There is a
lot of confusion over the gospel and a surprising lack of biblical literacy in
the United States
today. There is also a general feeling of dislike towards the established
church, doctrine and systematic theology. While this is troubling, the good
news is that there is a general rise in interest in spirituality and God. This
climate, much like the time of the early church, is full of both amazing
opportunity and troubling pitfalls for the Christian Church. Churches and
believers committed to the gospel, scriptures and missiology find themselves
with a unique opportunity for evangelism. However, the church is also in danger
of being waylaid by false teaching and “spirituality” that poses as genuine
Christianity. While William P. Young’s book The
Shack is by no means a danger to the gospel, the church or the Kingdom
of
God
(nothing is), it is a modern
incarnation of bad theology that has persisted for generations and needs to be
exposed by the gospel loving Christians for the fallacy that it is.
There are many good online summaries
of the book, so I will not get into that here, but what I want to do is briefly
summarize a few examples of the poor theology of this book and why it is
important enough to encourage you to be extremely wary while reading and
hopefully discourage you from giving the book to individuals not capable of
discerning good from bad theology. For starters, this book is theology
disguised (whether intentional or not) as a novel. One of the dangers is that
you check your brain at the door and get caught up in the story of the book
while allowing the theology it clearly teaches to distort your doctrine and
view of God without really even knowing it. Theology simply means talking about
God, and that is pretty much the entire plot of this book, a guy talking with
the trinity. If you choose to read the book, do so with your Bible open.
First, I think The Shack minimizes the importance of scripture in the life of the
believer. These conversations that the main character, Mack, has with the three
parts of the trinity are all about God, yet few reflect biblical teaching about
God. They really just reflect ideas that Young has about God. As a matter of
fact I was really struck by what young has God the Father (mother?) say on pg.
98, “The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by
taking the best versions of themselves, projecting it to the nth degree,
factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn’t much, and
then call that God.” This is exactly
what Young has done. He definitely does not base his version of God on
scripture, in fact, he devalues scripture. On Pp. 65-66 Young clearly shows his
view on the revelation of God. He experiences God in “The Shack” for real while
those silly evangelicals simply experience Him through the Bible with it’s
“Guilt edge pages” (what does he even mean by that play on words?). As Tim
Challies has written, “Does The Shack point
Christians to the unfailing standard of scripture or does it point to some new
and fresh revelation?” Whether or not Young intended it, he has written a book
that many (at least in Amazon.com reviews) place as revelation from God. To
consider this book as such would be a great folly.
Another huge problem I have with
this book is the issue of salvation. Young is consistently vague on what
salvation is. There is no discussion of what Christ accomplished on the cross.
In fact, though the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus bore the full wrath of God
for our sin on the cross and it is only through this sacrifice that we are
saved (Isaiah 53, 2 Corinthians 5:21). Young teaches (see pp. 95-96) that God
the Father actually suffered on the cross with Jesus and never punished him.
This horribly distorts the biblical doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement
(Jesus received the payment for our sin, which is the wrath and judgment of
God). Although Young has denied being a universalist in interviews, Wayne
Jacobsen, one of his friends and publishers, wrote on his blog that Young tends
to believe in Universal Reconciliation, the idea that all mankind will
ultimately be saved by Jesus in this life or the next. Jacobsen wrote that UR
was originally in the
book but he refused to publish it until Young removed it. Unfortunately they
didn’t add in good theology, they just left vague references to Universal
Reconciliation in place. Consider the discussion Jesus has with Mack on page
182. After Jesus tells Mack that many Buddhists and Muslims are his children
too, Mack asks if all paths lead to Jesus. Jesus answers that they don’t all
lead to him, but he goes down all those paths to get them. The Bible clearly
teaches that Jesus is the only way to heaven (John 14:6) and is clear on what
we must do to get there (Romans 10:9). Young is confusing at best, flat out
wrong at worst on this vital issue. As a minister I despise any teaching that
makes difficult the simple truths clearly revealed in scripture.
Young is considered heretical by
many on the doctrine of the trinity. Respected church leaders like Albert
Mohler and Mark Driscoll believe that Young is a Modalist, a 3rd
century heresy that taught God was not one God in three distinct persons but
was one God who revealed himself in different modes. This sounds petty, but as
described earlier it all but destroys an orthodox view of salvation. If God is
not three distinct persons then the Father cannot pour out wrath on Jesus. In
fact, Jesus cannot even bear our sin because God the Father cannot be tainted
by sin. The trinity is difficult to understand and is mysterious, but those who
believe Young helps them understand the trinity are wrong, he simply confuses
them more.
There are all kinds of issues I have
with what “jesus” says on page 149, but I’ve rambled too long, so let me discuss
only one. He tells Mack that his life is not to be copied. That we shouldn’t
try to live how he lived, but we’ll simply live our own way with God once the
trinity (wrong theology in itself) lives in us. How does this jive with
teachings like in 1 John 2:6, “whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus
did,” or Luke 9:23 where Jesus himself says that if anyone would come after him
he must daily deny himself, take up his cross and follow Him.” We are called to
be “conformed to the image of God’s son.” Becoming like Jesus is a huge part of
living life as a Christ follower. We only have relation to the Father through
the Son our mediator.
This book is bad on so many levels
it isn’t even funny. Young has wrapped a postmodern reinterpretation of the Doctrine
of God into an emotional story that anyone can relate to, which makes it
dangerous to the spiritual lives of many individual Christians. Though the Kingdom
of
God
will not be thwarted, it is our job
to “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, teaching and admonishing one
another in all wisdom (Col.3:16).” The
Shack is clearly at odds with the word of Christ, so in wisdom that comes
only from His Word, I encourage you and admonish you to find other sources to
discover the truths about God and grow in love of Him. There are many resources
and books that make much of Christ and the Word of God and little of us. A
great place to start would be with the Bible itself, or maybe Pilgrim’s Progress, the book that Eugene
Peterson so unwisely compared to The
Shack. Read both and see which one drives you to the cross and to Christ
and which one leaves you looking within yourself for answers.
Pray for the children who will be attending the VBS we put on at MSX 2008 and for our students as they serve the community through cleanup, raising $$, collecting school supplies, painting houses and learn about living a missional life. This was a great experience for us last year and it's looking even better this year.
