RENOVATION OF THE HEART - book review - Jp

Willard, Dallas, 2002. Renovation of the Heart – Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado: Navpress.

The author is a professor and former director of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He is also the author of thirty other books and mentions in his website that his hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand Him.

Highlighting the fact that since man is a spiritual being, all of his actions emanates from within his heart, the author calls for a renovation of the heart as a first step to changing man, families, churches, societies and the world at large.

The author introduces the concept of spiritual formation in the initial paragraphs of his book by mentioning that the ‘heart’ of spiritual formation lies in the ‘heart’. He defines six basic aspects of a human life that need attention in order to be revived such as thought, feeling, choice, body, social context and soul. He introduces the VIM model (Vision, Intent, Means) that involves possessing a vision for change in each of the six areas which can then crystallize into an intention and then describes the means available for change.
He begins his first spiritual formation focus with the transformation of the mind and discusses the significance of employing thought, love and worship to transform it. Addressing the ‘feelings’ part of the mind the author discusses the renewing effects of love, joy and peace to correct the ill side of feelings. In the next section he discusses the transformation of the will by changing from duplicity, deceitfulness and darkness to reflect the will of God advocating the role of spiritual disciplines to accomplish this. He then moves on to discuss the transformation of the body which ought to be presented as a living sacrifice to God. Finally, he discusses the renovation of the soul from a law and grace perspective that can help us become children of light and the light of the world. In the end, he discusses the failures of the local congregation in being the light of the world and identifies some causes such as distractions and performances that shadow their ability to shine for Christ and urges them to fulfill their mandate of making disciples inside out for Christ.

While I resonate with Willard’s thesis on the whole, I find it difficult to assimilate his ‘scientific’ analysis of the heart, mind and body compartmentalizing them into boxes (or spheres as he does in p. 38 and p.40). I find his statement that it really matters little what else you do or don’t do in local congregation so long as all is organized around God’s plan for spiritual formations as given in Mathewe 28:18-20 to be a gross overstatement. The mission of a church is not defined by just their spiritual state but also by their engagement of the world around them. Although it might be true that when the church does not display a high degree of spirituality the world may turn away from it, the reverse does not hold true in that the world is going to flock towards the church if it displays absolute holiness. It still needs a missional outlook to understand and connect to the world around it and it is only in this way can it be the true ‘salt and light’ that Christ called it to be.