Willard very definitely believes God has spoken through Jesus Christ in the flesh and recognizes the power of following His teachings concerning baptism, the Lord's Table and the body of Christ. Willard's emphasis upon Christian disciplines clarify in my mind, his rejection of gnosticism.
I’m a little unsure about some of this content, because as NT Wright has said, “Gnosticism is the uniquely American heresy and has been for 200 years.” Some of Willard’s interpretations are definitely platonic and possibly Gnostic. The demotion of physical body to sub-kingdom categories implicitly encourages our Gnostic error. Did Paul mean what Willard interprets? The church is a body and a community built on material instruments of grace, bread and wine and water, never mentioned in any of these talks. The miracle of Christianity is the resurrection of the body not the immortality of the psyche. We will be judged for deeds done in the body not for mindfulness or immaterial transcendental meditation. Jesus calls us to feed, heal, clothe, bind up bodies.
Willard very definitely believes God has spoken through Jesus Christ in the flesh and recognizes the power of following His teachings concerning baptism, the Lord's Table and the body of Christ. Willard's emphasis upon Christian disciplines clarify in my mind, his rejection of gnosticism.
"The spray from the edge of the pool" 💘
I’m a little unsure about some of this content, because as NT Wright has said, “Gnosticism is the uniquely American heresy and has been for 200 years.” Some of Willard’s interpretations are definitely platonic and possibly Gnostic. The demotion of physical body to sub-kingdom categories implicitly encourages our Gnostic error. Did Paul mean what Willard interprets? The church is a body and a community built on material instruments of grace, bread and wine and water, never mentioned in any of these talks. The miracle of Christianity is the resurrection of the body not the immortality of the psyche. We will be judged for deeds done in the body not for mindfulness or immaterial transcendental meditation. Jesus calls us to feed, heal, clothe, bind up bodies.