January 26,2004

A Book Review

The Dream Giver

by Bruce Wilkinson with David and Heather Kopp

Bruce Wilkinson is best known as the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Prayer of Jabez,® Secrets of the Vine® and Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs, and numerous other books. He was the founder and former president of the Atlanta based Walk Thru The Bible Ministries and is now the chairman of Global Vision Resources, Turn the Tide for Children and Ovation Productions. More information can be found at the following web sites: www.brucewilkinson, www.thedreamgiver.com, and www.thebreakthroughseries.com.

The following is quoted from The Dream Giver website:

The Dream Giver, the powerful new book by the best selling author of The Prayer of Jabez, invites readers to follow their hearts and find their destiny in an inspired Life Dream that is uniquely theirs.

In the time-honored tradition of C. S. Lewis, Bruce Wilkinson uses a combination of parables and Dream Coaching to introduce readers to ideas that serve as a practical and innovative guide to achieving their Big Dream. Through the principles and examples set forth in the book, readers learn how to overcome the obstacles to fulfilling their destinies. And living the lives for which they were created.

Over 9 million lives have been changed by The Prayer of Jabez. The Dream Giver will open new chapters, give new meaning, and spark new lives for the millions seeking their purpose…by pursuing their Big Dream.

The Dream Giver combines both allegory and practical application of the concepts that Bruce Wilkinson introduces throughout the book.

Part 1 of the story is "The Parable of the Dream Giver," written in allegorical form, very much is the same style as C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia series and Hannah Hurnard's Hind's Feet on High Places,  an allegory dramatizing the journey each of us must take before we can live in "High Places." This is a story of a young man named Ordinary, a Nobody who leaves the Land of Familiar in pursuit of his Big Dream. His journey gives the basis for the "big ideas" to be introduced later in the second half of the book.

In part 2 of the book, the practical application of part 1, is called "The Journey to Your Big Dream." Bruce Wilkinson becomes our Dream Coach to guide us through our journey toward our  Big Dream.

I give reference to Hannah Hurnard's book because of the striking similarities to the story in The Dream Giver, even more than The Chronicles of Narnia or John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

Immediately from the start I seemed to have entered a world of the possibility/positive thinking arena as the allegory presents us with the idea that everyone from birth has a dream planted in them by the Dream Giver (God) and everyone will be given the opportunity at some time in their lives to follow or breakout of their ordinary lives to seek out the fulfillment of our dreams. One is left wondering if the author is speaking to all of humanity with their perceived needs or if the vague sense of spirituality is even meant for the true believer in Christ to partake.

All through the reading of this book it felt like I was sitting in a strategy session of some of the most recent Motivational gurus, seeking to fulfill my greatest potential and unlock and release my destiny. It may sound mocking, but early in my college days before Jesus Christ captured my heart, I was reading books by Norman Vincent Peale and other Positive Thinkers to begin the training process for my future career and these writers were the precursor to today's motivational strategists and as my wife often says, "been there, done that." These all fall under the category of New Thought philosophy and understanding.

The principles of this new philosophy were introduced to the world by a man "named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, who believed that he had rediscovered the lost healing methods of Jesus. The loosely organized movement that began with him eventually became known as New Thought, and consisted of a number of independently developed branches such as Unity, Religious Science, and Divine Science." (1)

“New Thought, as defined in the dictionary, is a modern spiritual philosophy stressing the power of right thinking in a person's life, the idea that our thoughts and attitudes affect our experience and that God (or whatever other name a person might have for a Higher Power) is within the individual.

New Thought is a logical and scientifically based understanding and method of changing our experience by changing our thinking. New Thought is simple and easy to learn. It has a tradition that reaches back over one hundred years and is founded on principles that embrace many of the world religious and spiritual practices spanning thousands of years.

New Thought recognizes that human beings function on many levels: that the individual is a mental, spiritual, emotional and physical being. In realizing our fullness, our wholeness and maximizing our potential we are, in essence, finding fulfillment…..

New Thought teaches people tools, which put us on the path to fulfillment. The natural extension of this fulfillment is that as an individual's life is better, their family's life is better, their community's life is better and this extends out across the planet”. (2)

In the Preface to his book, Bruce Wilkinson asks, "Do you believe every person on earth was born with a dream for his or her life?" And later on the same page, "And you have it for a reason: to draw you toward the kind of life you were born to love!"  This really is a clear representation of New Thought teaching.

In the same he gives a brief but thorough teaching on The Prayer of Jabez saying that if we pray this prayer, then God "will move our lives in a direction where we can thrive but also where you'll face greater challenges than you've ever faced before." He calls this direction "His Dream for you." The Dream Giver is really the next logical step in the New Thought process in his series of books.

Part one opens with the parable of Ordinary, a nice little story which draws one in emotionally to prepare you to receive the "truth"  (big ideas) that will later be presented in part 2 of the book. It is a great strategy, setting us up to believe that if we do not step toward fulfilling our dream then we are actually denying God and His call on our lives and we will remain in the mundane, never going forward but unfulfilled as to our purpose and destiny. Don't you feel the guilt and condemnation just being heaped upon us as we try to walk in Christ, daily laying down our lives, giving up all, including our dreams, to be a disciple? Matthew 16:24-26

Through his journey, Ordinary has to face many obstacles as he pursues his dream and he eventually overcomes them all only to have to give up his dream completely. The Dream Giver (God) asks Ordinary to give the dream back, to surrender the dream willingly and of course Ordinary does this after much thought and travail. He goes on his journey only to be surprised that the Dream Giver is returning his dream to him, to use his dream to serve the Dream Giver.

There is some truth in what we read in this book, but if we follow the logic of the parable, God will always give back to us what we yield to Him. This really makes man the center rather than God, but according to the Scriptures we are to reckon our lives as dead to sin and with the life that God gives us in Christ, we become a new  creation [2 Corinthians 5:17], not the same mind as before, with the same dreams and desires, but we receive the mind of Christ through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit [1 Corinthians 2:16] and through the Word  we receive His desire and will for our lives [Philippians 2:13].

After the parable we enter into a relationship with the author as he guides us step by step through the process of "gaining the kind of life we were born to love." It plays out much like the  marketing and seeker-sensitive schemes of the Church Growth Movement used by author and Pastor, Rick Warren in his books, The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life. It centers on my needs and wants, what have I always done well, what needs do I care about most, who do I admire most, what makes me feel fulfilled, what do I love to do most, what do I feel called to do and how do I want to be remembered when I die. This is hardly a call to discipleship but a complete 180° turn to another gospel, a feel good about myself mindset.

Our Dream Coach leads us through each of the steps he has proposed in his plan, but we must see each of these necessary steps as the truth or we cannot proceed to the next step toward our greatness.

We must see that we were born with this dream implanted by God and this happens to everyone. We will face our fears and step through the wall of fear that stands before us as an obstacle to our dream. We will encounter those around us who will oppose our dream and we must find others who will help us get past the Border Bullies, those who would try to convince us to turn back from our pursuit. Each of us will have to have a desert or waste land experience where our leadership skills can be put to the test and we can break through to our gretaness. The next step we must take is to enter the Sanctuary, a place of peace and tranquility where we must come face to face with God and ultimately agree to surrender our dream to Him completely without condition (this book implies that God always give your dream back). And for the purpose of continuity, God does give us back our dream for the purpose of serving Him. For the next step in the journey we are being prepared to face the Giants in the land that will always oppose anyone, trying to prevent them from reaching their dream. At last, we are to enter into the Promised Land, where we are to live out our dream of greatness living for the Lord.

Many of the steps that we have taken with the Dream Coach can be seen in the methods of the Positive Mental Attitude gurus of this age with their humanistic philosophies for the building up of man through releasing his hidden potential. We also see similar methods in the New Thought Movement  (Phineas P. Quimby) which is a metaphysical philosophy seen most prominently by Christians in the Word of Faith movement giving us the Positive Confession/Possibility Thinking teachings that have infiltrated much of the Church today. You can see that the author has done well to Christianize The Dream Giver and make it more palatable for  the undiscerning to swallow.

After reading through this book several times I decided to check the website listed in the book. This site makes available at a cost, additional tools that one can employ for further personal development, which are to be found at www.thedreamgiver.com. There are tools using a number of systems that were developed for the purpose of understanding your psychological profile, to better enable you in your journey to the Big Dream. The profiling system was developed by Dr. William M. Marston, a Columbia University psychologist, in the early 20th century, using human behaviorist theory to determine major behavioral patterns that are, according to his study, present everyone. This alone opens a Pandora's box of possibilities for the use of this information in the future as well as the un-Biblical methods that are being used to help you on your way to your great destiny.

Please, when will we wake up and see how the church is becoming more like the world and the world, with its new spirituality, is becoming more like the present day church.

Bibliography

1. New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality - C. Alan Anderson and Deborah G. Whitehouse, Chapter 1, paragraph 5

2. Affiliated New Thought Network

Steve Muse, Eastern Regional Watch

Please send us any comments at: smuse@erwm.com