"SHACK" THEOLOGY: WHERE IS THE DEVIL?
BY WARREN B. SMITH
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
I wonder you should ask me whether it is
essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That
question, at least for the present phase of the struggle, has been
answered for us by the High Command. Our policy, for the moment, is to
conceal ourselves.1 – C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
The Shack’s author, William P. Young, quotes C.S. Lewis favorably and frequently in his books, but
The Screwtape Letters by Lewis is
not one of the books from which he has quoted. I bring up Lewis, not as an endorsement, but to point out a discrepancy.
The Screwtape Letters is
a novel that presents some of the many ways Christians can be
effectively seduced and deceived by Satan and his demons—a subject that
is completely ignored in
The Shack and in Young’s other books.
The discrepancy is that Young chooses quotes from authors like Lewis to
serve his own personal and theological agenda while conveniently
ignoring writings by the same author that actually contradict his
agenda.
The Screwtape Letters is a perfect example.
The Screwtape Letters consist
of a series of letters sent by a senior seducing spirit named Screwtape
to his young understudy Wormwood. In the letters, Screwtape teaches
Wormwood how to subtly undermine and eventually destroy the faith of his
Christian “patient.” In the quote cited above, Screwtape tells Wormwood
to conceal himself in such a way that the designated individual remains
unaware of his spiritual presence. And this is exactly what we find in
The Shack. The Devil and his deceptive spirits are never mentioned—not even once. It’s no wonder Young avoids
The Screwtape Letters when he quotes C.S. Lewis. Acknowledgement of a real Devil and seducing spirits plays no part in
The Shack and its supposed expression of Christian theology.
Young has a witty but innocuous C.S. Lewis quote at the beginning of
The Shack’s main chapter on relationships.2 But where
The Screwtape Letters
serves to expose and warn about the ways Satan thwarts and undermines a
believer’s relationship with God, Young’s novel—and in particular this
chapter on relationships—says absolutely nothing in this regard. Given
The Shack’s emphasis
on the importance of “relationship,” it seems odd that no mention is
ever made in Young’s novel about a believer’s uninvited yet inevitable
“relationship” with his Spiritual Adversary—Satan the Devil. There is no
acknowledgment, no warning, no advice, no anything in
The Shack concerning the Devil, his seducing spirits, and their many wiles.
Contrarily, the Bible tells believers to put on
the full armor of God, so they can stand fast against the wiles of the
Devil and powers of darkness that are very real (Ephesians 6:11-13). We
are admonished to be “sober” and “vigilant” because our Spiritual
Adversary is walking around like “a roaring lion” and “seeking whom he
may devour”—whether that be in a shack or anywhere else (1 Peter 5:8-9).
We are told to resist the Devil and his temptations with the Word of
God—not with human wisdom and “relationship” (Matthew 4:1-11).
Young
’s easy dismissal of the Devil
implies that our Spiritual Adversary is not someone we have to contend
with in our lives and relationships. Young goes so far as to teach that
“evil and darkness” don’t even exist. Young puts these words in the
mouth of his “Holy Spirit” character “Sarayu”:
Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence.3
But this is what the universal New Age Christ teaches—that “evil does not exist.” This false universal Christ states:
Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil, and evil does not exist.4
With darkness having no existence of its own,
it’s no wonder that Young’s presentation of evil and darkness agrees
with the teachings of the New Age rather than the teachings of the
Bible. His expressed disbelief in the existence of independent evil goes
right along with his self-confessed universalist leanings.5
Hidden in Plain Sight
The Shack’s Papa “God” cites a number
of inhibiting factors concerning “relationship” in what Papa calls “all
the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your
freedom.”6 These limiting influences are also referred to as “that
confluence of multifaceted inhibitors.”7 But again, Young fails to make
any mention of the Devil as one of these influences or inhibitors. For a
man who likes to quote C.S. Lewis, Young might want to read or reread
The Screwtape Letters.
It would seem that Wormwood-like seducing spirits have effectively
convinced Young they have no existence. As a consequence of this
spiritual deception, Young has defined the Devil right
out of existence—
out of
The Shack,
out of his “Christian” theology, and
out of the Bible. Sadly, most
Shack readers become so emotionally caught up in Young’s novel, they never notice that the Devil is completely absent from his
Shack story and
Shack theology.
So where
is the Devil in Young’s novel? Be sure of this—the Devil’s presence completely overshadows and thoroughly permeates the pages of
The Shack.
Cloaked in humor, clouded in human wisdom, concealed in flattery,
tucked away in mockery and sarcasm, and hidden in half-truths and lies,
the Devil thoroughly inhabits the many conversations that ultimately
produce Young’s universal, New Age-flavored
Shack theology. The Devil may appear to be absent from
The Shack,
but for those who have the eyes to see, the Devil is the unspoken force
that inspires Young and purposely and cunningly drives his novel. As
they say, the Devil is in the details. The Devil is not absent from
The Shack, he is just hidden in plain sight.
For we have not followed cunningly devised
fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Peter 1:16)
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. (2 Corinthians 2:11)
Endnotes
- C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York, NY: Macmillan Company, 1960), p. 39.
- William P. Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity ( Los Angeles, CA: Windblown Media, 2007), p. 104.
- Ibid., p. 136.
- A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume (Glen Ellen, CA: Foundation for Inner Peace, 1975) (Text) p. 38.
- Wm. Paul Young, Lies We Believe About God (New York, NY: Atria Books, 2017), pp. 118-119. (Young states that he believes in universal salvation.)
- William P. Young, The Shack, op., cit., p. 95.
- Ibid.
Related Information:
BOOKLET – The Shack and Its New Age Leaven by Warren B. Smith
The Shack’s Universal Papa
“The Shack,” TBN, and the New Age
___________________________________________________
“Truths We Believe about God” Theological Review of “Shack” Author’s New Book: “Lies We Believe About God”
The movie was released in the same time as Young's latest book
By Pastor Larry DeBruyn
SEE: http://herescope.blogspot.com/2017/05/truths-we-believe-about-god.html;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
A Biblical & Theological Refutation
of Wm. Paul Young’s book, Lies We Believe About God
But
there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be
false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies,
even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift
destruction.
—The Apostle Peter, 2 Peter 2:1, KJV
Introduction
As promoted by the best-selling religious allegory The Shack,
a non-Christian worldview is playing around with the mind and soul of
evangelicalism even to questioning of salvation’s meaning. With the
release of the movie by the same name, The Shack’s verbal
images are now being visualized. Contemporaneously, and capitalizing
upon the publicity generated by the movie, yet another book by Wm. Paul
Young has hit the market, Lies We Believe About God.[1]
 |
| Note the Yin/Yang, light/dark symbolism |
What Young covertly taught by allegory and metaphor in
The Shack he now overtly teaches in
Lies—teachings among others, regarding God, humanity, love, and salvation. Reportedly, Young admitted that, “
The Shack is theology.” And then added, “But it is a theology wrapped in a story.”
[2]
Now in
Lies We Believe About God, the shrouded “story” plays a
more minor role as Wm. Paul Young openly states his theology. Young
continues to exert a compelling presence among mainstream evangelicals
through his interviews, books and release of the movie,
The Shack. Leaders Pat Robertson and James Robison have praised the movie.
[3] Featuring the book’s author, the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) has recently aired a weekly program
Restoring The Shack.
[4]
Why Be a Christian?
But despite their popularity, Young’s teachings contradict what
Scripture teaches about God, humanity, love and salvation (his
contention being that all people are reconciled to God, are friends with
God; i.e., universalism), and this conflict needs to be addressed. His
revisionist thinking about “Christian beliefs” does not derive from
seeing the faith through the lens of Holy Scripture, though he might
pretend it to be otherwise, but rather through a prism of his life
experiences and emotions. His devastating life experiences while growing
up in New Guinea as an MK (Missionary Kid) may explain his journey as
to why he has come to believe what he believes. But while the negative
emotions aroused by his experiences, and similarly those of others, may
explain why Young feels the way he does about some of the evangelical
culture’s expressions of belief, they do not excuse his departure from
biblical Christianity; that is, if biblical Christianity is to remain
the true way of understanding and approaching God.
The purpose of this writing is not to deal with all the issues Young raises in
Lies We Believe About God.
While he raises a few legitimate concerns which I might share, most of
them are illegitimate. What I find irreconcilable with the authority of
Scripture is the template he forces on the Christian faith and how
wedded to his life experiences, he tries to fit the Bible and its
teachings into the psychological and philosophical way he views the
world.
For example, if, as he states, all people are universally reconciled to
God (Young: Are you suggesting that everyone is saved?... That is
exactly what I am saying!
LWBAG, 118), then why believe
Christianity? (John 14:6) Isn’t that Young’s point by using an atheist
as an example of being a child of God to disprove the lie, “Not Everyone
is a child of God.”? (
LWBAG, Chapter 24, 203-208)
[5]
If early Christians had not believed in the exclusivity of the Gospel,
the Christian church’s genius would have been lost and Christianity
would have reduced itself to the status of a sect in the first century.
If I thought universalism to be true, I would possess no compulsion to
believe Christianity or encourage others to place their faith in Jesus
Christ for salvation. If in the Trinity I along with every other soul on
this planet already have an eternal and loving relationship with God,
then no matter what I believe or how I behave I am going to be God’s
friend and go to heaven anyway, right? It may take time to work out the
friendship between God and me, but we’ll get there.
“Unshackled: Breaking Away from Seductive Spirituality”[6]
Previously to this writing and eight years ago, I expressed my concerns
regarding the theology of Paul Young as expressed via story, allegory
and metaphor in
The Shack. My reservations were written in my book,
Unshackled: Breaking Away from Seductive Spirituality (2009). Interested readers can also consult my article about the “god” of
The Shack posted years ago on the website Herescope titled,
Elousia and the Black Madonna: Imagination, Images and Impurity in “The Shack.”[7] The purpose of this writing is not to replay previous writings contained in
Unshackled, but rather to biblically and theologically interact with and refute Paul Young’s teachings in his book,
Lies We Believe About God;
namely, that by virtue of descent from the Trinity via creation, every
human being is through Jesus connected to God in a personal, organic,
dynamic and eternal relationship (Genesis 1:26-30; 2:7).
[8]
Thus we turn to look at the view of salvation Young promotes in his book (really, all his books)
Lies We Believe About God.
To begin with, I would like to share the paradigm Paul Young employs to
measure Christianity, how he determines what are the truths and what
are the lies regarding the faith. Understanding this template will help
readers to see, I hope, why Young embraces some beliefs and why he
discards others. And I might add, around this worldview much of the
popular pan-evangelical movement appears to be coalescing.
The Author’s Spiritual Template
As I have reflected upon two of his books,
The Shack and Lies We Believe About God,
a spiritual template emerges—call it a paradigm, straight jacket or
grid—by which Young measures his spiritual truth derived from the
aggregate of
his life experiences—as well as those of others (good and bad)—
his psychological preferences,
his philosophical perspectives,
his twisting of Bible passages,
his theological musings and
his
beliefs about God. In order to be included as part of the
“relationship” between God and man as his template fashions it, his
religious experiences and beliefs must fit in accord with his misgivings
about the Christianity he experienced while being part of the North
American fundamentalist-evangelical subculture (being an MK, Bible
college student, etc.).
The Themes of His Template
The core of his template is this:
Young believes that universally all humans have a relationship with God and are redeemed and reconciled to Him.
Everything in life—all cultural experiences, Scripture and
theology—must, conditioned by his and other’s experiences and
accompanied by his explanations, be molded to fit his belief system. If
life events, evangelical expressions of faith or Scriptural teachings
don’t fit his system of “truth,” they are considered “lies” (few, a very
few, deservedly so). Thus the question arises, because he writes from a
claimed Christian perspective, what are the psychological,
philosophical, biblical and theological underpinnings which form the
universalistic template by which he determines his truth that
everybody’s saved because they’re in a relationship, either enjoying or
not enjoying it, with God? To explain why he believes what he believes,
we will try to unpack these assumptions.
 |
| (Movie endorsements for The Shack. Source) |
Three Themes
Indicating where he’s
coming from, there appears to be three general themes which form his
paradigm: first, by virtue of creation, the universe and the
Tri-Personal God (Father, Son and Spirit.) co-exist in oneness; second,
in this oneness the Trinity infuses the universe with the
Love (spelled with an uppercase “
L”)
they interpersonally experienced before the foundation of the world
(John 17:23, 24, 28); and third, every human by virtue of having been
created by and being immanently inside the Trinity has, does and will
participate in this divine “Love” Young calls “
Relationship.”
First Theme: The Universe and Universalism
To Young God is the Tri-Personal being who infuses and permeates the
whole of creation which he spells a couple of times with an upper case “
C” (
Creation) in
Lies We Believe About God and approximately twenty times (
Creation) in
The Shack.
In doing so, he suggests nature is possessed of divineness. Presumably,
the universe exists because in a symphony of unity the Trinity created
it (Father, Son and Spirit, Genesis 1:1-2 and John 1:1-4). But this
created universe, and here’s the catch, exists “inside” the Trinity.
In the Foreword to Young’s book
Lies We Believe About God, C.
Baxter Kruger, a Trinitarian theologian, explains the relationship of
the Three-Person Oneness of God to creation like this: “
Inside
of this moving divine dance of relationship, everything was created:
every human being, every plant, every subatomic particle, everything.”
(Emphasis added,
LWBAG, 127-128). So in this view creation is not
separate from, but is contained in the Tri-Personal God. The universe
is inside, not outside the Trinity. The Trinity is the container, the
universe
becomes the contents, and God infuses
Love into the contents so that no separation exists between container and contents.
Remember: Both Young and Kruger tell readers there’s no separation between the Trinity and humanity, no us and them. (
LWBAG,
232, 11) Question: How do compatriots Kruger and Young know
everything’s inside the Trinity? Do they arrive at this conclusion
through philosophical speculation, their Sophia? Is that the basis? (In
The Shack wisdom or Sophia is not Christ (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30), but “a personification of Papa’s wisdom,” 171).
Note: Kruger, as presumably Young, views the whole creation as
dwelling within the Trinity (i.e., as Young would say, “No
separation!”). By implication, it can be postulated that the converse of
this creation-relation-equation can also be believed; that the Trinity
indwells a dancing creation the Tri-Personal God shares with “every
human being, every plant, every subatomic particle, everything.” If it
is assumed that creation is symbiotically inside the Trinity and the
Trinity inside the creation, then as represented by Jesus the
prototypical human—“every single human being is in Christ... and Christ
is in them.” (
LWBAG, 119)
This quantum-like physics worldview (where like gravity the Trinity’s energy or Force of
Love
infuses and permeates the entire cosmos) is monism or oneness, i.e.,
all is one and one is all. This eastern-like mystical and New Age
worldview implies that the universe and the Triune God exist together in
a harmonious and rhapsodic movement (No separation!) of dance, in a
sort of hypostatic union comparable to the way in which the divine and
human fused and danced together in the Word incarnate, Jesus Christ. In
such a symbiotic relationship (Creator and
Creation “need” each other.) the creation feeds from the Trinity and the Trinity feeds from the creation (
Yin/Yang or
As Above, So Below).
So Paul Young chooses to name God “Papa” and
Elousia (i.e., a combination of the Genesis and Hebrew name for God the Creator, “
El,”
Elohim, and the Greek verb “
ousia” meaning “being” which he borrows from the Greek philosopher Plato).
Elousia in
The Shack describes herself as “the Creator God who is truly real and the ground of all being.” (
The Shack, 111) The source of the phrase “ground of all being” derives from the radical theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965).
[9] One theologian evaluates that,
God
as the Ground of Being is thus the God in whom Tillich would have us
place our trust. But this God belongs to the circle [“We are a circle of
relationship,” Papa tells Mack about the Trinity in The Shack,
122] of pantheistic theory. Ultimately, Tillich’s God absorbs everything
into Himself [ed., like Young and Kruger’s model of the
universe—everything is “inside” the Trinity].[10]
Tillich’s dialectical theology “has been variously designated as a
system of Gnosticism, naturalism, pantheism, and atheism; and all these
designations are, more or less, accurate.”
[11]
In addition to Tillich, Young and Kruger borrow from and are
popularizing the theology of Jürgen Moltmann (1926- ), in many ways
the
“father” of the emerging church, who used “the classical term
perichoresis to speak of the mutual relations among the divine persons in God.”
[12] This perichoresis relationship (Greek
peri = “around” combined with
choresis
= “choreographed”), also called “social” Trinitarianism, co-inherence,
“the dance,” Moltmann extends “to all relations, including mutual
interpenetration among beings in the world and their mutual
interpenetration with God.”
[13]
In cosmic
co-inherence, not unlike quantum theory, the
Tri-Personal God and all that comprises the universe symbiotically dance
together, mutually moving with, among, between and in each other in an
ethereally loving and dancing relationship. As the title of Cooper’s
book indicates, Young and his friend Kruger are peddling and
popularizing
panentheism within the greater evangelical, charismatic and emergent church communities—that God is in everything (contrast
pantheism, everything is God).
So in reality Moltmann’s panentheistic theology, and by implication
Young and Kruger’s, reduces the faith to pagan nature worship, and
millions of Christian readers are ignorantly genuflecting before
The Shack, both the book and the movie. By use of his template, Young transports readers to worship in his temple.
Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart
was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And
changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping
things.
—Romans 1:21-23
Kruger’s quotation of Moltmann indicates his connection to the German
theologian. To introduce chapter 9—“The Oneness of the Spirit, Son, and
Father”—of his book
The Shack Revisited, he quotes:
By
virtue of their eternal love they live in one another to such an
extent, and dwell in one another to such an extent, that they are one.
—Jürgen Moltmann[14]
Thus, any understanding that God is Holy (“holy” means to separate, to
be set apart, and to be sanctified) becomes quite naturalized.
[15] And by the way, if the Lord God is not Holy (Revelation 4:8) then neither is He Worthy (Revelation 4:9-11).
But in a worldview like Young and Baxter’s there is no separation
between Creator, creation and creature. As Cooper points out, this
worldview is
panentheistic (God dwells in all, and all dwells in
God), though both Young and Kruger probably would not outright state
this to be the case. But it might also be classified, at least according
to the stated characteristics of their paradigm, to be
pantheism. In stating something that sounds eerily familiar to what Young and Kruger write, Andrews defines monism-pantheism:
The
essential element of Pantheism... ‘is the unity of God and nature, of
the Infinite and the finite, in one single substance.’ The Infinite is
not swallowed up in the finite, nor the finite in the Infinite, but both
co-exist; and this co-existence is necessary and eternal [ed., by Young and Kruger’s reckoning, everything eternally exists inside the Trinity]. Thus we have the One and the many, the Absolute, the All. It will have no dualism, it will unify nature, man, and God.[16]
This then is their sense of their universalism, the Trinity circularly moving,
“dancing” and changing together in the oneness of
Love,
and in the process (enter process theology) why not let the whole
creation, “every human being, every plant, every subatomic particle,
everything” join the great
quantum-cosmic dance?
Then indeed, there will be “no separation” between God and humans as
biblical words sin, wrath, condemnation and judgment imply, only Love
manifested in “dancing,” “sharing” and “relationship”—the next word we
move on to consider.
 |
| (Perichoresis illustration - Source) |
Second Theme: The Universe and Relationship
God is Love, and because the whole creation exists inside the Trinity,
there is as has been stated, no separation between God and humans. The
Tri-Personal Deity infinitely and eternally loves; each member equally
loving the other two without personal diminishment, jealousy or
competition between and among them (To state again, this is called
perichoresis,
co-inherence, social Trinitarianism or “the dance”). Their “dancing”
relationship the Tri-Personal God desires to see reproduced between them
and all humanity, and this the sovereign Tri-Personal deity has done,
is doing and will continue to do
ad infinitum. Because all
creation exists “inside” the Trinity, creation becomes infused, like
gravity, with the Love they share. “Relationship” therefore becomes
actualized between God and every human being who ever lived.
Extending out of the Trinity’s union with creation, God is understood by
Young to love humans unconditionally, and humans, though they might not
realize it just yet, to similarly love God. (After all, they’re inside
the Trinity!) Though some humans do not find themselves necessarily
“fond” of God, God always remains fond of them (“Fond” is Young’s
synonym for love, “We are especially fond of you,”
Papa says to Mack in
The Shack,
234). It may take time for some humans to become “fond” of God (i.e.,
develop a relationship), but sooner or later when they wake up to
Love, whether in this life’s dimension or the next, they will (Talk about determinism...!).
Of course, such a scenario flies in the face of the Apostle Paul’s statement that there are those who are
“haters of God” (Romans 1:30). Yes, some people can’t have a relationship with God because they hate Him!
Having looked at the aspect of relationship in Young’s worldview, we turn now to the subject of redemption and reconciliation.
Third Theme: The Universe and Redemption-Reconciliation
Because God has lovingly wedded all humans into oneness—they are inside the Trinity—within him, her or them (Young’s
hermaphroditic [
androgynous, ed.*] goddess “Papa” in
The Shack)
they experience union with God, an eastern-mystical-like union which
transcends time, matter and space. Young states that, “every single
human being is in Christ (John 1:3), and Christ is in them, and Christ
is in the Father (John 14:20). When Christ—the Creator in whom [
Note: not “by” whom.] the cosmos was created—died, we all died. When Christ rose, we rose (2 Corinthians 5).” (
LWBAG,
119) Young then adds that “prior to the foundation of the world, we
were all included;... saved in eternity... all included in the birth,
life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:19).”
(
LWBAG, 119)
From birth, if not before, Young teaches that the whole of humanity,
being inside the Trinity, was somehow metaphysically “present” with
Jesus in the great redemptive event of history, his life, death, burial,
resurrection and ascension into heaven. All humans therefore have
experienced, are experiencing, or will experience reconciliation and
relationship with the Tri-Personal God because “all” were eternally in
Christ when He redeemed-reconciled them to him/her/them “selves.” Baxter
Kruger writes that to speak the name “Jesus” is to speak in “oneness,”
the name of the Trinity. He explains,
Therefore,
to speak the name of Jesus is to say that the Triune God, the human
race, and all creation are not separated, but together in relationship.
Jesus is Himself the relationship; He is [ed., by virtue of His incarnation] the union in between the Triune God and the human race. (LWBAG, 11)
Kruger then explains that this is “why Paul and I regard the widespread
notion that human beings are separated from God as a fundamental lie,
one that denies Jesus’s very identity”—and presumably, denies our
identity also, an identity of being from time immemorial metaphysically
and transcendently one in Jesus, which oneness has now totally become
immanent. (
LWBAG, 11)
Note: I do not deny the truth that in positional union in/with
Christ all believers have together been made alive, raised up and seated
in heaven with Christ (Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:12; Romans 6:3-7).
What I do deny are the universal implications which Young prejudicially
extracts from the great truth of believers-only union with/in Christ to
extend it to every single human being who ever lived.
 |
| Read more concerns HERE |
The Template’s Summary
This is the spiritual
template of Wm. Paul Young and C. Baxter Kruger, a grid through which
Scripture must pass and then be molded to fit into their paradigm of
universalism. This is the foundation upon which they base their beliefs.
(Bible verses had better fit, or else!). In the last part of the book
and in an attempt to prove his fantastic scheme of universal
relationship-redemption-reconciliation, Young weaves together a series
of Scripture passages, something he calls
A Catena. He extracts
and intertwines thirty-four Scripture passages in his catena, many
extracted from the Apostle Paul’s letters. In this weaving-deceiving he
attempts to make biblically believable the conversation he’s having with
naïve readers. His catena only includes passages containing the words
“all,” “every,” “world,” “cosmos,” “everything” or “everyone,” passages
he personally selects to fit his template and provide cover for his
aberrant theology. About this method of using the Bible we ought to
recall words of the Apostle Peter. Young’s approach to Bible quotation
or allusion resembles that of “untaught and unstable” teachers who
distort the meaning of Scripture to their own and others’ destruction if
they swallow “hook, line and sinker” what is being cast to them (2
Peter 3:16).
Young presumes that because all creation is “inside” the Trinity,
because the Love of the Trinity resides in union with all creation, and
because all humanity before time participated in the life, death,
resurrection and ascension of Jesus, all are, have been or will be
redeemed-reconciled with God. For readers who might have read or be
reading
The Shack or
Lies We Believe About God, I ask that
you consider my assessment of Paul’s paradigm to see whether or not his
arguments can best be understood against this backdrop. Universal
Love
as expressed in universal relationship-redemption-reconciliation is the
template Young tries to fit God and humanity into, and no matter what,
they are going to fit!
This is the New Age-New Worldview-New Spirituality destination the
evangelical movement appears to be traveling towards. Though the
movement’s trains, whether the New Apostolic Reformation, the Emerging
Church, Neo-Calvinism, the Charismatic Movement (add Liberal
Denominations, Catholicism and Primitivism into the mix) etc., seem to
be traveling on different tracks, they will arrive at the same hub:
pantheistic nature worship. If not Christ, religious persons will
devoutly deify and worship the cosmos, and then themselves. “I was an
atheist” the T-shirt saying goes, “until I found out I am God.”
About the captivating religious box Young and Kruger have constructed
for people to put their trust in, no matter how earthly-wise the
packaging of it, the Apostle Paul gave this warning to believers: The
box is empty!
Beware lest any man spoil [captivate] you
through philosophy [love of sophistry]
and vain deceit [empty deceptions],
after the tradition of men [human wisdom not God’s],
after the rudiments of the world
[the constituent particles and powers of the universe],
and not after Christ. For in Him [Not us!]
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
—Emphasis and bracketed comments added,
Colossians 2:8-9
We turn now to the book, its title and contents.
To be continued . . .
Endnotes
[1] Wm. Paul Young, Lies We Believe About God (New York, NY: Atria Books, 2017). Besides this book and The Shack, Young also wrote Crossroads and Eve.
[2] Charity Gibson, “‘The Shack’ Cover Artist Renounces Book for Leading People Astray: ‘I Have Deep Regrets’,” The Christian Post, April 19, 2017 (http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-shack-cover-artist-praised-renouncing-book-i-have-deep-regrets-180895/). Gibson quotes Dave Aldrich who designed the cover for The Shack who quotes Young.
[3] Al Dager, Media Spotlight (Sequim, WA; Omega Ministries Spring 2017): 27.
[4] Trinity Broadcasting Network, March (https://www.tbn.org/programs/restoring-shack).
[5] I will employ the acronym LWBAG (Lies We Believe About God) and page numbers when quoting the book.
[6] Pastor Larry DeBruyn, Unshackled: Breaking Away from Seductive Spirituality (Indianapolis, IN: Moeller Printing Company, 2009). Book available for free PDF download at Discernment Ministries website, http://www.discernment-ministries.org/Unshackled%20by%20L.%20DeBruyn.pdf ; hard copies available from Discernment Ministries, P.O. Box 520, Canton, Texas, 75103; Phone: 903-567-6423.
[7]
Pastor Larry DeBruyn, “The Shack, ‘Elousia,’ & the Black Madonna:
Imagination, Image, and Idolatry,” Herescope, July 2, 2008 (http://herescope.blogspot.com/search?q=Black+Madonna ).
[8] Pastor Larry DeBruyn, “The Shack and Universal Reconciliation,” Herescope, October 24, 2008 (http://herescope.blogspot.com/search?q=reconciliation ).
[9]
Young adapts the phrase “ground of all being” from the term used by
Paul Tillich (1886-1965) “to indicate God as the source of all reality
or being.” Donald K. McKim, “Ground of Being,” Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press, 1996): 122.
[10] Kenneth Hamilton, “Paul Tillich,” Creative Minds in Christian Theology, Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Editor (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1969): 470.
[11] Vernon C. Grounds, “Pacesetters for the Radical Theologians of the Sixties and Seventies,” Tensions in Contemporary Theology, Stanley N. Gundry and Alan F. Johnson, Editors (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1976): 95.
[12] See John W. Cooper, Panentheism The Other God of the Philosophers: From Plato to the Present
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006): 251. For further study,
Kruger recommends the writings of Jürgen Moltmann. See C. Baxter Kruger,
The Shack Revisited (New York, NY: FaithWorks, 2012): 267.
[13] Cooper, Panentheism: 252.
[14] Kruger, Shack Revisited,
106. In his chapter’s title note how Kruger subtly employs one definite
article “the” to preface Spirit, Son, and Father, contrary to Jesus’
command to make disciples by “baptizing them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The quote subtracts
from “the” Trinity in favor of “oneness.”
[15] See Larry DeBruyn, “The Holy God,” Unshackled: 17-22.
[16] Samuel J. Andrews, Christianity and Anti-Christianity in Their Final Conflict, Second Revised Edition (New York, NY: G.P. Putna’s Sons, 1899): 126-127.
*Herescope's editor added this word. Read Warren B. Smith's excellent article "The Shack’s Universal Papa," in which he descibes Papa as not unlike a pagan trickster god. "But in regards to Papa, it states that “in his shapeshifter form he tends to change genders and forms to delight himself." Our friend Warren B. Smith is writing many articles posted at Lighthouse
Trails, some which are referenced or linked to in this article, including his most recent: “Shack” Theology: Where Is the Devil?
• TBN Pulls Plug on “Shack” Author’s New Book—Sort of . . .
• “The Shack,” TBN, and the New Age
To read more discernment material about William Paul Young, and his two
controversial books THE SHACK and LIES WE BELIEVE ABOUT GOD, including
the recent Hollywood movie based on The Shack, see the articles
referenced in Pastor Larry’s footnotes above. Also see the many articles posted on the Herescope blog over the years,
such as:
• THE SHACK & Its New Age Leaven
• THE SHACK, "Elousia," & the Black Madonna
• THE SHACK and Universal Reconciliation
• "UNSHACKLED"
• Quantum Physics and the New Spirituality
Herescope and the Discernment Research Group have been on a badly needed sabbatical since December 2016. This
post begins a multi-part series which will be published on Guarding His
Flock Ministries website and also Herescope.
Reprinted
with author's
permission with minor modifications to the textual layout for blog
posting. The glossary of definitions throughout this post were added by
Pastor Larry DeBruyn for the Herescope version of his article. For the
original article see: http://guardinghisflock.com/2017/05/01/truths-we-believe-about-god/#more-3090
