Going Deeper Still

This is a review written by Tim Challies (@ www.challies.com) on a popular book called “The Shack” by William Young. This book has been as high as 8 on the USA Today best-seller list and pretty close to that on Amazon.com with over 500 reader reviews. To put it lightly, this book is pounding the pavement in all different arenas and getting really mixed reviews from Christians. I chose this article, because it takes a critical look at a book that challenges “Truth” or rather Orthodox Christian Theology head on. Put your thinking, learning, and remembering caps on: ” Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who lives in us, that good thing (The Gospel) entrusted to you.” 2 Timothy 1:13 & 14

What is Theology: Is it Important?

The word theology is one that is undoubtedly not very popular today. It is a word that  comes loaded with all kinds of baggage. This is unfortunate, though, because whether we like it or not, we are all theologians. The word theology is derived from two little Greek words. The root “theos” means “God” and the suffix “-ology” comes from the Greek word for “speak.” So when we use the word “theology” we mean “speaking of God” or as has become the more popular definition, “the study of God.” That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Anyone who has thought about God or who has spokenabout God has been engaged in theology.

Of course theology is not enough; it is a means rather than merely an end. We do not wish to only know about God, but also wish to show evidence that we know Him. We give evidence of this in the way we live our lives. Often times those who say they do not like theology are those who have known people like Mack’s father–a man who claimed to love God, but whose life showed little evidence of the transformation we’d expect from someone who had truly met with God. There are many people who claim to be Christians but who have separated theology from practice, knowledge of God from the practice of serving him. No Christian can deny that we are called by God to learn more about Him and to study His ways. The more we learn of God, the more we are able to live in a way that pleases Him.

Of course there is good theology and bad theology. Good theology is theology that is consistent with what the Bible teaches us; bad theology is theology that is different from what the Bible teaches or that is even in direct opposition to what the Bible teaches. Though The Shack is not a textbook for theology, and though it may not appear on the outside to be theological, as long as it discusses the nature and the plan of God, it must be so. In this guide we will look at the theology of The Shack, stopping often to consider the book in relation to the Bible.

Theology is not often a good or noble end in itself, so we will look to the theology as the means to a greater end–  getting that theology inform our lives. When we know God as He is, we can honor God in the way we live. And isn’t that what we all want?The way to avoid being like Mack’s dad is not to avoid theology, but to love and to embrace and to pursue it. Those men and women who live most like Christ are not the ones who know the least about Him, but the ones who know Him best. We wish to be Christians who know God deeply and intimately. And to know Him in that way we turn first to the Bible.

Entering “The Shack”: A recent popular book with major theological issues

We will soon turn to three key theological concepts and examine what The Shack has to say about each of them. The topics we will look at are revelation, salvation and the Trinity. Before we do so, though, I would like to address one particularly disturbing and underlying aspect of this book. As I read the book I saw that, from beginning to end, The Shack has a quietly subversive quality to it. The author very subtly criticizes many aspects of the church and contemporary Christianity before replacing the concepts he criticizes with new ones. He criticizes seminary education (“Mack struggled to keep up with [Papa (God the Father)], to make some sense of what was happening. None of his old seminary training was helping in the least” (91).), the Bible (“God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects” (65-66).), Sunday School (“This isn’t Sunday School. This is a flying lesson” (98).), the church as a body (“You’re talking about the church as this woman you’re in love with; I’m pretty sure I haven’t met her…She’s not the place I go on Sundays” (177).), the church as individuals (“For Mack these words were like a breath of fresh air! Simple. Not a bunch of exhausting work and long list of demands and not the sitting in endless meetings staring at the backs of people’s heads, people he really didn’t even know. Just sharing life” (178).), family devotions (“Images of family devotions from his childhood came spilling into his mind, not exactly good memories…He half expected Jesus to pull out a huge old King James Bible” (107).), theological certainty (“I have a great fondness for uncertainty [said Sarayu (Holy Spirit)]” (203).), the word “Christian” as a descriptor (“Who said anything about being a Christian? I’m not a Christian [said Jesus]” (182).) and on and on. Perhaps this statement from page 119 serves as an apt description of many of the book’s subtle undertones: “I will tell you that you’re going to find this day a lot easier if you simply accept what is, instead of trying to fit it into your preconceived notions.” Though we certainly do need to maintain some objectivity when we study Scripture, God has also told us many things with certainty and we need to cling tightly to these. Many preconceived notions are theologically sound and informed by biblical truth. The reader of The Shack must be careful that he does not simply accept “what is,” at least as William Young describes it, without critical thinking and spiritual discernment.

Revelation: How We Can Know God

There are few doctrines more important to settle than the doctrine of revelation. It is this doctrine that teaches us how God has chosen to reveal Himself to human beings. While every theistic religion teaches that God chooses to communicate with humans, they vary radically in the ways He does so. Christians are known as being a people of the book, people who cling to the Scripture as the revealed will of God. The Bible, we believe, is a unique gift given to us as an expression of God’s love—as an expression of Himself. Not surprisingly, revelation is central to The Shack. Christians hold to the belief that the Bible is the only infallible source of God’s revelation to us. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which allChristian behavior must be measured. The best place to begin with understanding the Bible is to learn what is says about itself. The Bible testifies to its own uniqueness and sufficiency. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16,17). It testifies to its own perfection and power. “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7). It testifies to its own completeness. “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Revelation 22:18,19).

Clearly the Bible demands for itself a place of prominence and preeminence. It demands that it be held as God’s most important revelation to us, Some people believe, though, that the revelation given to us in the Bible needs to be supplemented or superseded by fresh revelation. This is especially a temptation in an age like ours where we tend to value what is new more than what is ancient. A question worth asking is this one: does The Shack point Christians to the unfailing standard of Scripture or does it point them to new and fresh revelation? Ever since humans fell into sin, the history of God’s communication with people has been a history of mediation. Mediation is a concept we encounter often today. We hear of sports contracts being settled by mediation; we hear of lawyers becoming involved in mediation between divorcing couples. These hint at mediation as we understand it from the Bible. In rejecting God’s goodness and benevolence and in putting himself in place of God, our forefather Adam erected a barrier between himself and God. The close communion that had once existed was ruptured and destroyed. No longer would God come walking with humans in the cool of the day; no longer would He allow them to stay in His Garden. He forced them out and barred the way so they could not return. The very next passage of Scripture relates the first murder. Human history had taken a drastic horrifying turn for the worse.The lines of communication had been shattered.

From that time, God no longer allowed people to commune with Him in the same way. From that point on, man could no longer approach God as he had in the Garden. He had to approach God through a mediator. When we think of mediators we may think first of Moses, a man to whom God revealed Himself and a man whose task it was to then make the will of God known to the Israelites. After Moses was Joshua, and after Joshua were judges and prophets. There were priests to standbetween God and man, offering to God sacrifices on behalf of the people and bestowing God’s blessings and curses on His behalf. Always there were mediators, always there were people standing between God and man. Always people must have realized their inability to approach God as they were. Always they must have wondered, “how can we approach God directly?”

God’s revelation to us is now mediated communication. We may long for  immediate or unmediated communication, but today our sin stands between us and the Holy God. God has given his full and perfect and sufficient revelation in the Bible. It is in the Bible that God gives us the rule as to how we may know Him and how we may live in a way that honors Him. How will God reveal himself to us according to WilliamYoung? “You will learn to hear my thoughts in yours” (195), says Sarayu. “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. My ability to communicate is limitless, living and transforming, and it will always be tuned to Papa’s goodness and love. And you will hear and see me in the Bible in fresh ways. Just don’t look for rules and principles; look for relationship—a way ofcoming to be with us” (198). He may reveal Himself savingly through stories that merely and loosely parallel the story of Jesus’ sacrifice (185).

Young consistently downplays Scripture at the expense of personal experience. What Young indicates in The Shack is that we must expect God to reveal Himself in unmediated ways. God will reveal Himself to us in the Scripture, but only as one way out of many. Nowhere is Scripture given the place of prominence or uniqueness that itdemands of itself. But without the Scripture as our norm, as our rule, we are subject to every whim. Only when we maintain the superiority of the Bible can we measure all of our behavior and all of our beliefs against the perfect measure given to us by God.Despite the Bible’s testimony to its own unique qualities, the majority of The Shack’s references to Scripture are negative in their tone. They do not affirm the Bible as God’s perfect revelation to us, but instead focus on its abuse at the hands of those who profess Christ or on supposed old-fashioned notions about it. Early in the book, for example, the reader learns that Mack has a seminary education, but one that downplayed the means God uses to reveal Himself. “In seminary he 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” (65-66)? Yet nowhere would the Bible indicate that it is God’s voice “reduced” to paper. Nowhere would the Bible downplay its own importance as written revelation. There is nothing reductionistic about the Bible or the fact that it is written revelation! We must not downplay the beauty, the power or the sufficiency of the Bible.