Hi everyone, and welcome to our new subscribers. Great to have you with us!
We’re exploring what theologian Dallas Willard called “The Great Omission”, a term he used to describe the condition of modern Christianity and its implications for us, our families, and our nations.
Though we talk about making disciples (people who apprentice with Jesus for the purpose of becoming more like Him), Christian institutions struggle to make them.
If you’d like to go back and review earlier posts to get up to speed, please start here.
The Great Omission is not just an academic theological descriptor. We may feel it. We sense it in our inner lives. Where is this perfect peace the Bible promises? The abundant life? Where is the unity, the laying down of our lives for others? Shouldn’t there be more to this life than what I’m experiencing? Has Christianity become so institutionalized that it’s no longer intimate?
Am I Awake?
Last week we continued our exploration of discipleship by introducing an admittedly strange perspective - the world of ideas.
Willard wrote about ideas in his book, Renovation of the Heart, though the concept has been explored by philosophers, theologians, and politicians for centuries. I define an idea as a conclusion, assumption, or principle in which our heart is rooted, but of which we’re generally unaware.
As we noted last week, there are two broad categories of ideas: those in the Air and those in the Soil (ideas in culture and ideas in our hearts).
Ideas in the Air are largely determined by factors such as the era, governmental structure, culture, and families we’re born into. Ideas in the Soil are most impacted by our families of origin but are also deeply impacted by formative experiences (both helpful and harmful), various intimate relationships, education, and so on. There is plenty of crossover between the two categories (they are constantly interacting with each other).
Examples of Ideas in the Air include assumptions about human purpose, the value of women and children, the role of government, human rights, and how truth is defined (the Western assumptions about the value of women and children, for example, are wildly different than those of the first century Roman Empire).
Examples of Ideas in the Soil may include internal conclusions about our worth, how we know we are loved and accepted, what authority we possess, and what it means to be known by someone else.
Ideas aren’t so much intellectual statements as they are experienced realities. If you’re a husband who has repeatedly told your wife how beautiful she is only to realize she’s struggling to internally accept that truth, you’re up against some deeply ingrained ideas in your wife’s heart most likely planted there long before you came around.
The more conscious we are of the ideas that drive and govern our hearts and cultures, the more “awake” we are. The more awake we are, the freer we are to love as Jesus loves. The more we love like Jesus, the more individuals and cultures flourish (though that often involves suffering and sacrifice).
The Heart Wants What It Wants
Moving into deeper discipleship involves mining for ideas in ourselves, others, and our societies.
This concept of being “awake” or “attuned” to hearts may be new to us, and it implies many people are “asleep” or “ignorant” of themselves and others. A friend of mine who helps people connect to their hearts has concluded that most people (Christians included) aren’t, in fact, attuned to themselves.
This suggests our hearts, in some strange way, may not be wholly integrated with the rest of us.
The Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible describes four characteristics of the heart:
1. Being so complex, man’s heart is sadly divided, and Scripture often extols a perfect, whole, true (i.e., united) heart (Gn 20:5; Acts 8:37 mg; Ps 86:11).
2. For “heart” signifies the total inner self, a person’s hidden core of being (1 Pt 3:4), with which one communes, which one “pours out” in prayer, words, and deeds (Gn 17:17; Ps 62:8; Mt 15:18, 19).
3. It is the genuine self, distinguished from appearance, public position, and physical presence (1 Sm 16:7; 2 Cor 5:12; 1 Thes 2:17).
4. And this “heart-self” has its own nature, character, disposition, “of man” or “of beast” (Dn 7:4 kjv; 4:16; cf. Mt 12:33–37).
Our hearts are our inner selves, our core, and they are our “authentic selves.” Yet our hearts are often divided, conflicted, and have a “mind” of their own! We may hold to a belief system that aligns with the Bible, yet operate from a set of ideas that don’t. And we may not even know it.
Double Knowledge
At least in this part of the world, the quest to become attuned to our hearts as a vital part of our discipleship journey is often neglected, ignored, derided, or outright condemned. Some of the reasons why include:
-Though God has placed us into four relationships (with Him, others, self, and creation and culture), modern Christianity tends to focus on only two: our relationship with God and others.
In many churches, the prime goal is to get people saved (a reconciled relationship with God). Any attention on the other relationships is generally reactive, such as marriage ministries, which are usually provided in response to couples already in trouble.
If the modern church allows any exploration of the self, it’s usually outsourced to the counseling room.
Our relationship with creation and culture is all but ignored (more on that coming up).
-Authors and thinkers such as Carl Truman (The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self) have rightly concluded we are living in an age of “self-worship.” The prime objective is to please and express ourselves in whatever manner we choose. “You do you.”
That’s not the self-exploration I’m talking about. There is a profound difference between self-worship and discipleship-oriented self-knowledge. Self-worship leads to chaos and death. Courageously exploring the heart with Jesus leads to intimacy, peace, and contentment.
As has been the case at times in history, however, the church swings the pendulum too far in the other direction. In response to this age of self-idolization, good and helpful phrases such as “keep your eyes on Jesus” and “die to self” have driven home the unconscious idea that to do the hard work of attuning to the assumptions and desires that govern us is a waste of time, selfish, or even sinful.
Yet “double knowledge” is a theological concept endorsed and practiced by Christians (including numerous church fathers) throughout the centuries. As we seek to know Jesus more, we also seek to know ourselves more. They depend on one another.
Uncovering Hidden Ideas
The world of ideas and their impact on hearts and societies is an untapped mine of treasures leading to deep discipleship and greater intimacy with God, others, ourselves, and creation.
The best way I can describe the difference between being “awake” and “asleep” is the stereogram (see image above). Back in the 1990s, these colorful and sometimes dizzying posters graced the bedroom walls of many a teenager, and it was a fad that delighted and frustrated people of all ages.
At first glance, the stereogram looks like a random bunch of shapes and colors. But when we train our eyes to look at the picture a certain way, a beautiful 3D image appears.
Learning how to look into the picture takes relaxation, some practice, and often the help of a friend. However, the more we train ourselves to see the hidden images, the easier it gets. What first may take minutes or even hours to master becomes second nature.
That’s the way it works with ideas. Laboring to discern the bedrock ideas that move cultures and people may initially take a lot of time and effort. Over time, however, we begin to spot certain indicators, certain signposts, that illuminate our understanding, and we begin to see ideas at work more clearly.
Jesus is the only human being to walk the planet whose heart is perfectly integrated with the rest of His person. So during His time on earth, He displayed an uncanny ability to discern ideas in hearts and cultures. And, as Dallas Willard noted, He started an idea revolution that cost Him His life, but one that continues advancing today.
We all live with some amount of disintegration. Like the stereogram, revealing the ideas that move us, our key relationships, and whole nations are often cloudy, confused, and hidden beneath layers of clutter.
However, as we work in close communities to uncover these powerful assumptions and deal with them truthfully, we find ourselves increasingly liberated, our capacity to love increased, and a rock-solid inner peace slowly but surely pushing out the quiet anxiety that often picks away at our souls.
This is a perspective of discipleship that moves beyond vital belief statements, doctrines, and creeds. Deep discipleship explores the layer of the human heart underneath our intellectual beliefs and joins with Jesus to gently integrate those beliefs into the ideas and desires that drive us.
Duc In Altum!
Brian
This Week on the Soil & Roots Podcast
Doc, Kyle, and I pull apart some key points from Episode 100, where I began to answer the question, "So What?" Why does it matter if we live in an era of The Great Omission (a lack of genuine disciple-making)? If we are "saved" and have our ticket to Heaven, does a lack of deeply formed people really impact anything?
Doc guides a transparent dialogue on how this lack of depth impacts individuals and the culture. We wrestle with the often misunderstood passage, "be in the world but not of the world," what happens to the human heart when we aren't aware of the ideas that govern us, and how a return to deep discipleship fosters hope, love, and human flourishing.
Watch right here.