If Richard Foster is the devotional guru of the spiritual disciplines, then Don Whitney is the pastor. Indeed, he wrote Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life while serving as a pastor and his guidance as a shepherd shows throughout this book. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life is the first and most popular work written by Whitney that deals with spiritual formation. Whitney’s Southern Baptist background and theologically Reformed leanings narrow his focus and influences in the arena of spiritual disciplines.
Whitney shares many of the major themes as other authors on the subject: worship, bible study, silence and solitude, stewardship. There are disciplines unique to Whitney that is not mentioned by the other two most notably: evangelism and journaling. One may suggest that journaling is not a legitimate discipline (using Whitney’s logic for journaling one could argue that eating is a spiritual discipline).
Whitney also provides perhaps the most balanced approach on this basic overview of the disciplines. While Richard Foster leans toward a devotional approach that draws from Scripture based on experience, and Dallas Willard clearly frames most of his chapters from a philosophical context, Whitney undergirds his approach fundamentally with Scripture. With each discipline, he begins with a Scriptural principle and unpacks that principle interspersed with other passages throughout. He only uses historical and personal experiences to illustrate and illuminate the biblical truth.
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