Lengthy, I am sorry but The Shack, the book and coming movie are awful!
Christian best sellers these days make for very bad theology which, we are told, doesn’t matter these days. Characteristically using emotionalism and a tragic story-line to answers life’s big questions and present a god who is no God. We must leave Christian Orthodoxy behind to indulge in a movie that will utilize the visual, music and dialogue to marry our hearts to this indefensible misrepresentation of a Holy God. God is Spirit and blatantly disregarding the second commandment alone should give us reason to pause.
Here are some of this shack’s god’s heresies: “I am not who you think I am.” “I don’t punish sin.” “ I don’t condemn most to an eternity of torment.” This god does not create institutions… cue…The Church of Jesus Christ is an institution as is marriage between a man and a woman so go figure. Today’s judges would put this god to shame because she will let the guilty go free by invoking the “mercy triumphs over justice” line out of context. This goddess is all about, I quote, “ relationships, not rules.” Oprah’s beloved myth of many ways to God does not become true just because we want it to be. Seriously, next trip you take, try this illogical thinking at the local airport. All airplanes go to Disneyland so you can board any that you like…rules, seat numbers, maps, all irrelevant. Universal-ism, the notion that all dogs, cats, people eventually go to heaven, is a pipe dream for the autonomous, egalitarian modern man to his peril.
And so, with the producer that gave us the religious confusion that was The Life of Pi, into the Shack we go with a side of polytheism and maybe Sarah Young’s other jesus will call us out. This is a god that has to bow to the squishy feel good zeitgeist and doesn’t even know what she is or what He said, ever. Vagueness is not an attribute of The God of the Bible, it never has been. The true God wants us to know Him and goes about revealing His character, His ways and His will in the Bible…clearly.
I don’t know what is more frightening; that the god of the Shack does not know the Bible or that this god is indeed a she.
To enjoy the shack, let us at least admit our utter discomfort with historic Christian Orthodoxy and our epistemological rebellion towards God’s only way of salvation--Jesus.The author of the Shack is very deliberate in using narrative to serve a false and dangerous theology. He seeks not to ignore the true God but to remake a god after our own image and likeness.
1 comment:
I also found The Shack (Book and film) disturbing for the same reasons and more. Many in social media (Facebook) would argue that "it got me closer to God" and against any false teaching that was identified would say "it's only fiction".
So I investigated the Author further as I couldn't understand how he apparently had no conscience in putting clear untruths that undermine the Bible and God's Character. I discovered his other non-fiction book "Lies we believe about God" and other references that convinced me that Paul Young was either completely out to negate Bible truths (some of them), or is completely ignorant. The more I see of him in interviews, the more I lean towards the former. He clearly misguides people and with an almost "Cult-like" professional false sincerity. I am more amazed however that so many Christians are so ignorant of Scripture truths and God's character!
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