else combined such profundity with such clarity and simplicity? Here, he addresses an issue that is both timely and urgent for Christian advocacy today. But it is also a genuine hallmark of his own gentle and humble character as a man and thinker.” (Os Guinness, author Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion)
“Dallas Willard’s understanding of apologetics is revolutionary. It is at once more intellectually rigorous and yet more attainable and more humble and more tied to character than anything I have seen on the subject. What he describes is what Jesus actually did.” (John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and author of Soul Keeping)
“Following in the tradition of C.S. Lewis, Willard advocates for truth, born on the wings of grace, and does so in the manner of a fellow pilgrim, keen to listen and to share.” (Stan Mattson, founder and director of the C. S. Lewis Foundation)
“Classic Willard: the gifted Christian philosopher answering hard questions—the questions so many people have about God, hell, the problem of evil, the nature of freedom, and the wonder of Jesus—in an accessible style and with a gentle spirit.” (Chris Hall, Director of Academic Spiritual Formation, Eastern University)
“Trust Dallas to give us apologetics for everyone in the manner of Jesus: desiring to serve not convince; discarding defensiveness and intellectual one-upping; respecting others as honest inquirers; answering questions we’ve secretly wondered about.” (Jan Johnson, author of Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice and Abundant Simplicity)
“Willard discusses the experience of discipleship…. These themes are woven throughout… from a man who knew what kingdom living meant, and was himself a doubt-lifting testimony to the rightness of a life of faith. Those who miss Willard’s presence and teaching will likely take pleasure in Allure.” (The Englewood Review of BooksThe Englewood Review of Books)
“Erudite and respectable. Willard’s very humility is disarming. The Allure of Gentleness powerfully models what it’s arguing for.” (World)
“Helps people wrestle with common doubts and answer some of the hard questions.” (Christian Library Journal)
From the Back Cover
When called upon to explain their faith, Christians do not always feel equipped to do so—particularly when some of the most difficult questions arise. In The Allure of Gentleness, esteemed teacher and author Dallas Willard not only assures us of the truth and reasonableness of the Christian faith, but also explores why reason and logic are not enough: to explain Jesus's message, we must also be like Jesus, characterized by love, humility, and gentleness.
Based on a series of talks and lectures on apologetics given by the late author and edited by his daughter, Becky Heatley, this book constitutes Dallas Willard's most thorough presentation on how to defend the Christian faith for the twenty-first century. This beautiful model of life, this allure of gentleness, Willard tells us, is the foundation for making the most compelling argument for Christ, one that will assure others that the Christian faith is not only true but the answer to our deepest desires and hopes.
About the Author
Dallas Willard was a professor at the University of Southern California's School of Philosophy until his death in 2013. His groundbreaking books The Divine Conspiracy, The Great Omission, Knowing Christ Today, Hearing God, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Renovation of the Heart, and The Divine Conspiracy Continued forever changed the way thousands of Christians experience their faith.
Most helpful customer reviews
34 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
A unique, important, and much welcome offering from the late Dallas Willard
By Jason Kanz
A few months ago, I saw this book show up as a pre-buy on Amazon and immediately purchased it. To say that I could not wait for it to come was a bit of an understatement. Yesterday, I saw that it was out for delivery and I couldn't wait to get home and get started.
The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus (2015) by the late Dallas Willard is an exceptionally good book. It is unusual for me to be sad when I have finished a book, though I wish this one had kept going.
Willard, a former philosophy professor from the University of Southern California, offered this book as a gentle pushback on the apologetics engine that occupies much of Christianity. Apologetics, or the defense of the faith, has unfortunately become an adversarial enterprise where the goal is to win the argument rather than love the person. Willard calls us to something more; he calls us to love others with the compassion and wisdom of Jesus. He also rightly makes the argument that our lives and the outworking of our faith is essential to our defense of the faith.
Hints of his previous books--Spirit of the Disciplines, Hearing God, and the Divine Conspiracy, to name a few--find their way into the pages of this book, yet this book stands alone as a unique, important, and much welcome offering from Willard.
May our lives of love reflect our message of truth.
34 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
Good advice with mixed with some shaky ideas.
By Daniel Wynne
The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith In the Manner of Jesus
By Dallas Willard
A 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.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
A gentle man's guide to the "loving service" of reasoned response
By Elane O'Rourke
[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.
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