This is the Faith Debate, a theological roundtable gab fest, a free-for-all forum with faith community leaders wrestling over the truth. In less than one half hour, learn more about what really matters than what most others learn in a week. The Faith Debate is on the World Wide Web at WFMD.com, keyword faith. Are you ready for the clash of ideas? Are you ready for the sound of freedom? Let's get ready to rumble in this corner weighing in with a master of divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary, the faith debate master of ceremonies, Troy Skinner. Well, I hope you enjoyed the Four shows that interrupted the completion of what you're about to hear today. We had a great time talking with the State of the Dead, John Switzer, and the folks at Frederick Seventh-day Adventist Church. They just had their big play, The Glorious Unfolding, last weekend as well. It was great to have them in to talk about the State of the Dead and to tease their show that they presented to the community. They had no charge to any of us, so that was great. Anyway, if you remember before that series of four shows, there was one show, kind of a standalone, was the first part of a message that I had the opportunity to preach in the area, a sermon message that I titled Shacking Up, based loosely on 3 John, verses 13, 14, and 15. It's really more of a dissertation, if you will, on the shack. using what the Apostle John teaches us in the New Testament as kind of a perspective to take on the reading of the Shack or the watching of the movie of the Shack. And so we set everything up last time on, well, a month ago, a little over a month ago. We set everything up then, and you're about now to hear the conclusion. Hopefully we'll have time to fit all of the rest of the message in. If not, we might have to pick up with a small portion of part three next week. Anyway, here we go with part two of Shackin' Up. That's not quite what the Apostle John would say, I don't think. I mean, at least I don't think so. I say this because the shack, in addition to all those good things, it raises some red flags. I mean, the shack puts words in God's mouth. That's a dangerous thing. Better be careful what God is saying if you're gonna put words in his mouth. The shack mostly ignores the holiness and otherness of God. Well, that's more than a dangerous thing. The shack takes pot shots at church leaders and pastors and seminaries, and this too is a dangerous thing. Readers of the shack, in my opinion, could end up confused about goddess worship and the divine feminine. Readers of the shack, some might argue, Could end up thinking that God is so tolerant that there is no need for the cross. Readers of the shack might see Mr. Young's amusing, manageable, non-threatening God and fail to understand God's majesty and his awesome greatness like what we read when we turn to Isaiah chapter 6 or Ezekiel 1 or Exodus 3 or Exodus 33 or so many other places in the Bible. Hints of anti-authoritarianism run through the book with indications of influence, believe it or not, of Marxist liberation theology. If you have a copy of the book, you want to turn to page 149, you'll see what I'm talking about there. In the shack, there is no need for guilt, or judgment, or wrath. There is no need for the order that's brought about by hierarchy, even within the Trinity. Now, the shack has a Trinity, three people, Three persons who mutually submit to one another. If that's so, we don't know it from the Bible, where we never see the Father submitting to the Son or to the Holy Spirit. That's an argument from silence, so maybe that is what goes on, but we don't know it from the Bible. The shack has a God who submits to humankind. Have you read the Bible? God never submits to His creation. The creature submits to God, as we read in Hebrews 13, verse 17. In the shack, the book teaches that the Father was crucified with the Son. The movie teaches that the Holy Spirit was also crucified with the Son. This ignores that the Father and the Holy Spirit are never one time represented in the Holy Scriptures in human form. their spirit. And it ignores the heart-wrenching truth that the Father turns away from the Son when Jesus is hanging on the cross, paying the penalty for our sin. The shack ends up teaching, say critics, that love limits justice rather than seeing them as two sides of the same coin. The shack uses scripture Some might argue, out of context, with the result being universal salvation. The shack says that Jesus is quote, the best way, not the only way to a right relationship with the Father. Seeming to have forgotten John chapter 14 verse 6. The shack in my opinion, sort of promotes a post-modern New Age universalism. God's imminence overwhelms His transcendence. His familiarity overwhelms His otherness. And a condemning attitude toward the church, or any organized institution for that matter, promotes individualism throughout the shack, despite what we learn when we read Hebrews chapters 10 and 13. And this is exceedingly ironic because the shack is seeking to bring a connected relationship with God, but it does so by promoting a disconnected relationship between believers. I just unloaded a lot of stuff, didn't I? And no matter which side of this fight that you might want to take up, I have likely already offended you. If you love the shack, then you likely don't like all the shack bashing I just did. You sound like one of those narrow-minded fundamentalist bigots to me. And if you hate the shack, then you likely don't like all those kind things I had to say about the shack. There's nothing good in the shack, that book of the devil. You saying nice things about it just shows me you're part of the problem. I've turned the two competing sides into cartoon characters for effect. Now these caricatures, I guess, are gross exaggerations as caricatures kind of are. But I still want to explain myself. First, briefly on why I said so many good things about Jack. I have three primary reasons. First, I was taught by a very wise pastor the importance of being a generous reader and a generous listener. I'm not as good at this as I should be, but I'm better at it than I used to be, and I think I'm getting better, and I would encourage you to follow that same path. And in this regard, being generous means giving the writer the benefit of the doubt when you can. If something could be taken one of two ways, and you can, then take it the more positive way. If it's possible that the writer or the speaker did not mean to offend, then don't take offense. If they could have meant something else than at first it seems, then allow for the alternate meaning. Seek to fully comprehend what the other person's point of view is. Try to know it so well that you could explain their point of view back to them, maybe even better than they could explain it to you to begin with. Now the second reason for my kind words about the shack, there is no denying its popularity among Christians. Why would this be if there wasn't something attractive about it to Christians? It's helpful to examine and go about trying to explain the dynamic that is at play. What is the reality of this popularity and how can we learn from it and then better understand why it's the case? And then, if we can explain all of this, then maybe if we have some concerns, we're better able to articulate and explain why we believe that it's dangerous, for example, if we think the book poses a danger. And my third reason for saying good things about the shack, there is a good amount of good truth in the shack. And so the good things I said about it are well-deserved. Well, why did I say all the bad things about it then? Well, at the end of the day, full disclosure, this would be my view. As I see it, the shack does pose a potential danger. It could be possibly one of the most dangerous books on the market today. And that is a hard position to take. Particularly after I just got done talking about being a generous reader. But being generous, it doesn't mean ignoring the obvious or being naive, not at all. Being generous means being fair and careful and slow to draw conclusions, but conclusions must be drawn. Remember, the author himself says that his book makes theological claims. The shack intends to teach about God. Is what it teaches accurate and biblical? This is the question. We all have a bias. What is the bias of William Paul Young? For example, I have biases. My bias is that the Word of God is the truth and everything gets viewed through that grid. My bias is that the reformers got things mostly right 500 years ago. My bias is that oftentimes the most dangerous lie is the one that looks an awful lot like the truth. These are some of my biases. What are some of Mr. Young's? Well, let's take a peek and see if maybe he might tip his hand. On the very first page, we see the words, rigorous rules, externally religious, and overly strict. That caught my attention off the bat and made me wonder, are these hints at an antinomian, anti-law bias that might pop up later in the book? It is hinted that those who seek obedience are seeking to appease a, quote, brooding, distant, and aloof God, as the shack says on page 10. And it's more than hinted at on page 198. And here's a quote that exemplifies a recurring anti-religion theme within the shack. And this is God talking in the book. Religion is about having the right answers. And some of their answers, the teachers of religion, are right, of course. You might see me in a piece of art, or music, or silence, or through people, or in creation, or in your joy and sorrow. But not in your religious training and upbringing. And what about the Bible? The shack, it doesn't say anything about seeing God there. And I find that concerning. Instead, it emphasizes discovering God in, quote, fresh ways. And so now because of a possible dream or his own imagination, the main character Mac, he suddenly knows God. There are no guidelines. How do we live in right relationship with God or anyone else with no guidelines? Now anticipating this objection, Paul Young writes in the shack, he has Mac say, please help me live in the truth. But what Mac gets is a word from Papa, representing God, saying, God doesn't favor rules over sharing life. Well, okay, fair enough. But how to share life? Those are the rules, the truth that we're seeking to understand. Now, confusingly, the character that represents the Holy Spirit in the shack says, God is attuned to confessing, repenting, changing, and on and on. Well, confessing what? Repenting from what? Changing? Why? If there are no rules? If religion does not matter? Just a few pages into the book we read that Mac, the main character, has, quote, hated war with a passion. Made me wonder, does that belie a bias in favor of pacifism? There is a recurring anti-violence, anti-war sentiment in the book. Like on page 160, when the question is asked, what about the ones who sacrificed their young children to war? On page 181, the Jesus character is down on ideology and down on patriotism. But what is the nature of God? Again, the book is claiming to tell us something about God. What is the nature of God? Is it nature itself? The shack talks about, quote, the God of winter on page 14. and nature with a capital N on page 15 and the universe is personified on page 30 leaves open the question is there a pagan bias in the shack on page 222 it is suggested that God wasn't free before creation and God in the book says there was no way to create freedom without a cost I knew that my creation would rebel Creation is capitalized. Why is creation capitalized? And it was creation that rebelled? Not mankind? By the way, the shack on page 190 also hints at love having no meaning outside of creation. So what does that say about love within the Trinity before creation? And it seems to ignore the consequences of the fall. And on page 191, it does the same thing with regards to justice and righteousness and holiness, as well as being guilty of conflating independence with disobedience. But I've allowed myself to digress. Back to the issue I started to touch on, the issue of nature worship. On page 144, the earth is referred to as her, over and over again. I don't know, as in mother nature? The book leaves itself open to that question, at least. And Jesus says, the Jesus character in the book says, Our earth is like a child who has grown up without parents, having no one to guide and direct her. Now, even if the earth is a person, even if, there's no one to guide and direct her? Well, what about God? Is He guiding and directing anything? Reading the shackle, it also made me wonder, it's kind of an aside, but it made me wonder if Paul Young maybe has a self-loathing bias against men, as odd as that sounds. On page 22, the main character, Mac, he accuses himself of, quote, a manly dumb thing. Are men dumb? The main character, Mac, is essentially accused of being a racist on page 158. I'm not sure if it's because he's a male or not. And at another point, page 147, Mack says, I've always wondered why men have been in charge. Males seem to be the cause of so much of the pain in the world. It sounds like Mack is a misandrist, which is kind of like being a misogynist, someone who hates women, only the opposite, someone who dislikes men. And then, interestingly, on the very next page, the book makes Jesus sound like a misandrist too. He says, on page 148, the world in many ways would have been much calmer and a gentler place if women ruled. There would have been far fewer children sacrificed to the gods of greed and power. Here are a few other musings I had while reading the shack. The main character's cat is named Judas. Is that supposed to mean something? Why not Thomas? Doubting Thomas would have seemed to be a much better name for the cat in a book with this theme that it has, rather than the disciple who betrayed Jesus. Is there a hint in the name? What about the terrain that the characters travel? Hell's Canyon, the Snake River, Seven Devils Lookout, the Toss of Lost Inn. I'm not going to attempt to draw any conclusions from these sorts of things. That's not my point in bringing it up. I'm bringing it up because I want to tell you that these are the sorts of things that began to get my attention as I was reading. It made me sit up on my seat a little straighter. Maybe actually get up out of my seat, go grab a pencil so I could make notes in the margins. I don't usually do that when I'm reading a novel. But the shack was beginning to seem like something a little atypical. So I wanted to grapple with it a little more seriously. And so I really took notice when seeing that A couple of real-life celebrities show up in the book. It's a book of fiction, but it has these two real-life celebrities in it. Why? What sort of people are these? Well, one of them is Bill Moyers, who is famous for, among other things, hosting PBS's Faith and Reason program. I don't know if you know this, but Bill Moyers was an ordained Baptist minister. But he has since described himself as, quote, neither wholly a believer nor wholly a skeptic. That's an interesting real-life person to include in the shack. Particularly since Bill Moyers is described in the shack as a favorite, a brilliant man who expresses truth with unusual clarity. Wow, a partial skeptic is the one who has the truth. The other real-life celebrity in the book is Bruce Coburn. Bruce is a singer-songwriter. He shows up either by name or by song on at least four pages in the shack. Pages 39, 118, 134, 144. He might show up in other places that I didn't quite pick up, but those are the four places I noticed. Now in a book that claims to teach us about the true nature of God, Mr. Coburn has a prominent recurring role to play. This is no accident. He's in the book over and over again for a reason. He would have to be. So what does Bruce believe about God? I did some digging. Bruce Coburn is a self-described seeker. In a 2006 interview, the year right before The Shack was originally published, by the way, Coburn is quoted as saying, I flirted with Buddhism. I sort of moved on into the occult, studied the tarot, and tried for a minute or two to be a fundamentalist Christian. Since then I've fallen under the influence of Sufi writers, of Hindu teachings, through yoga studies and various other things, and the search continues. This is a man held up as a hero in Tashak, a man who says, that his, quote, parents are agnostics. Greek mythology captivated me completely. I like the Kabbalistic view of God. If you think of Jung or Freud, these have a divine aspect or offer a connection to the divine. These are quotes. I don't think I made the point well enough to hear a few more. I married a Christian. She had abandoned that course after realizing that the people she had been with were very narrow-minded. She is a very psychic person. How about this one? Saint Paul. I don't think I would have liked him very much. Or this one. In a certain way I do think of myself as a Christian, but I've learned so much from so many other sources and now we're reading this very interesting book by a Canadian theologian called The Pagan Christ. Again, I feel like I'm belaboring it, but this is a hero in the shack. It's someone who in the interview admits, I don't know the answer. and advocates for, quote, the subjective nature of our relationship with the divine. It's important to remember how subjective it is, and not to require other people to approach the divine in the same way. This had me wondering, when I found this Coburn interview, did I find Paul Young's spiritual guru? Or, if not his spirit guide, at least a kindred spirit? As in the shack, Coburn espouses that, quote, what impresses God is the raw emotion, the raw feeling. Coburn lives out the sort of religious life that Paul Young appears to advocate. Coburn says, quote, I don't go to church, but I pray from time to time, I meditate a little bit from time to time, which I think of as a kind of prayer, because it involves opening myself to whatever might come in. Whatever might come in, This is like surfing the internet without virus protection. But it's just what Paul Young writes on page 195 of the shack. He has God say, you will learn to hear my thoughts in yours. And Mac says, what if I confuse you with another voice? Excellent question, Mac. God's response in the shack, God laughed. And we're going to end on that humorous note. I knew this was going to happen. We don't have time to finish it in two parts, so we're going to have the tail end of this message come at us next week. If you want to hear the first part, you have to listen to the podcast, which aired originally back on March 11th. And then you'll be looking for this part, too, if you're looking for it on the podcast. The air date on that is, of course, April 15th. And then part three will be the one that airs on April 22nd. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks for your patience with us as we work through these logistical situations. We're online at wfmd.com keyword faith till next week 167 and a half hours from now. God bless.