Is Public Office a Missional Vocation?

I am deeply moved by the numerous and diverse efforts of Jesus followers at my church to impact our community and the Kingdom. Overseas missions, neighborhood outreach, education, human trafficking, connections to help the homeless, advocating for fostering and adoption . . . it is an awesome example of stewardship - and a retaking of ownership of "social" activity within our world.

I wrote about this effort in several papers while studying at Fuller, and as I did there, I would like to take this discussion one step further, into a broader stewardship role for the church. Dallas Willard makes an excellent point in The Spirit of the Disciplines that “charity and social welfare programs, while good and clearly our duty, cannot even begin to fulfill our responsibility as children of the light to a needy world.” He then calls upon the people of God to “assume the responsibility, under God and by his power, of owning and directing the world’s wealth and goods” (1988:202). He points out that by doing so, with Christ, the church would be able to reduce the causes of poverty. That is a level of stewardship the church has not attempted on such a large scale—and likely will not without realizing that the sacred calling of God is not just within the church, but in all vocations and careers. The church should commission men and women into “farming, industry, law, education, banking, and journalism with the same zeal previously given to evangelism and missionary work” (1988:214).

The outcome of this ownership will lead to being able to speak into the development of policy . . . Once the people of God are involved as stewards in influencing the marketplace for the community’s good, they can have a hand in advising public agencies in serving the truly needy. This culminates in the people of God showing how the church “enters into full participation in the rule of God where they are” (1988:218). That is true stewardship of all that God has made and put under our authority, including social service to those in need. Religious control of social functions, as it has been in the past, can be seen as an authentic Christian response to need. P. Beyer, in Religion and Globalization states that this validates the Christian message (1994:197).

If this be the case, what is keeping us from contributing to the setting of policy in our city? Is not civic service as much a step into missional living as other forms of outreach and involvement? Is the desire to serve a public office not as sacred a vocation? If so, we should commission and support with our time, treasure, and talents those taking that step as well as the missionary.

A Brief Review of Dallas Willard's "Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ"

[Note: this report was my submittal in the course, ML582: Character, Community and Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary in 2009 and is edited to reflect his passing]

Willard, Dallas, 2002. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

            Dallas Willard (1935-2013) was a professor and former Director of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where he taught since 1965. Willard lived out his personal philosophy within his teaching, writing and in his strategy for his life: “I know what good work is. I’m going to do it, and I expect God to help me. I will give my life to it. Of course, I will be a prisoner of Christ; that’s what I am.”[i] This philosophy is very much evidenced in his writing and in his commitment to allowing the Spirit to reign and provide direction in his life. Although not setting out to teach in a secular university, he was led to do so subsequent to his graduate work. Willard stated that he never self-promoted himself – not seeking a position or a raise – but considers himself a “literalist in terms of the Bible,”[ii] as it relates to advancement coming from God.

            The thesis of this book is that in the process of realizing the character of Christ, one may “remove or master” each impediment to gaining that character (:10-11); and that process should be orderly – not haphazard or mysterious – to those wanting to overcome human (sinful) nature.

            Willard presents five chapters of introductory, foundation-building elements which examines mankind’s frailty in the human existence, and provides support for the development of spiritual formation; including why people often fall short of the ideal of Christ-like character.

An “Interlude” chapter reflects on the reality of seeking this transformation.  It is Willard’s perspective that our own effort falls short; we are in need of God’s grace.  He states that those who are “the greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace;” God’s grace sustains them (:93-94).

Willard then lays out through six chapters a process of transformation of: (1) Mind/ Thought; (2) Mind/Feeling; (3) Will; (4) Body; (5) Social Dimension; and (6) Soul.  These areas of one’s self are outlined earlier in chapter two as distinct areas in which we must allow the Spirit to work through for our transformation (:38). 

In the two concluding chapters Willard examines how this process of transformation interfaces with the world and within the local church.  In the world, a contrast of light and darkness presents a picture of the outcome of personal sanctification, and its effect upon us and the world we are in (:224).  Willard then presents God’s plan for spiritual formation within the congregation of the people of God with a focus on being rather than doing. 

This book makes me recall Richard J. Foster’s Celebration of Discipline.  While I read Foster’s book in 1978 during a period of discipleship, I find Willard’s book is timely to this era of my life.  Through this book I am able to more fully recognize my shortcomings and how I may have diverted from disciplines in my life, which were a critical and primary element of my new life in Christ.  I am not surprised that Foster provides an endorsement for this book.[iii]

Willard puts flesh on the teaching of sanctification in a way I need to reconsider within my life and leadership ministry, and grasp that the transforming work of the Spirit “. . . brings every element in (my) being, working from inside out, into harmony with the will of God . . .”[iv]  C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce also comes to mind, as the landscape on the way to the Kingdom feels unbearably unreachable until one repents through an act of the will.

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[i] Dallas Willard, “My Journey To and Beyond Tenure in a Secular University” (Remarks given at the Faculty Forum Luncheon of the C.S. Lewis Foundation Summer Conference, University of San Diego, 21 June 2003), available at http://www.dwillard.org/biography/tenure.asp, Internet.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Richard Foster states, “No one has thought more carefully than Dallas Willard about the human personality and how it can be transformed into Christlikeness.” This endorsement is found on the back cover of the hardcover version of Renovation of the Heart.

[iv] A summary which quotes the author is found on the back cover of the hardcover version of Renovation of the Heart.