The Shack

After over a year's hiatus the blog is back. To much to say for facebook, plus I'd lose half my friends, BAH!!!

Ok, so I just finished reading the wildly popular book, "The Shack". It's all the rage in the Christian community, one book in a long line of books that have been all the rage in the Christian community over the years. Not only do many Christians love this book but so does the unbelieving world (#1 on the NYT best seller list), that oughta be a red flag right there.

Let me go back a bit as to why I read the book in the first place. A few weeks ago I had my high school Bible class take a look at a critical review of The Shack and give their impressions. Well.... a friend of a parent heard that I had criticized the book without reading it and defended the merits of the book. It was suggested I read the book before openly criticizing it. So I guess this means I have to read the entire Koran or the Upanishads or Dan Brown's works of fiction or any other writing before offering any opinion on any statement made in the work. Well, at least with The Shack I have done just this.

Granted it is an interesting story and at times it presents Biblical truth. The problem is that wrapped around and interwoven within the truth statements are statements presented as truth (from the mouth of God) that are false, in direct opposition to what Scripture teaches, and often drawn from the panentheistic teachings of eastern religions. I have four pages of notes cataloging these statements. If one's only exposure to so-called Christian writing was The Shack, that person would not come away from the experience with an understanding of the God of the Bible, or the Gospel.

This is the most dangerous sort of false teaching. It was suggested to me that discerning Christians will be able to sort these things out. That's true, but the reality is that there are few discerning Christians in this day and age. What is apparent is that there is a high degree of tolerance for and even acceptance of false teaching within the Christian community, this ought not to be so.

I can best summarize my (now informed) opinion on the theology and teaching in The Shack with the words of Dr. Harry Ironside, “Truth mixed with error is equivalent to all error, except that it is more innocent looking and, therefore, more dangerous. God hates such a mixture! Any error, or any truth-and-error mixture, calls for definite exposure and repudiation. To condone such is to be unfaithful to God and His Word and treacherous to imperiled souls for whom Christ died.”

As for the popularity of the book within the Christian community, I give you 2 Timothy 4:3-4 " For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths."

Final words....don't go in The Shack!

Soli Deo Gloria,
Mike