Gary W. Moon

If you've read Dallas Willard's book before, or if you know who Dallas Willard is, this book may be of interest to you. It's basically his biography. The first half of the book focus on events that happened in his life, from childhood, student life, marriage, to professional career. The second half of the book focused on Willard's thoughts and influences. I learned a lot of things I didn't know before. Here's some random example: 1. I discovered Dallas Willard was born and raised in southwest Missouri, which is not that far from where I live! 2. He passed away only recently and I probably could have attended one of his seminars in my early years in the States if I had wanted to. (I thought he was, like, ancient.) 3. Renovare Book Club has close ties with Willard since he was one of the key people helping to establish Renovare Institute. 4. Richard Foster, the author of Celebration of Discipline, had served in the same church with Willard for a couple of years where they developed their approach to spiritual discipline. In fact Willard wrote his book The Spirit of Discipline to intentionally complement Foster's book and give the book a theological foundation. (Now I understand why that book focused so much on why spiritual disciplines are important and legit yet so little on exactly what the disciplines are!) 5. Willard is not a pastor or a theologian by trade. He is actually a professor in philosophy at USC, specializing in phenomenology. 6. I now know the name of the four books Willard is most famous for authoring, and I will probably check them out some time. 7. For some reason, Willard didn't do too well in high school or college. I think he even flunked a class on Romans. But he blossomed in his phd program and never looked back :P… (meer)

This book outlines how seven major traditions view Spiritual Direction.
1. Orthodox Christianity
2. Roman Catholic
3. Episcopal
4. Reformed
5. Wesleyan-Holiness
6. Social-Justice
7. Pentecostal/Charismatic

It also looks at the three major voices in "soul care."
1. Psychotherapy
2. Sprititual Direction
3. Pastoral Counselling

Additionally, it looks at the conceptual issues, and ethical issues of Spiritual Direction and Psychotherapy; as well as Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Counselling.

In its final chapter, it takes an anonymous yet real case and has a psychotherapist, spiritual director and pastoral counselor each delineate how they would approach the care for this individual.

One discordant note in that last chapter was the piece written by the Pastoral Counsellor. Prior to it being explicitly stated, it was clear she is an ardent feminist, when she made the unsubstantiated claim that the congregant the pastor had an affair with had come to him for Pastoral Care.

It is true we tend to invest unwarranted power onto our clergy, and we want them to assume Christlike virtues when we, the laity, are not willing to abide on such a lofty plane, ourselves. But it is wrong for a therapist or director to assume facts not in evidence merely because of their own biases.… (meer)