Review of The Shack by William P. Young?”The Shackhas become a publishing phenomenon, a bestseller by a first-time author that has rocketed up the sales charts with rumors of an impending movie, not bad for a book that was self-published by the author, William P. Young, and started out being sold out of a garage.The glowing reviews for The Shack hail it as everything from the new Pilgrim's Progress (theologian Eugene Peterson, translator of the Bible paraphrase The Message) to “the best novel of 2007” and “one of the rare fiction books that could change your life” (various Amazon.com five-star reviewers).
According to the book jacket, Young was raised by missionary parents living among a stone-age tribe in New Guinea. He wrote the novel for his six children to explain his own journey through pain and misery to “light, love and transformation,” according to a profile in USA Today. The “shack” of the story was the ugly place inside him where everything awful was hidden away, a result of his history as a victim of sexual abuse, his own adultery and the ensuing shame and pain, all stuffed deep in his psyche, as Young explained.This background is important because Young’s past appears to greatly color his view of both God and Christianity, resulting in a severely flawed view of both. The story begins with Mackenzie “Mack” Phillips, a father suffering great pain-a “Great Sadness,” according to the story-because of the death of his young daughter at the hands of a serial killer. Mack receives a note from “Papa” to meet him at the rundown shack in the woods where police had found evidence of his daughter's murder six years earlier. Mack, who was raised by a hypocritical, vicious and abusive father who was also a pastor, already understands from previous experience that “Papa” is God. Mack approaches the shack with rising anger, wanting to lash out at God for allowing his young girl to be killed. Instead of the old man with a long white beard, as Mack expects, he’s suddenly embraced by “a large beaming African-American woman” who introduces herself as Papa.Mack is then introduced to the rest of the Trinity: Jesus, a Middle Eastern man dressed as a laborer, and the Holy Spirit, a woman of “maybe northern Chinese or Nepalese or even Mongolian ethnicity” named Sarayu. The rest of the story is a conversation among the three members of the Trinity and Mack as they work through issues of creation, fall and redemption.Subtle and not-so-subtle heresiesYoung’s intentions are good. He wants to introduce readers to a loving God who was willing to sacrifice his own Son to save us from our sins. But all heresies begin with misconstruing the nature of God.
From Jehovah’s Witnesses to Mormonism to even Islam, they all get it wrong when it comes to understanding the God of Scripture. Young joins their company. Part of the problem arises because his story is confused and inconsistent. I don’t think he sets out to mislead, but he himself is misled, either by himself or others.He wants desperately to show us the God of love as found in Scripture
1 John 4:8
But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
But he ignores the other side, the God of utter holiness
Isaiah 6:1-5It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other,"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven's Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory!"Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke. Then I said, "It's all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven's Armies."
And, ultimately, the final Judge
Revelation 20:11-15And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide.I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds.Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death.And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Any presentation of God that shows only one side of His nature is wrong.
In an effort to counter a false view of God as only the judging avenger of wrath, we must not go the opposite direction and present Him only as a loving, indulgent parent who never judges sin.
Both extremes are false in that they present an incomplete picture of God as He shows himself to us in Scripture. By emphasizing only one part of God's nature, The Shack actually leads readers astray with regard to God's attitude towards sin.
Papa tells Mack, "I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it."To be sure, sin often carries within itself its own punishment Romans 1:27
Romans 1:27And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
But sometimes the wicked prosper in this life
Jeremiah 12:1Lord, you always give me justice when I bring a case before you.So let me bring you this complaint:Why are the wicked so prosperous?Why are evil people so happy?
More important, Scripture is full of references to God's impending wrath against sin and unbelief
John 3:36And anyone who believes in God's Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God's angry judgment."
Romans 1:18But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
Romans 2:5-8But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.He will judge everyone according to what they have done.He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers.But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness.
Colossians 3:6Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming
and many others.)
For The Shack to give the impression that it is not God's purpose to punish sin is the height of bad theology and irresponsibility.We anthropomorphize (attribute human qualities to) God the Father at our peril. He is spirit
John 4:24For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."
When He refers to Himself in anthropomorphic terms, it is always as a father. This is important because any attempt to make God a female inevitably leads to goddess religion and God's becoming some sort of fertility figure, a worship of the creation instead of the Creator
Romans 1:25They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.And for some reason Papa changes form later in the book to become a gray-haired, pony-tailed male. No, God does not change Himself to accommodate our flawed understanding of Him. He changes us so we can see Him as He truly is
1 Corinthians 13:12.Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.Papa acknowledges that Jesus is both fully human and fully God, but she adds,
[H]e has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of his relationship with me, 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 or consequence.
But that's not what Scripture says. Jesus in fact was before all things and through Him all things were created and hold together
Colossians 1:16-17for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.He made the things we can seeand the things we can't see-such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
The words Papa speaks are a form of the ancient heresy of subordinationism, which puts Jesus in a lower rank within the Trinity. Scripture teaches that all three persons of the Trinity are equal in essence.Scripture also teaches that there is a hierarchy of authority and submission within the Trinity. Papa tells Mack that authority and submission are a result of sin, and the Trinity is a perfect circle of communion.
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.
But Scripture teaches that authority and submission are inherent to the Godhead and have existed from the beginning. Jesus was sent by the Father
John 6:57I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me.
Jesus says it is his intention to obey the Father’s will
Luke 22:42"Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."
The Holy Spirit obeys both the Father and the Son
John 14:26 But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative-that is, the Holy Spirit-he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
John 15:26 "But I will send you the Advocate[a]-the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.
These are not the result of sin; they are the very nature of the Godhead in which all three persons are equal in essence but exist within a hierarchy of authority and submission.The Shack also teaches a form of patripassionism, another ancient heresy that teaches that God the Father suffered on the cross.
At one point, Mack notices “scars in [Papa’s] wrists, like those he now assumed Jesus also had on his,” and later Papa says, “When we three spoke ourself into human existence as the Son of God, we became fully human. We also chose to embrace all the limitations that this entailed. Even though we have always been present in this created universe, we now became flesh and blood.” Finally, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit did not speak themselves in human existence; only the Son became human
John 1:14So the Word became human[a] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son.A low view of ScriptureThe Shack wants to make God accessible to a hurting world, but its author also has a very low view of Scripture; in fact he mocks anyone who holds that there is such a thing as correct doctrine.
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, properly 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.
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) Mocking it (The Shack and some others in the "Emergent church".
But if you are going to claim to teach about God, you must stick to what He has declared to be His revelation about Himself and His will to us.
In other words, correct doctrine, a point stressed numerous times in Scripture 1 Timothy 4:16Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.2 Timothy 4:3For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.Titus 1:9He must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught; then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it where they are wrong.Titus 2:1As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching.
Yes, we are not just to be hearers (and readers) of the Word; we are to live it. But we can’t live it unless we know it, believe it, and trust it. Otherwise, the God you present is merely a creation of your own imagination and not the God that everyone must stand before on that final day, either as friend or condemned sinner.But it's only fictionSome defend The Shack by saying it's only a work of fiction. But if you’re going to have God as a character in your fiction, then you must deal with God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture.
By using the Trinity as characters, The Shack is clearly indicating that it's talking about the God of Christianity. But God has said certain things about Himself in Scripture, and much of what's in this novel contradicts that.More important, why does the author feel the need to change the character of God in this story? In a way, he’s saying that the God who reveals Himself to us in the Bible is insufficient. The author needs to “improve” the image to make it more palatable. But as I said in the original post, God never changes Himself so that we can understand Him better. He changes us so that we can see Him as he truly is. If God changed His nature, He would cease to be God.If a friend had a cold, abusive father, don’t make the God of your story into a warm, loving female to compensate. Show your friend what a true father is like, using the example from Scripture. If your friend is hurting, don’t comfort him with soothing lies, such as The Shack’s assertion that God does not judge sin. Show him the God of all comfort found in Scripture, the God who was willing to save you from that judgment by sending his Son.
If the Bible is not our source for absolute truth, and personal experience is allowed to define and interpret what truth actually is, a saving faith in Jesus Christ is rendered meaningless.Another area where the emerging / emergent church movement has become anti-biblical is its focus on ecumenism. Unity among people coming from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and diversity in the expression of corporate worship are a strong focus of the emergent church movement. Being ecumenical means that compromise is taking place, and this results in a watering down of Scripture in favor of not offending an apostate. This is in direct opposition to passages such as Revelation 2:14-17"But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin.In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching.Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. "Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it. Jesus’ letter to the church of Pergamum, in which the Church is warned against tolerating those who teach false doctrine.False doctrine seems to abound within the emerging / emergent church movement, though, as stated previously, not within every group espousing emerging / emergent church beliefs.
Because of this, care must be taken when deciding whether or not to become involved with an emergent church group. We all need to take heed of
Matthew 7:15-20 "Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.
A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit.So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by While seeking new ways to witness to a changing culture is admirableUtilizing ways which compromise the Truth of the Gospel in any way is nothing more than promoting false doctrine and leading others away from Christ instead of to Him.