A curriculum for christlikeness...

I've noticed that the concept of 'A Curriculum for Christlikeness' is cropping up in various places. Willard seems to have coined the phrase first based on Colossians. Here is a rushed summary from The Divine Conspiracy.

Colossians 1-2

Behold the loveliness of God by keeping your mind tuned to that of the fullness of Christ, so that nothing else is as beautiful or desirable. This then frees us to do what we know to be right. There is a need to identify all that impinges this, a need to look to the attitudes that redirect attention and to identify the stimulus. Willard suggests that a starting point can be by looking back to attitudes to parents and authority. This he points out sometimes can be very painful.

Colossians 3-4

Breaking of the powers of patterns of wrong doing and evil that govern our lives. Willard suggests that, what he calls, Consumer Christianity leads to non engagement to true inner transformation with the result that we can remain governed or slaves to fear, greed, impatience,
egotism, bodily desires. Using Jesus' anguish in Gethsemane he argues that we will never truly be able to deal with such evil if it seen as external to the self. Willard points out our choice to cultivate such thoughts and feelings or not, therefore we need to take a responsibility for our self.

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