When Imitating Christ Is a Bad Idea

Mark Gal­li has a neat lit­tle edi­to­r­i­al in Chris­tiantiy Today talk­ing about
when imi­tat­ing Christ is super­fi­cial the­ol­o­gy, using the book What Would Jesus Eat? as an ster­ling exam­ple of good inten­tions gone loopy.

While I have to con­cede his basic point (what would Jesus eat?????), I think he dis­miss­es the con­cept too quick­ly. Dal­las Willard and John Ort­berg (who does­n’t seem to have a web­site) do mar­velous jobs of demon­strat­ing how it is pos­si­ble to imi­tate Christ in a thought­ful, pro­duc­tive man­ner. In fact, I high­ly rec­om­mend Dal­las Willard’s book The Spir­it of the Dis­ci­plines as a life-chang­ing guide to the imi­ta­tion of Christ.