Discernment and The Shack by Gino geraci - Vol. 15 No. 1
The Shack Has generated countless comments, endless reviews, and more criticism than a presidential candidate. Long ago in his book A Call to Discernment, Dr. Jay Adams noted Christian apologist and pioneer biblical counselor, used a brilliant illustration from conservative political philosopher William F. Buckley’s book The Jeweler’s Eye:
The title is, of course, a calculated effrontery, the relic of an impromptu answer I gave once to a tenacious young interviewer who, toward the end of a very long session, asked me what opinion did I have of myself. I replied that I thought of myself as a perfectly average middle-aged American, with however, a jeweler’s eye for political truths… The jeweler knows value; that is his trade. (1)
Dr. Adams rightly pointed out that Buckley was speaking of discernment. The jeweler rightly distinguishes a common stone from a precious gem, the right mineral from the matrix and mineral, the flawed from the truly valuable. The jeweler looks at the stone and asks the questions: “What is this?” Is it valuable?” “How can it be cut in such a way to enhance beauty and create value?” Individuals in discernment ministry--people with a jeweler’s eye for historical biblical Christianity and theological truth--have stared long and hard into the rough crystal people call The Shack, by William P. Young. It looks like a diamond, but it is not; it is common quartz crystal filled with inclusions and cracks that mar whatever value it may even have had as costume jewelry.
I am an average Christian with a jeweler’s eye for biblical truth. An interesting crystal may fool a child, but it will not fool a person who handles precious stones for a living. There is a large dark spot in Young’s work of fiction; a crack runs through it; a flaw so profound that it renders the stone useless rather than priceless.
The Shack contains subtle and not-so-subtle heresies. The Shack also contains what many Bible scholars would call “aberrant” teaching. Former Professor of Theology at Denver Seminary Dr. Gordon Lewis wrote to me in a private e-mail that: Heresy is a conscious and deliberate rejection of orthodox teaching and the acceptance of contradictory views on the biblically revealed essentials of the Christian faith. (2)
In the category of aberration, Dr. Lewis writes: Unorthodox doctrine leads to aberrant behavior that wanders from the path of right action (ortho-practice) on biblically revealed moral and spiritual essentials of Christian living. Beliefs have consequence(s). [sic] (3)
I am hard-pressed to judge Young’s motives. I cannot determine his reasons for misrepresenting the God of the Bible. In The Shack, Young’s Papa character (God the Father) appears as a large, black woman.
However, I am more than happy to reveal my own motives. If someone reading this review asks: “What is motivating you to write this monograph?” My answer is : I am an ordinary, middle-aged, Christian man who is a pastor, who loves the Lord Jesus, who embraces historical biblical Christianity, who is asked by scores of people: “what do you think of this book?” “What is wrong with this book?” I have no axe to grind or score to settle. If a child finds a piece of glass washed smooth by the ocean’s tide and believes she has found a precious stone--a valuable gem--who am I to rain on her fantasy? But if the child tries to sell me that polished glass as a precious gem or attempts to swallow the glass for reasons that only a child would know; then do I have some kind of responsibility to tell the child her precious tresure is not really valuable or safe to eat?
I am not envious of Young. I must admit a deep sense of concern, because several of my Calvary Chapel pastor friends have read this book and mistaken it for a jewel. Some things are easy to write about. Some themes are timeless and valuable to Christians in every generation. Who doesn’t love devotional literature or priceless fiction saturated with Bible promises with eternal themes? We love the stories of hope; we love the stories filled with the love of God and the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation to God.
The biblical writer Jude certainly desired to write about the theme of “our common salvation” and then stopped and wrote: … I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3)
Jude used the definite article the with the word faith for good reason. The term “the faith” embodies the essentials of Christianity. In their wonderful book Conviction Without Compromise, Dr. Norm Geisler (Dean of Southern Evangelical Seminary) and Dr. Ron Rhodes (Director of Reasoning From The Scriptures) outlines some of the essentials of Christianity and preface their book with the fourth-century church ather Augustine’s oft-repeated dictum:
In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; and in all things charity. (4)
At the top of the list under the “essentials” category, we find: God’s unity; the historic, biblical revelation of the Trinity; Christ’s deity; and Christ’s humanity. Conviction Without Compromise also includes notes about essentials; salvation essentials (the inspiration of the Bible), an interpretation essential--which means, to the authors, the historical-grammatical method of interpreting Scripture. (5)
In Essentials Unity
People who love and/or hate The Shack usually agree with the saying, “in essentials unity,” but they are hard-pressed to ask and answer the question: “Does The Shack compromise the essentials of historic biblical Christianity?” “Is this something we should ever care about or fight about?” The Apostle Jude’s admonition “to contend earnestly for the faith” must mean a vigorous defense of the truth and a willingness to divide over the truth rather than unite under the false flag of tolerance or bad theology.
Charles Spurgeon , nineteenth-century pastor of Metropolitan Tabernacle Church in London, wrote:
Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather, it is telling the difference between right and almost right. (6)
What is it about this book that causes otherwise discerning Christians to suspend belief, enter the story, feel spiritually uplifted and encouraged, and speak of God’s love and forgiveness with fresh perspective? The fundamental problem lies in the reader’s inability to tell the difference between what is biblically right and biblically wrong; between what is right and almost right.
Does God love us? The answer is , “Yes.” Does God forgive us in Christ? The answer is, “Yes.” Does the Bible paint a picture of the Godhead where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit carry on like some rowdy cousins, eating like gluttons, making a mess, and playing practical jokes on each other? We believe Jesus is a real human being. But we do not believe Jesus is some cartoon character. I am all about fun. But guess what? God’s ways are not our ways. Is it any wonder that thoughtful people who have read this book and it’s characterization of God have come up with terms like “blasphemous,” sacrilegious,” “loathsome,” and “irreverent?”
Does The Shack misrepresent the God of the Bible and distort, pervert, or mislead the sinner who doesn’t know God or the saint who does know God? Young presents a god who loves and forgives, but he ignores the God Who also judges, Who condemns both sin and sinners on the basis of His perfect Holiness. In my reading of The Shack, the author seems committed to a low, perhaps even disparaging, view of the Scriptures. The author seems quite content to mock the Bible.
In seminary [Mack] had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, property interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners’ access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges. (7)
There is a theme in The Shack: When asked questions about the Bible, characters in the bible, or events in the bible, Young’s Papa character is almost glib and condescending; and the character goes on to explain how things really are.
At GotQuestions.org under, “What is Got Questions.org’s review of The Shack by William P. Young, “ the author wisely notes:
If one is to teach error, it is important to do away with Scripture, either by adding to it (Mormonism), mistranslating it (Jehovah’s Witnesses) or simply mocking it (The Shack and some others in the “emergent church”). (8)
If hard-pressed, both Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses would tell you that they love and honor the Bible--for the Mormons: “as far as it is correctly translated,” (LDS Eighth Article of Faith) and for the Jehovah’s Witnesses: “As everyone knows, there are mistakes in the Bible…” (WATCHTOWER, 04/15/28, P. 126) AND “…the Bible cannot be properly understood without Jehovah’s visible organization [the WTBTS] in mind.” (WATCHTOWER, 10/01/67, p. 587).
What is Young’s view of the Bible? He seems to distance himself from the biblical themes, images, and concepts found in the Bible.
Does The Shack claim to teach about the God of the Bible? Musician/songwriter Michael W. Smith seems to think so when he writes: “My wife and I laughed, cried, and repented of our own lack of faith along the way. THE SHACK will leave you craving for the presence of God.” (9)
The Shack is not really a parable--an earthly story that represents a heavenly truth. The Shack is more of an allegory--an attempt to use literary devices to represent and communicate generalizations and /or truths--in this case alleged truths about God, truths about forgiveness, truths about the nature of pain and suffering.
A Brief Summation of The Shack The Shack seems to be a book people either love or hate. I have not met too many people who have read the book with detached ambivalence. Christian author and blogger Tim Challies rightly points out:
The book is all about the content and about the teaching it contains. The book’s reviews focus not on the quality of the story but on its spiritual and emotional impact. (10)
The Shack has been called a modern parable, Eugene Peterson, author of the very controversial Bible paraphrase The Message, went so far as to write:
This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good! (11)
Is the book “that good?” Not really. It fails the elementary literature tests (great story, memorable characters, and timeless truths.) Pilgrim’s Progress is a book soaked and saturated in Scriptures and contains timeless biblical themes and truths. Does it not seem that to the “jeweler’s eye,” comparing The Shack with Pilgrim’s Progress is a bit like comparing worthless colored glass beads with precious, costly diamonds?
The Shack’s story revolves around the main character Mack (Mackenzie) Phillips. Mack’s daughter Missy is abducted and killed by a serial killer while on a family vacation. The story painfully unfolds, and we are taken to a shack were evidence of foul play exists. Mack receives a mysterious note from Papa. “Papa” is the affectionate term Mack’s wife uses for God the Father. The pain and tragic loss of their daughter is simply called Mack’s “Great Sadness.”
Through a series of events, Mack finds himself back at the shack--the scene of the crime--and has a supernatural encounter with three figures: Papa, Jesus, and a character called Sarayu. The author has the main character Mack embark on an emotional, psychological and theological journey.
The problem critics have with the book is not simply the journey, but the misrepresentations of God, the Godhead, the Trinity, revelation and forgiveness. The people who have expressed gratitude and joy over the book seem unaffected by its blatant misrepresentations of God; but rather, they sympathize and identify with the character’s fictional journey of pain, understanding, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
One would have to be pretty hard-hearted not to feel some sympathy for a man whose daughter is kidnapped and brutally murdered. Like Job in the Old Testament, Mack goes through a series of questions and answers designed to answer the problems of the presence of evil, the relationship of God to man; and the issues of forgiveness and hope. But unlike Job, Mack does not have an encounter with the God of the Bible.
Young, in a sermon he delivered at Crossroads Church in Denver, suggested he would like his book made into a movie. I have some ideas and suggestions for the main cast of characters which I have drawn from media and popular culture:
* Mackenzie Allen Phillips: David Duchavney (Fox “Spooky” Mulder from the X-Files)
* Papa: Oprah Winfrey (still struggling with her weight) or Della Reese
* Jesus: Dr. Phil (with an appropriate hair piece and a nose prosthesis’
* Sarayu: Lucy Lui (dressed in gossamer, looking kind of like an Asian fairy), Sarayu is Sancrit for Wind, but its roots means to flow, and it is the name of a river in India.
Years ago, A.W. Tozer (The Christian Missionary and Alliance pastor of the last century) warned of what he called:
…a new decalogue adopted by the neo-Christians of our day, the first word of which reads “Thou shalt not disagree,” and a new set of Beatitudes too, which begins “Blessed are they that tolerate everything, for they shall not be made accountable for anything.” (12)
Tozer pointed out:
It is now the accepted thing to talk over religious differences in public with the understanding that no one will try to convert another or point out errors in his belief. Imagine Moses agreeing to take part in a panel discussion with Israel over the golden calf, or Elijah engaging in a gentlemanly dialogue with the prophets of Baal.” (13)
The author of The Shack doesn’t seem to be too interested in addressing the criticisms brought by defenders of historic, biblical Christianity.
What you are about to read is something that Mack and I have struggled with for many months to put into words. It’s a little, well…no, it is a lot on the fantastic side. Whether some parts of it are actually true or not, I won’t be the judge. Suffice it to say that while some things may not be scientifically provable, they can be still true nonetheless. (14)
The author then offers a couple of disclaimers:
…if you happen upon this story and hate it,…Sorry…but it wasn’t primarily written for you. Then again, maybe it was. (15)
What are we to believe or not believe? Was the story written for you or not? If you hate the story, the story is for you; if you love the story, the story is for you (-S+Y and +S=Y?)
And they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. (2 Timothy 4:4)’
Cathy Lynn Grossman, of USA Today, writes: “As for critics, he [Young] shakes his head.” Grossman quotes the author of The Shack:
* I don’t want to enter the Ultimate Fighting ring and duke it out in a cage-match with dogmatists. I have no need to knock churches down or pull people out.
* I have a lot of freedom by knowing that you really experience God in relationships. Wherever you are. It’s fluid and dynamic, not cemented into an institution with a concrete foundation.
But it’s not about me. I have everything that matters, a free and open life full of love and empty of all secrets. (16)
Young claims he has “a free and open life full of love and empty of all secrets.” He leaves me with the impression that he elevates his own personal experience over the revelation of God in the Bible. Is that a problem? I believe the Bible teaches we can experience God in life-giving and life-sustaining relationships. I don’t believe our experience informs our theology, but rather, our theology informs our experience.
Young also makes the claim he doesn’t want “to enter the Ultimate Fighting ring,” but yet, he has challenged historic, biblical Christianity. Musician/songwriter Jim Croce warned in his hit tune from the 70’s : “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape; you don’t spit into the wind; you don’t pull the mask of the Lone Ranger,” If those constitute risky behaviors, how much more is it to misrepresent the Bible’s revelation of God? And there’s the rub. The author doesn’t seem to either know or care that he is misrepresenting the bible’s truth about God. Young has made repeated public comments on radio, television, newspaper, and internet about the critics who he deems are heavily invested in a God Who also encompasses wrath or judgment. Somehow the god of The Shack is mistaken as more kind and more understanding than the God of the Bible. However, justice is not antithetical to kindness.
I have had the privilege of working with law-enforcement officials and their families. In the F.B.I. if you pull a gun on a federal agent, you are pulling a gun on every federal agent. And if follows that when you threaten a marine, you threaten every marine. If you threaten an American citizen, you threaten every American citizen.
When you dismiss the historic,, biblical view of God, Jesus, and the Trinity; when you reject the bible’s clear revelation; when you downplay the Scripture’s teachings at the expense of personal experience, when you redefine the central message of salvation as being something other than the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary (salvation is not psycho-babble, no matter how “good” it sounds); when you redefine redemption; when you portray God in a way inconsistent with the Revelation of God of the bible; when you redefine the roles and hierarchy within the Godhead; when you leave the reader with the impression that you believe in Universalism* but privately or from pulpits affirm the exclusivity of Jesus; you are going to create misunderstandings. And for the person who cares about truth, for the person who sees himself or herself not as some sort of dogmatist, but rather, as a person in love with the revelation of God the revelation God has provided about Himself given in the Bible, The Shack constitutes a threat.
Misrepresentations In The Shack
Young doesn’t seem interested in defending his warped and weird views of God including the nature of the Trinity or his heretical views of patripassianism and subordinationism. These may seem scary terms to some, but a couple of definitions may help.
Patripassianism is a form of modalism--the teaching that there is only one God yet appears in three different modes or manifestations (as opposed to the orthodox teaching that there is only one God Who eternally and equally co-exists in three persons). Patripassianism comes from the Latin, and means the father suffers. The term refers to the teaching that God the Father suffers on the cross as Son--since according to this false view, the two are different modes or manifestations of the same person.
At one point, Mack notices:
…scars in (Papa’s) wrists, like those he now assumed Jesus also had on his, (18) And later Papa says:
When we three spoke ourself [sic] into human existence as the Son of God, we became fully human. We also choose to embrace all the limitations that this entailed. Even through we have always been present in this created universe, we now became flesh and blood. (19)
No, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit did not speak themselves into human existence; but rather, only the Son became fully human (John 1:14). The Bible reveals that Jesus is one person with two natures: fully God and Fully human. The Father is not the Son and does not have a human nature; the Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son and does not have and never will have a human nature.
Norm Geisler rightly and soundly points out The Shack contains a heretical view of the Father suffering. Geisler points out that patripassianism was condemned by the Nicene Council (A.D. 325) and the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). At issue or at stake is the notion that God changes, Dr. Geisler notes:
Suffering is a form of change, and the Bible makes it very clear that God cannot change. “I the LORD change not” (Mal. 3:6). “THERE IS NO SHADOW OF CHANGE WITH Him” (James 1:17). When all else changes, God “remains the same” (Heb. 1:10-12) (20)
Do The Shack and it’s author paint a picture of a God who changes? In what way does God change? The flood gates of heresy open (I.e. open view or neo-theism--the idea that God does not fully know or determine the future). If God can change, then the revelation of the bible is false. If God can change in any way, can God change in every way?
Young’s character has God the Father as well as God the Son “suffering” thus confusing the nature of God:
“Haven’t you seen the wounds on Papa [God the Father] too? “ I didn’t understand them. “How could he ….” for love. He choose the way of the cross…because of love.” (21)
According to Young’s characterization, the way God changes is God changes out of love; God is willing to change, able to change, “to get inside your stuff” (Crossroads Church audio file). If God is willing to change, motivated by love to get inside your stuff, then according to Young, the change God proposes must be good (an improvement in His flawed original plan? ). Right? Wrong. In reality, the nature of God and the plan of God are perfect. If the nature of God changes and/or if the plan of God changes, that is an indictment against the fundamental nature and/or character of God changes is heresy.
For some reason, perhaps for several reasons, those who love The Shack embrace the notion that God, indeed, does change! The Shack offers a shiny, glass pebble of psychological relief for the human heart and invites the reader to embrace a god who changes-so you don’t have to. For those who “love” The Shack, they are invited to embrace a god who allegedly changes-who changes because of (Young’s redefinition of) love in order “to get inside your stuff.”
God doesn’t change! The cross of Jesus does reveal the love of God-the love of an already perfect, unchanging God. Jesus came to die to absorb the wrath of God, to please His heavenly Father, to learn obedience and fulfill God’s perfect plan; to achieve His own Resurrection from the dead. If you think the Bible doesn’t contain enough reasons to declare God’s love, perhaps reading well know Christian author and pastor, John Piper’s book Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die would be helpful. (22)
Young defends his position by appealing to 2 Corinthians 5:19. “That God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself;” with the net result that the reader is left with the impression that Young’s view is some kind of modified form of Universalism. In Young’s faulty analysis and interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:19, God the Father is literally present (in some unknown way) in Christ-suffering, even experiencing the roman nails, and taking on permanent wounds-visible, tangible, real. But for purposes of discussion, let’s suppose that Young does not mean real, physical, and tangible, but rather, he means in some sense metaphorical or allegorical. Is the net result a God who changes?
The Apostle Paul is convinced that God the Father was by means of Jesus’ death on the cross reconciling the world to Himself, and He was not coexisting or taking on an additional nature or experiencing ontological change with Jesus. Tozer writes;
For a moral being to change it would be necessary that the change be in one of three directions. He must go from better to worse or from worse to better; or granted that the moral quality remain stable, he must change within himself, as from immature to mature or from one order of being to another. It should be clear that God can move in none of these directions. His perfections forever rule out any such possibility. (23)
He then continues:
God cannot change for the better. Since He is perfectly holy, He has never been less holy than He is now and can never be holier than He is and has always been. Neither can God change for the worse. Any deterioration within the unspeakably holy nature of God is impossible. Indeed, I believe it impossible even to think of such a thing, for the moment we attempt to do so, the object about which we are thinking is no longer God but something else and someone less than He. The one of whom we are thinking may be a great and awesome creature, but because he is a creature he cannot be the self-existent Creator. (24)
Subordinationism is a heretical teaching proposing that any One of the Trinity is lesser in rank or dignity than others. In contrast, although there is no autonomous Person of the Trinity-none who is God apart from any other Person-yet each Person is autotheos ( “God in and of Himself).
Gender Bender God
Tim Challies cites from Old Testament Theology by Bruce Waltke (one of the leading Old Testament scholars in the world) where Waltke argues that both representation and misrepresentation matter:
God, who is over all, represents himself by masculine names and titles, not feminine ones. He identifies himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, not Parent, Child, and Spirit, not Mother, Daughter, and Spirit. Jesus taught his church to address God as “Father” (Luke 11:2) and to baptize disciples “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19). God’s titles and King, not Queen; Lord, not Lady. God, not mortals, has the right to name himself. It is inexcusable hubris and idolatry on the part of mortals to change the images by which the eternal God chooses to represent himself. We cannot change God’s names, titles, or metaphors, without committing idolatry, for we will have re-imagined him in a way other than the metaphors and the incarnation by which he revealed himself. His representations and incarnations are inseparable from his being. (25)
Young has “re-imagined” God in The Shack. What Waltke rightly calls “inexcusable hubris and idolatry” becomes excusable and laughable to Young who presents a god who gives the book’s main character greens that may give him the runs. The inexcusable becomes excusable as Young has the character Papa explain the mystery:
Mackenzie, I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived fro my nature. If I choose to appear [emphasis in the original] to you as a man or woman, it’s because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning. (26)
Theologians concede that God is neither male nor female; but they would be hard-pressed to accept that God communicates his nature by mixing ,metaphors “to help” people “from falling back” into “religious conditioning.” Is the Bible’s revelation of God “religious conditioning or does Young’s god need to “mix metaphors” to promote this product of Young’s own imagination?
Is Young sympathetic to the person who imagines his own failed father as the Heavenly Father; and rather than give God a bum rap, he abandons the biblical revelation of God for a psychological accommodation to help re-imagine a loving God?
Young leaves the reader (at least this reader) with the impression that his father failed him on many levels. Was Young’s father emotionally unavailable, cold, and distant? Does it really help to re-imagine God as a non-threatening black woman to compensate for his own view of God?
Non-Essentials In The Shack
Dr. Albert Mahler (President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) says; “This book includes undiluted heresy.” # Although I agree with my friend Dr. Mohler, I would also point out the book contains some fairly diluted heresy as well. (27)
The diluted heresies in The Shack remind me of how heroin and cocaine dealers would “stomp” on their products-dilute and divide them--so they could get the most bang for their buck. Heresy in large does can kill the host; but heresy divided and diluted attempts to get the user high without killing the host. The Shack does an excellent job of masking the heresies and all the while giving the reader a psychological buzz by presenting a ”God” filled with unconditional love and short on Judgment.
The popularity of The Shack lies in it’s ability to share some facets of the good news without pointing out the bad news. The cross of Jesus is barely mentioned. A fairly large amount of time is devoted to God’s love and God’s affection, but God’s holiness and righteousness is largely ignored.
The Shack certainly presents Jesus as God and Man. Yet, the Jesus of the Shack embraces the false teaching made popular by John Wimber, and others, that Jesus performed miracles only as a man filled with the Holy Spirit in submission to the Father, thus denying the bible’s teaching of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
He [Jesus] has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of his relationship with me [Papa, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being. He is just to do it to the uttermost-the first to absolutely trust my life within him, the first to believe in my love and my appearance without regard for appearance and consequence. (28)
The author has his (god) character say some things completely inconsistent with the revelation of Scripture. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus, and by Jesus all things consist (see Col1:16-17). Subordinationism reduces the Second Person of the Trinity in rank by implying that His human nature places Him with less glory, dignity, or honor. The Scriptures teach and orthodox Christianity has always affirmed, that the person in the Godhead are equal in essence.
Young makes additional statements that suggest that hierarchy and authority within the Godhead simply don’t exist, and that hierarchy and authority are the result of sin. Once again, Young has his (god) character Papa say: Mackenzie, we have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command or “great chain of being” as your ancestors termed it. What you’re seeing here is relationship without any overlay of power. We don’t need power over the other because ‘we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us. (29)
What makes no sense to Young’s character makes perfect sense to the God of the bible. The Scriptures reveal both authority and hierarchy within the Godhead. Jesus is sent by the Father; Jesus obeys the Father; the Holy Spirit obeys both Father and Son (John 14:26; John 15:26). The obedience and submission within the Godhead are not the result of sin, but rather, the revelation of the Scriptures concerning perfect love demonstrated in the way the Father relates to the Son and the way both the Father and the Son relate to the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul writes: But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the lead of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3) Paul also warned Timothy:
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies, in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” ( 1Timothy 4:1-3) But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. (1 Timothy 4:7)
Young’s Jesus character informs Mack that Papa and Saayu are: …indeed submitted to one another and have always been so and always will be…In fact, we [read Trinity} are submitted to you [Mack} in the same way. (30)
What? In what way? In a conditional or unconditional way? Why then did Jesus submit Himself to the Father? Why did Jesus say, “Not My will, but Thy will be done?” (Luke 22:42) Does the Bible teach submission to authority in spiritual and family and government matters? What do you think Young means? I believe Young is projecting his own anti-authority sentiments, and that includes Young’s unwillingness to accept the authority of the Bible. According to Young, God is an extreme egalitarian.
Papa asks Mack to forgive the murderer of his daughter, Papa says: Mack, for you to forgive this man is for you to release him to me and allow me to redeem him. (31)
What in the world does that mean? Is God only free to redeem people who have been forgiven by their human victims? Does this mean we can have no expectation of repentance, even through the Bible says, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him” (Luke 17:3-5) ? What about the Jesus character saying: I am the best way any human can relate to Papa or Sarayu.” (32)
However, the true Jesus of the bible says: I am the way, the truth, the life. (John 14:6, emphasis mine) Are there other “ways”-less ways, less then best ways, average ways, next-to-best ways-still possible? Why does the Jesus character hold out the false hope that these might be another way for the reader?
In All things Charity
Challies has an excellent review posted on his web site (www.challies.com) He writes:
Despite the great amount of poor theology, my greatest concern is probably this one: the book has a quietly subversive quality to it. Young seems set on undermining orthodox Christianity. For example, at one point Mack states that, despite years of seminary and years of being a Christian, most of the things taught to him at the shack have never occurred to him before. Later he says, “I understand what you’re saying. I did that for years after seminary. I had the right answers, sometimes, but I didn’t know you. This weekend, sharing life with you has been far more illuminating that any of those answers.
An Idiot’s Guide To Basic Bible Discernment
Robert M. Bowman, Jr. (Christian author and apologist) wrote an excellent book titled; Orthodoxy and Heresy. There is a chapter in the book titled, “Judging Others-is it Always Wrong?” The chapter begins with a discussion of when judging is wrong. Bowman explains we are to avoid hypocritical judgments. Hypocritical judgments are not bad because they are false-the judgment itself may be true. They are bad because they are given in a spirit of self-righteousness, absent is self-scrutiny. Hypocritical judgments result in judgment for the hypocrite. We are to avoid presumptuous judgments. Bowman rightly points out , “There are some matters on which human beings simply are not competent to judge.” (33) I believe we are not competent to judge if Young is saved or not saved.
Bowman also points out that another sort of presumptuous judgment is taking a non-essential matter and making it the litmus test regarding Christian fellowship. In the Bible, the Apostle Paul warns about this by citing the misapplication of dietary restrictions and feast days as matters for Christian fellowship. Does embracing or rejecting the content of Young’s book constitute an essential of the faith?
Bowman then points out in chapter 3, “When Judging is Right.”
Judging truth from error and good from evil.
Judging unrepentant sinners in the church.
Judging teachers of false versions of Christianity. (34)
Bowman also points out in chapter 6, “It’s Not Always Black or White.”
“It is helpful to speak of religious doctrines which undermine or are in tension with a group’s orthodox beliefs as aberrational or aberrant,. Holding such aberrational views is a serious problem, and those who do so must be considered as being in serious sin and should be treated accordingly. Specifically, those advocating such errors should not be allowed to teach or minister in the church, and those refusing to keep such aberrant views to themselves should be excommunicated. (35)
He continues and says:
The charge that a person’s or group’s beliefs are aberrational is a serious one that cannot be made easily. It is arguable that at one level any incorrect belief is at tension with or undermines orthodox beliefs. By aberrational, however I am referring only to false beliefs which do serious damage to the integrity of an orthodox confession of faith. (36)
Conclusion One person named Michael Burton posted this in the review section of Amazon.com:
Upon sober reflection, perhaps you will discern that this IS an amazing book and THE book for you if, and only if..
You want to recreate God in your own image;
You find Isaiah’s portrayal of a holy God seated upon His throne to be a disturbing image;
You would prefer to metaphorically cast God the Father as a loving and large black woman named “Papa” Jesus as a laid back and friendly Middle Eastern man, and the Holy Spirit as a calm and cool Asian woman;
You want a God so small that you and she/he/she can just hang out as best buddies;
You regard the Bible as an extremely biased , narrowminded and insufficient revelation of God in leather binding with “guilt edges” (p. 65);
You therefore believe that God talks to people today, and that whatever she or he says to people trumps biblical truth (p.66);
You believe that God is never to be feared (p.90);
You believe that Jesus’ miracles do not affirm Him as God, but prove only “that Jesus is truly human” (p. 99)
You want a God who does not hold people accountable for, nor punishes sin (p. 119);
You want a God who does not demand that you submit to him or her, but one who submits to YOU (p.145)
You want a God who accepts everyone-“Buddhists…Muslims, bankers and bookies-as his or her children no matter what their beliefs or behavior, and that Jesus has “no desire to make them Christian”. (p.223);
You believe that Jesus lied when He warned, “Broad is the road that leads to destruction”. (Matt. 7:13), because in the Shack Jesus says, “Most roads don’t lead anywhere” (p.182)
Young has said he never meant for those quotes in his book to mean he believes in Universalism. He has said his critics are too deeply invested in a God of Judgment to read his book in the spirit in which it was written.
The confusion and misunderstanding might go away if Young would affirm historic, biblical belief. Creedal theology does service a purpose in that we don’t “play telephone” with doctrine. Statements of faith have real value.
One of the great challenges any writer faces is to write in such a way that his core message is understood. What is the core message of The Shack? I have read the book twice-once quickly and once carefully.
The core message of The Shack seems to be; Nearly 2,000 years of historic, biblical Christianity has had it all wrong-well, maybe not all wrong. Yes, there is a God; and that god is a God of unconditional love. Nevertheless, Young contends that God may not be as angry with sin as He has described in His Word-the Bible; and there probably is some sort of universal forgiveness that results in the ultimate redemption of all mankind. Does Young assume the Bible has a lot of great stories, characters, beliefs, concepts, and doctrines; but hey, human experience is at least as important? Yes, the god of the bible reveals Himself in Trinity, but Young’s book presents his Trinity as just a modified form of modalism very similar to that of Oneness Pentecostals. So, if you want genuine and profound healing from trauma and /or abuse and you desire true and lasting answers to life’s deeper questions, The Shack offers more psycho-babble than hope.
Young has fashioned a fictional vehicle to re-create and experience a god (because this god is not the God of revelation, but rather Young’s imagination) who: “…is the ground of all being, dwell in, around and through all things.” (38)
Young confuses a transcendent God-Who is greater than and exists above and independent of creation-with a pantheistic god-a god ho is a part of, but not all of this world.
What does the author really believe about God? What does the author really believe about Universalism? Over and over again we are presented with Young’s character saying the most outrageous things. For example, Papa says to Mack: We [the Trinity] have limited ourselves out of respect for you.” (39)
Really? The Creator-God, limits Himself out of respect for created beings? - limits Himself in order to entertain and engage them? But, the god of the bible refuses to limit Himself, choosing rather to enlighten us by saying; “For My thoughts [are] not your thoughts, Nor [are] your ways My ways,” says the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8) Sarayu (Young’s Holy Spirit character) says to Mack: Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have actual existence… (40)
Is that what the Bible teaches? How did the Jesus of the Bible get it so utterly wrong attributing His temptations in the desert to the evil Devil and speaking to him as well? (See Luke 4:1-13.)
Young’s character Papa bloviates; I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is it’s own punishment, devouring you fro the inside. It is not my purpose to punish it; but to cure it. (41)
We know there are consequences of sin, both temporal and eternal. How does the god of the bible cure sin? Jesus dies on the cross. How does the god of The Shack cure sin? Papa’s statement is that the punishment for sin is the punishment we receive in this life. The punishment in the bible for the unredeemed is a Christ-less eternity in Hell.
The Shack neither visits, nor explains, nor expands the Biblical view of the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross. The God of the Shack doesn’t seem to hate sin (only in as much as it hurts someone in the here and the now); doesn’t require sinners to repent; and fails to explain the nature of conversion or what constitutes Biblical conversion or salvation. The Shack is not a precious gem, but a broken piece of glass that should be labeled: “Harmful if Swallowed”
* Universalism is the false belief that all will be saved. Scripture quotations are from the New King James Versions.
Endnotes:
1. Adam, Jay A Call to Discernment Eugene, OR Harvest House Pub.
2. Lewis, Gordon 2008, Heresy and Abberrat Conduct 8 November. Private emial correspondence with Gino Geraci.
3.lbid
4. Geisler, Norm and Rhondes, Convictions without Compromise Eugene, OR Harvest House Pub. 2008
5. lbid
6. Elliott, Wayne, shack attack - Or a Call to Discernment? [online] http://www.hereiblog.com/
7. http://www.gotquestions.org/The-Shack-review.htm
8. Houndmann, S. Michael , 2008 'What is Got Questions. org's reiew of The Shack by William P. Young? [online] http://gotquestions.org/The-Shack-review.html (accessed on 11 October 2008)
9. Smith, Michael W. back cover of The Shack, Newbury Park, CA ; Wndblown Media, 2007
10. Challies, Tim A Reader's Review of The Shack [online]
11. Peterson, Eurgene back cover of The Shack
12. Tozer, A.W. , Gems from Tozer selections rom the Writings of A.W. Tozer Wing Spread Publishers, 1980 47-48
13. lbid, 47-48
14. Young, op. cit, 12.
15. lbid., 13
16. Grossman, Cathy Lynn 2008 'Shack opens doors but critics call book 'scripturally incorrect' [online] http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-05-28-the-shack-N.htm (accessed on 12 November 2008)
17. Challies, op. cit
18. Young, op.cit., 96
19. lbid,. 99
20. Norman Geisler, http://normgeisler.com/
21. Young, op, cit., 165
22. Piper, John Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, Wheaton, IL. Crossway books 2006
23. Tozer, A.W. The Knowledge of the Holy, HarperCollins Pub. 1961; 49
24. lbid,. 49
25. Challies, op. cit
26. Young op cit , 93
27. Mohler , Dr Albert 2008 Radio Broadcast - Encore Presentation, April 11, 2008 http://www.albertmohler.com/
28. Young, op.cit, 99-100
29. lbid,. 122
30. lbid, 145
31. lbid., 224
32. lbid., 109
33. Bowman, Robert M. Jr. Orthodoxy and Heresy, Grand Rapids; Baker Book House, 1992 - 29-30
34. lbid,. 30-32
35. lbid, 53
36 lbid., 53
37. Burton, Michael , 2007, Customer Review [online] http://www.amazon.com/review/R2lQLK8MCPWZLJ (accessed on 12 November 2008)
38. Young, op. cit., 112
39. lbid . 106
40. lbid 136
41. ibid., 119
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