Dallas Willard believed that the aim of God in human history is the formation of a community of loving persons — people apprenticed to Jesus, shaped by his character, and prepared to co-reign with him in eternity. In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Dan Hummel sits down with Keas Keasler, author of the first comprehensive academic study of Willard’s theology. Together they trace Willard’s life from Depression-era Missouri to the halls of USC, unpack the philosophical roots of his spiritual formation theology, and ask why his vision for discipleship feels especially urgent in the church today.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Why Keas Keasler spent seven years researching Dallas Willard — and what he discovered that surprised him
• The key biographical facts of Willard’s life: a broken childhood, a pivotal choice between philosophy and seminary, and 47 years at USC
• How Willard’s friendship with Richard Foster and a small Quaker church in Southern California helped birth the modern spiritual formation movement
• Why Willard chose phenomenology — the study of consciousness — and how it shaped his theology of transformation
• What it means that Willard was a committed metaphysical and epistemic realist — and why that grounds everything he taught
• Willard’s vision of humans as co-rulers with God: what it means, what the parable of the pounds has to do with it, and why formation is training for that calling
• The famous Willard line: “Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning” — and the sophisticated theology behind it
• The Golden Triangle of spiritual formation: the Holy Spirit, the spiritual disciplines, and the ordinary decisions of daily life
• The “sanctification gap” that Richard Lovelace identified in the 1970s — and why it has only widened since
• Why there is a crisis of character in the church today, and what Willard’s vision offers as a remedy

GUEST BIO

Keas Keasler (PhD, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is Associate Professor of Spiritual Theology at Friends University, where he also serves as Program Director of the MA in Christian Spiritual Formation and Leadership. He is a Research Affiliate of the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture and the Dallas Willard Research Center at Westmont College. An ordained Baptist minister, Keasler has traveled to over forty countries and preached on six continents.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Kingdom Apprenticeship by Keas Keasler (IVP Academic)
• Hearing God by Dallas Willard (IVP)
• Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard
• The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
• Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
• Becoming Dallas Willard by Gary Moon
• The Kingdom Among Us by Michael Stewart Robb
• Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
• Conversatio.org – Dallas W

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This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour