As I once heard Mark Driscol - pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA - say,
"God usually answers our prayers in three ways: Yes, no, and later."
I had to read and review "The Shack" for mt Spiritual Formation class. For a long time I have been interested in what it was all about since a lot of Christians hate it and a lot of Christians love it. Now, I can see why those criticisms have arose and as well as the praise.
Below, I have pasted my review of the book. Now, I must warn you: it's long and it actually sucks as a paper. grammatically it's just a mess I am sure and a big problem is that I had to be concise which was hard for me because so it turns out, I have a lot to say about it. So, incidentally, the ideas and thoughts are all jumbled together, but hopefully, the message still gets across and I hope it can still benefit those interested in Theology and/or the book.
So anyway, without further a due...
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There is no other book among the mainstream Christian movement that has received more recognition, more praise, and more criticism than William P. Young’s Fictional work titled The Shack. The story in which Young tells is one that is far too close to the way most Christians will feel at some point of their born again life. He gives a common man named Mack, who after losing his youngest daughter in a horrible abduction incident which gave evidence to murder, Mack has lost his faith – to some degree. In short, Mack is angry with God and he questions the morality and the reality of God, but in this anger, Mack finds himself eventually meeting with the very one whom he persecutes. The picture, in which Young paints, is seemingly a mystical and fantasy one, although Young would contest that this story could very well be far from a fantasy. After the printing of this written work, Christians all over began to read it and use it as a means of Theology – Christians closely associated with the Emergent Church movement were quick to claim this book as a viable source of Modern Christian Theology.
The Shack reads fantastically; it is undoubtedly an easy and very exciting read for anyone who would love nothing more than to read a good work of fiction that causes them to unceasingly fly through it page by page in excitement and thrill. However, it is my believe that this work is greatly flawed Theologically and can be quite dangerous for new Christians as well as Christians who have not been educated on the basics of Theology. Mark Driscoll – pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA – gave his quite harsh and blatant view of the book: “Regarding the Trinity, it’s actually heretical!” Many others have taken on their more defensive opinion saying “[…] it has blown the door wide open to my soul.” For me, upon reading the book, I find myself oddly uncomfortable with its teachings. For long my classmates have often warned me against the book and would chastise the author in quite rough ways such as “One book I would like to burn: The Shack.” I was always uncomfortable by the criticisms of a work of Fiction and so consequentially I have always been in favor of the work. Since reading it recently however, I find myself seeing where those remarks come from and after reading the work and looking at several reviews from other Christians, I take on opinions not so in favor of The Shack with the exception of a few theological teachings of young that I would consider “ok”. In the following I will give a concise view of my stance with the book theologically.
Firstly, I must discuss the love of the father. Now, basically, Young makes no theological move on this subject that I would consider wrong, but it seems to direct me towards other possible problems which I will explain. In this book, God is drawing near to Mack since Mack has drifted away from God – a wonderful act of grace that we find in the Bible as God sends His son to us. This is the love of the Father, that although we are in abandonment of the good of God and the worship of God, God comes to us and pursues us. Young makes an interesting point on the subject of the love of the Father; he says that (with Young’s concept of the Trinity which I will discuss later) God desires us to join Him in his triune of relationship but is reliant on our choices and thus comes the issue of free will. Young makes very little emphasis on free will, but he dances around the issue and I find that Young is drifting towards the idea of Arminianism. In The Shack, God invites Mack to join Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God himself into their circle of relationship, bu states that “it’s all up to you” and that “time is on our side”. By saying “time is on our side” that gives the idea that God is unwilling and possibly even unable to break into history for personal salvation and that God is not sovereign over our choices, rather He is reliant on our choices for means of joining in spirit with Him. This is an Armenian idea which I tend to disagree with precisely due to the idea of limitation. I find that the idea that God is reliant on our choices is far from Biblical and Young reveals a God of limitation with yet another instance where God says that He has limited Himself for our benefit so that we get the idea that God is surprised and that God can thus feel our emotion similarly. Yet, this idea is not Biblical; it would then mean that God is capable of limitation and if that is so, then God is capable of becoming less than Himself and that would mean that God cannot be sovereign and omniscient. It can simply be understood that God is sovereign over us and that He already knows what we know and feels what we feel and cannot be surprised – no matter what. Young’s idea of limitation is dangerous for any Christian. However, all of this may have not been the intentions of Young so I must remain content with the basic idea of the love of the Father found in this book which is pretty accurate as in God gives grace to meet us who have for long been in rebellion to him.
Next, the problem of evil according to Young will be discussed. I actually really like the way that Young describes Evil through the discussion between Mack and Sarayu (which is the Holy Spirit) in the garden. She answers Mack’s questioning about the issue of having a good God and an evil-filled world that He created and allowed to be corrupted by asking Mack one simple question: “What is good and what is evil?” God is simply beyond us and He is sovereign, even over evil. The way we try to define evil and good is by human terms and God is just not human and so we ultimately just must decide that God is sovereign and that we may never fully know the mystery of evil in the world and a good God that created it, but we can ask one question - one that I wish Young would have better incorporated – that is, that God seeks glory, and how glorious would we know God to be without the presence of Evil in the world? God has displayed himself most glorious by allowing evil into creation so that we may seek the good of God and the redemption of God thus allowing us to understand the grace and liberation of God. This is Good news.
For the issue of judgment, Young allows the reader to really feel what God might feel for humanity by having Mack as the new judge. As Young proceeds to show, there is really only one reason for evil in the world and that is God – which affirms what I had previously analyzed about evil. Young portrays a picture that Mack finds himself conflicted with blame and ultimately Young shows that there really can be no person to blame and judge – it all goes back to God. Thus one must be judged for his own actions; and would it be fair since it might have really just been a previous person’s fault? Therefore there must be something done and what Young wonderfully reveals is that Jesus was sacrificed for mankind instead of individual judgment. I must say that whether Young takes no stance on it in the book, it must be said that this does not omit our own personal judgment from God – as the Bible says we will one day be judged according to our own actions. What I hope Young does not mean to infer is a universalism idea where regardless of people’s belief, all of humanity will eventually be saved since Christ died for all sins. Universalism is not quite what the Bible teaches as Jesus explains that not all who claim Jesus’ name will find their way into heaven. I find it that Young should have incorporated the latter so that Christians may not fall into the ideals of universalism.
Now, for the issue of Young’s portrayal of the Trinity – which I find to have many Theological problems – will be discussed; I will try to be concise yet not avoid any issues regarding the Trinity. In The Shack the Theology of the Holy Trinity is quite honestly just a big mess and I will continue with reasons why.
First, the Bible clearly says “do not make a graven image of God” and in The Shack it seems that is exactly what Young has done by depicting God the father as an African-American woman named “Papa”. I will explain. A graven image of God is the act of twisting the truth that is God and making God into something else that is not God to result in idolatry; and this can very easily be done by bringing God down to us and defining Him by our own human terms. The Bible describes God as a Spirit – a deity beyond us and ultimately indefinable according to our human terms. Yes, God was revealed in Jesus, but Jesus was not the Father (I will elaborate on this later) and yes, the Bible uses terminology like “the hand of God” and “the breath of God” but this does not mean that God in fact has a hand or has breath, rather it is an idea for us humans to understand to some degree the idea of God. This does not mean that God cannot be truthfully described at all by using human terms, rather it means that if we take that which is the invisible God and bring Him down to our level of visible creation we are describing who God is with what God is not. It’s like saying that God could be depicted as an old man with a long beard, but the problem with that is that God is not an old man and sadly enough, He does not have a long beard. God cannot be what He is not, especially when it is sinful creation – God does not sin and God is creator and not creation. If this is done then ultimately we are worshiping ourselves – or at least creation. This is a graven image of God the father.
Second, Young says that within the Trinity, there is no hierarchy and that rather all three – father, son, and Holy Spirit – are equal and neither needs to submit to the other since they are all one in the same. Now this is a big problem. It is a Biblical truth that all three – father, son, and Holy Spirit – are equal to each other in that they are, as the Patristic fathers would say: “Homoousios” or “made of the same stuff” as God himself. However, it is not a Biblical truth that among the three, there is no hierarchy. There is in fact hierarchical submission with Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane and confesses “not my will, but yours” Jesus is submitting to the will of the father then and continues with submission to the point of death on the cross. There is even hierarchy in heaven as the Bible says that there is a hierarchy among angels and there is even still hierarchy between God and Jesus and the spirit in heaven – it didn’t end with Jesus’ resurrection – as Jesus sits on the right hand of God and not the throne of God and the spirit of God carries out the will of the father according to the father and not the will of the spirit itself. Concerning the Trinity and Young’s claim that there is no hierarchy, I must contest that there in fact is.
Lastly, and most probably the biggest problem we find in The Shack concerning the Trinity is modalism. In the story, God the father – or “Papa” – says “I am truly human in Jesus”. This however is a heresy that the patristic fathers distinguished as modalism. Modalism believes that God the father is in fact Jesus and all the human characteristics of Jesus were actually God and that ultimately God died on the cross with Jesus, God became sin with Jesus, and God rose with Jesus. Now yes, God was within the Son and the father and the Son were one, but God did not die on the cross since God cannot die. God sustains Himself and cannot limit Himself to death. God was not born of a virgin either as God cannot be born, He is eternal. Basically [yet, complicatedly] God did not become the Son and the Spirit rather they work together as God sent the Son and sent the Spirit. There is significant deference within the Trinity where each is unique. Still, their uniqueness does not invalidate their equality and thus we have the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
In conclusion, I see The Shack as an interesting and even quite entertaining work of fiction. However, I feel uncomfortable as Christians the world over are flocking to this book and praising this book as a wonderful and understandable work of Theology. The problem is that people are so hungry to understand something as mysterious as the Holy Trinity and when we find something that can pull God down to our level in order to understand God, we run with that when the fact is that we cannot fully understand what is beyond us and what is God. Yet, we can understand it truthfully for what the Bible says. Young created a good book, with good intentions. I tip my hat toward him for taking something so theologically complicated and trying to make better sense out of it by using more understandable terms and incorporating the story of the struggle of faith that most Christians – if not all Christians – go through. But for the book to be determined as ‘Right Theology’, I would disagree. I would recommend this book for those ready to read a fantastically entertaining story, but never for Christians who look to the book for their source of Theology.
I was on the bus, reading a chapter out of a book about Purpose. Purpose means a lot these days, everyone wants to rest assured that purpose is drenching their life. I know for myself, purpose has been a word to wrestle with.
The world is purposeful.
That's good news because these days, purpose is hard to find inside violence, slavery, and apathy. God said it best (of course) in Genesis that He created things that were to him "good". That is good news as well! Just think, the God over everything who is beyond everything and is not in need of anything from anybody creates us (and everything else) and says that "it is-" and "we are good". What was all the more interesting was that this book was explaining purpose in those three words.
Upon creation, we were once good and the world was once good. And God would have not bothered to create us and everything if it had no purpose and if we had no purpose, then we certainly would not be "good".
Somehow, we have drifted away from the idea of being "good". Well, I suppose we are incapable now to be good since we are not good. But when we dismiss us as being bad, we forget the idea that we have purpose because we were created with favor in God's eyes.
On the bus, I finished that chapter and looked out the window. I saw the river and - off in the distance - the city. It was a beautiful sight to see but with that beauty, there was also the evidence that this is broken. This world, these cities, and these people the world over have significant purpose. The doubter can rest assured that no one would exist today if that were not so.
So on this journey of seeking and finding may we seek and find this purpose we have in the Lord for the good of His glory and the fulfillment of our being.
These days I have noticed that Christians don't like a lot of things.
Take two adjectives to describe your earthly father.
Reviewing those two words, how does your heavenly father compare?
In what ways have you distorted your own perception of God?
How does that perception relflect your relationship with God?
"One week! One week! One week!"
This is what has been going through my mind all day today. In one week from now, my girlfriend will be here in MS and then in one week from Thursday, I will be making my move to NY. I get so excited at just the thought - I can't wait!
Lately, as I think more and more about this move and how my life may change in it, I realize how my life has been changing for some time. My life is full of change. In fact my life is change.
God is sovereign when it comes to change. Changes - whether good or bad - ultimately create what is in the here and now.
I am in awe of how God has shaped my life; and with the understanding that changes have brought me here, thus far, I am left to wonder then that if even the smallest most unnoticeable change were not to occur, how radically different would my life be? Would I have gone to Thailand if my family had never moved to Mississippi? Would I be moving to New York if my sister had never fallen in love? Would I believe in God if I had remained homeschooled? Would I even be alive if I had never liked music?
There is evident complexity in God's sovereignty. And still, it goes much deeper than I could ever comprehend.
Jesus loves me. I know that; and I have known that since I was four. But now, in this moment, at this time, I am beginning to understand more what that means and what that looks like. What's exciting, is that this understanding has been progressing, is progressing, and will continue to progress to allow me to fall in love with Jesus so much more.
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."
~"The Weight of Glory" in Screwtape Proposes a Toast by C.S. Lewis
Would you still be in this journey we call Christianity if Heaven was not in the picture?
...Think about that.
...No, really think about that.
One of the biggest lies the Church has ever told is that salvation is all about where you will go when you die.
I seem to be reminded everyday what "salvation" truly means. The more I think about it and learn about it, the more I see that this word "salvation" means so much more than eternal life. Of course, don't get me wrong, it's a Biblical fact that eternal life in Heaven in God's presence is a wonderful gift that comes from salvation. However I see far too often a gospel being preached that would be titled something like "Do you know where you will go when you die?!"
Eternal life is good and glorious but if that is the focal point and the sole desire of the salvation being claimed, then it could be frighteningly possible that salvation was not granted. But now, I'm not trying to rant on whether you know if your saved or not; this is the point:
Salvation is a process. A daily process. It is something we seek out everyday and as we seek it out, we go and do what salvation is meant for. God's kingdom is not just a heavenly one, it is here - as long as we bring it.
Salvation is our lives transformed by Christ.
Salvation is us fulfilling the purpose we were given.
Salvation is going, doing, being, living; it is linear and daily, and undeniably wonderfully glorious.
Yet, salvation cannot be summed up in one paragraph - at least not my me. The starting point and main point lies in this: Salvation is not all about where you will go when you die.
You know those moments of intense thinking that you might have throughout a day? Like those moments that cause you to say "ah ha!" or like when your sitting on a toilet and God speaks to you, giving you this sudden epiphany, realization, or whatever. I think it was when God decided to meet me while I was cleaning the lint from behind my ears in the shower yesterday that I noticed I have these moments a lot. The sad thing is, is that an hour later, that thought is gone; not completely, but it's never the same as when I first had the thought. I have had a habit in the past few months to counteract the forgetfulness. I tried to carry around some form of notebook, journal, or napkin, just something that would allow me to write the thought down so I could keep it. I still try to and it works well. But sometimes I might have a thought that is more like "a thought for the kingdom" or I might say "maybe I should share that thought". Not that my ideas are anything special or really worthy of sharing at all; my writing is not even great and for all I know could be quite boring or full of errors, but sometimes I just want to.
So that is what this whole blog business is all about - another way for my thoughts to leak out; its up to you (whoever might read this) to take or leave and do something or nothing with those thoughts.
My passion is for the knowledge of God. To just think of God, think of theology, understand the reasons why; or at least try to figure out the reasons - maybe even just merely ask the question itself. I just to see if maybe I could cause someone else to have that "ah ha!" moment. Because those are good and those are necessary, and it is how we grow in closeness with God. So that is the idea. If at just the very least this is only me getting out those thoughts, processing them, and chewing on them for myself. But the hope is to spark something, if anything at all.
