The Shack - Review

I just finished reading "The Shack." I found it to be one of the most amazing books that I have read in years. Now that let back up a bit and give you a little history on me. I’m not a book person. I am a student and fan of the movies. Most books bore me. But when I heard all the controversy that surrounded this one, I knew I had to read it. So I rushed out to Amazon and bought it. And I’m very glad that I did!

I entitled this review "What if God was one of us." For those of you that may not remember it, its a song by Joan Osborn. I chose this song as the title for my review for 2 reasons.

First, because when it was released several years ago, it too was very controversial, just like this book. Some in the Church have hailed it as the best thing since Peanut Butter. Others have condemned it has heresy.

(Ive come to the conclusion that anytime something comes along that inspires huge controversy in the Church, its something that I need to take notice of.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_PawcvFrMQ

My second reason is because this song fits the book very well. What if God was one of us? Not just some entity that is far away up in the sky somewhere looking down in on us every now and then to make sure we have not yet blown ourselves up.

I felt that I had to write a short disclaimer on my review of book; “the Shack.”

I have already received some flack for taking a positive stance for this book, as I’m sure many others have. It’s a highly controversial book among those in the Church. In fact, I have not seen or read anything that has generated this much controversy in quite a while.

Most of this controversy comes from those that are very hard wired into their theology. They find that this book has theological flaws and see it has a threat. To this my response and disclaimer is;

I’m aware that this book in not 100% theologically accurate. What I’m not aware of is why it is expected to be. It is a work of fiction. It’s not expected to be a replacement for the Bible. If you are looking for something that is 100% theologically accurate, read the Bible. Millions of people have found that this book has changed their perspective on how they see God and have grown closer to Him because of it. How can that be a bad thing?


I have never liked all the things we do to keep God at a distance. I have never liked how it is that we see God. As some far off distant unreachable entity. This book brought him down to our level. A fact that is really stirring up folks in the Church. Folks that have a nice little neat theology and cant stand the thought of it being messed with. Their image of God is so fragile, that it cannot stand any movement or challenge at all.

If this is you, you may have a hard time with this book.

But if you are dealing with issues like; why God allowed your son, daughter or other loved one to die, Or why there is so much evil in the world that seems to be allowed to flourish, or you are simply having a hard time relating to God, then this book is a MUST read.

Dont miss this one!

Is God Too Big??

Is our God too big?

This might seem like an odd thing to say, but please bear with me.

I was in a church service a couple weeks ago. The pastor was talking about why we don’t feel that God can meet our needs. He said that this is because we just don’t understand how big our God really is.

Well, I do agree that God is big and certainly big enough to handle any problem that we have. But what I want to explore is the opposite problem. Is it possible that we have made God out to be so huge that we just can’t grasp Him at all?

Let me explain what I’m thinking here. We spend our entire Christian lives putting God up on a pedestal. Our Church ceremonies are filled with pomp and circumstance. When we pray to God, we bow our heads in reverence and out of respect. In some churches, they have taken this reverence of God to huge heights like putting on robes, lighting candles etc....

Now, please don’t mishear me. I’m not saying that God is not big and does not deserve respect. What I am saying is that we have made God out to be so huge, and so high up there and exalted, that maybe He has become too big for us.

Most of what I have learned about God has been in the past few years and has been the result of becoming a father myself. I think it’s a bit ironic, and telling, that becoming a Pastor did not accomplish this. Only becoming a dad did.

Let’s use your earthly relationship with your Father as an example. Let’s says that every day, when you come to your Father, you say “Hello Father.” “How are you doing Father.” ”Can I serve you today Father? “You are so mighty and able to help me father” You walk around bowing to your father, clothing your father with flowing robes and in general, just revering him and honoring him.

Now, what kind of relationship do you think you will have with your father if all you ever to is this? Do you really think that you will be able to go to him with your needs and desires? I’m sure that fathers out there might like it for a little while, but it would get old very quickly. What a father really wants is for his children to be able to talk to him openly and honestly. No pretense, no reverent “Hail mighty Father” or anything like this. Just simple and intimate relationship.

This time, let’s substitute the word Daddy. “Daddy, how are you doing today”, Daddy, how can I help you today”

The first example just comes off as that you are revering and honoring your Father, but the relationship is cold and distant.

In the second example, the relationship is intimate, warm and cozy. It’s an example of a close relationship where you feel like you truly know the man and he can know and help you. Want proof? Are you close to your dad? Try calling him daddy. It feels right doesn’t it? If you are not close to him, you will probably find that the words are hard to say.

Another wonderful example of this is the book that I just finished called “The Shack.” (http://www.TheShackBook.com)

In this book, the God head (God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit) are portrayed as normal people just like you an me. Reminds me of that song from a few years back. “What if God was one of us.” In the book, God is portrayed as a warm, intimate loving Character. God talks one on one with the main Character in the book. He cooks, washes dishes, works in the garden, and lays on a dock staring up into the heavens.

Many people that have read this book have said that they will never see God quite the same again. They say that they can now relate to Him and have an intimate relationship with Him.

Try an experiment.

Next time you are in Church, instead of simply raising your hands and singing to a God that is way far out of reach, try this. Look over at that empty spot next to you and imagine Him as a real person. Talk to Him like he is a real person. Hold his hand and tell Him that you love Him. My guess is that you will feel closer to Him. And if you do this regularly, you might even get to know Him and feel like He is capable of meeting your needs.

Keeping it Real

My Web Sites, forums and such

I needed a place to store the addresses to my current web sites and this seemed as good a place as any.
Needs Met

Church Home Search
(still under construction. but it will be a Church evaluation site. Folks looking for a church home will be able to come onto the site and seach for local area churches. But it will be more than just a boring page of Church adds. It will be a place for one stop shopping for churches where you can compare their services, styles, ministries, and even have a rating system.)

YWAM Class of 1990 reunion
This is a forum that I put together for my YWAM friends. I attended Youth With a Mission in Yyler Texas back in 1990. Im trying to find all my class mates that I attended DTS and SOE with. We hope to have a reunion as soon as I can find everyone.

Facebook personal page
This is my personal facebook page

My Space personal page
This is my personal My Space page

My Space YWAM page
This is the page we set up to find class mates on ours.

The Shack controversary

I don’t subscribe to many blogs. I find most to be boring and not worth my time to read them. I’m not being harsh, just realistic. I do subscribe to this one called Voice of the Sheep . http://voiceofthesheep.wordpress.com . Its a interesting blog for the main reason that I mostly disagree with the author on much of what he says.

He has a theology that he sticks to. Like most others that have subscribed to a certain theology, he is unwilling to think beyond this and bashes those that do. Here is a case in point.

There is a book called “The Shack.” The book seems to have caused a good deal of controversy in the Church. He bashes the book and sides with the ones that call it heresy.

I have pasted here in my blog his comments on this book as well as my response.

Shambles - a scene or a state of great disorder or confusion. A mess.
I think the initial buzz surrounding William P. Young’s The Shack Shambles is over, and now what we have is a semi-silent brush fire sweeping through the church at an alarming rate which is going largely unnoticed. Without going into detail, I am running into this book virtually everywhere I turn. More accurately, I am running into people reading this book everywhere I turn. And I do mean everywhere.

Knowing what I know regarding how the book portrays God the Father, the Trinity, the nature of salvation, redemption, and the sufficiency of Scripture, to name a few, I am quite concerned at the comments I am reading at various web sites and by so-called Christian leaders. People are saying this book has changed their life, and that they now understand who God is for the first time ever. Prominent leaders are saying The Shack is the most important work since Pilgrim’s Progress (Eugene Peterson), and that it is “a God thing” (Steve Brown). Steve Brown, of Key Life, even says that he was contemplating becoming a Buddhist before he read the book, but that it changed his life!

There are so many things to address in The Shack that it is hard to know where to begin. The goal of my post here is to simply show one serious defect in the theology of the book. I know, I know. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a thousand times that this is not a book on theology. I agree. But, while it is not a book on theology, it IS a theological book! The whole thing is about an encounter with God, for cryin’ out loud! How could it NOT be theological? And I don’t care how many people say you must set your theological ‘meter’ aside while you read this thing, that is something a disciple of the risen Savior must never do. For we are to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Now, back to the point of my post.
I want you to read the two quotes below and see if you detect a glaring contradiction in them. Both of them are from “Papa”, who in the book represents God the Father (portrayed as an African-American woman, mind you). Here is what Papa says on pages 120 and 225, respectively:

“I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it”
“In Jesus, I have forgiven all humans for their sins against me, but only some choose relationship”

Did you catch it? Read them again.

In the first statement, Papa says that she doesn’t need to punish sin because sin is its own punishment. In the second statement, Papa declares that she has forgiven all humans for their sins “in Jesus”. My question is this:

What was the point of Jesus going to the cross if God doesn’t need to punish people for their sin? If sin is its own punishment, then Christ died needlessly. If the punishment for my own sin lies within the sin itself, then why do I need Jesus? If what Papa says is true, then I have already atoned for my own sin, and Jesus’ death on the cross is of no benefit to me or anyone else who repents. I am not sure what Young’s religious background is, but this almost sounds like some sort of Roman Catholic ‘penance’ which purifies, rather than the work of Christ on the cross in my place.

I don’t know if it was Young’s intent to negate the work of Jesus going to the cross, but this one little statement from Papa sure seems to do that very thing. Actually, there is more than one problem that arises when one takes these two statements from Papa in The Shack and compares them. Can you tell what the others are?

By the way, if you have not yet read Tim Challies’ thorough review of The Shack, I would like to strongly encourage you to do so. He has put together a very good critique in pdf format which can be easily printed out and distributed. Get the word out.

And my response

Brian,

I have not yet read “The Shack.” I just ordered it from Amazon. I have read several reviews on it though. When ever I find a book, or movie that shacks (misspelled on purpose)up the Church and causes so much controversy, I sit up and take notice.

I think to myself, “Praise God. Finally someone has had the balls to break the mold and color outside the lines of our safe and boring theology and view of God that we have so carefully created. Perhaps I have finally someone with a little vision.”

I rush out as fast as I can and order it. I have found that most of the time, when someone, or something, causes controversy in the Church, its usually a God thing. Just a handful of cases in point.

Loren Cunningham - He went around to many Churches with his idea on using drama to illustrate the story of Jesus and his vision of waves of young people washing ashore on distant lands taken the gospel of Christ. He was laughed out of every single one. Today, Youth With a Mission is one of, if not the largest Christian Missions organization in the world.

Keith Green – Keith was a singing prophet. When he started out, he was told to keep quiet and not speak out against the Church. But He has a message from God and was a single handed instrument that God used to wake the Church up and from its complacency. He is now dead, but he began Last Days Ministries, which is not a part of YWAM.

I could go on, but I will stop there. The point is simply that we don’t know it all. At any given time, we are about half wrong in most anything that we think we know. But even apart from this, this is a work of fiction guys. Why pick it part? If people that are reading it are finding that it has brought them closer to God, why do you want to take that away from them?

It’s nearing Christmas. How about focusing in on the positive and wonderful things that are coming out of this book and many more like it? If you find controversy in that book, I know you are going to love this one. My very good friend Eric Wilson wrote it.
It’s called Field of Blood. http://www.WilsonWriter.com

The Economy and the big 3 Auto Makers

Since Im now involved in the stock market, I find that Im on the front lines, or close to it anyway, on hearing about these wowes of the economy. Even for those that are not this close to it, its easy to see the problems. First, there are the problems with Wall Street. The market has been going down and down most every day. Many people that have stock has lost thousands and even hundreds of thousands. Though the problem is not really the stock market. The market, after all, is just a refection of the nations economy. Mainly it is the banking industry that is failing. Companies like Freddie May & Fannie Mac that have caused this, not the stock market.

Now there is a new problem. Well, its not really new, but has just now come to the front lines of public view. Its the big 3 auto makers, GM, Ford, and Cherysler. The big 3 have been on the verge of failure for many yers now. Its only now that unless something is done soon, 1 or all of them may face bankruptcy. All 3 of them are crying out to the federal government to bail them out.

First, Id like to explore financial collapse myself. Then Id like to throw in my 2 cents worth , or however much it has become now, of opinion.

Our parents and parents parents had a different set of Financial values. If they didnt have the cash in hand, they didnt buy it. They simply did without.

If they did get into financial hardship, there was only 1 solution. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! They were told; "You got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out.

Now the norm is, If you cant afford it, just charge it. Not only is this the way that individual families handle their finances, but its also the norm for corporations. Now, if we get into financial hardship, the solution is simple, just file bankruptcy.

I think what is needed is for the nation to get back to where it once was. We need our financial system to once again be based on cash, not credit. If you cant afford it, then go without. If you get into financial distress, if at all possible, get yourself out of it.

Statistically, those families that file bankruptcty file over and over again. They just stay in the patern of raking of dept and filing Bankruptcy, raking up debt and filing bankruptcty then repeating it again and again.

Americas Corporations are also in this patern. But for them, all they have to do is cryout to Uncle Sam and he bails them out.

Why are they more elegible for this financial windfall than the nice little video store that went out of business just down the street? The reason is simple. They can claim that their industry is essential, and if they go down, it would deal a severe blow to the American economy. Thats why we have bailed the auto industry out before and may do it again.

But this is exaclty why we cant bail them out!

Corporations like the big 3 have the attitude that if things do get bad for them, they dont have to figure out how to fix things themselves, all they have to do is get the feds to fork over billions.

So they dont really have any real incentive to fix themselves. They can just ask for this bail out and pretty much go back to the same failed business model that got them into the mess in the first place.

The next problem is, whos next? Whats the next "essential to the nations economy" business or industry that will want a financial bail out?

If we keep bailing out failing busiensses, instead of actually fixing the problem, its onlt going to get worse.

So, here is ther part where I offer up my ideas on how to deal with this. Ready? Here I go.

In the words of the Soup nazi.....No bail out for you!
Either they will figure out a way to fix themselves, or they will go under. If they file bankruptcy, which would probably be Chapter 11 (reorganization), hopefully the courts would force the old failed management to leave and they would get new management, a new business model and a new healthy plan for recovery.

If they go under completely, let em go under. In order for new life to come, death is required. You can examlpes of this everywhere. Maybe the big 3 need to die. If they do, perhaps some innovative new auto makers would emerge to take their place. Who knows. The point is, maybe its just time for a change.

We can either kick and screem and do everything we can to try to prop up these dying hourses, or we can let them die and loving embrase the new comanies that will emerge to take their place.

The Nephilim - There goes the neighborhood

I have been fascinated by the Nephilim. For those that dont know who they are, or were, depending on your beliefs, they were the race of Hybrids that were created from the union of the daughters of men and fallen angels.

According to the Word, they existed before the flood and also after. Goliath, of David and Goliath fame, was a Nephilim.

God brought about the flood because of this race of no good half breeds and chose Noah because he was the only blood line not corrupted by it.

Follow me so far? If you have trouble beleiving that, then you most certainly are not going to want to stick around for what I have to say next. Theries abound on what happens next.

One theory, which I think is pretty sound is that when the Nephilim died in the flood, their spirits became what we know of today as Evil Spirits or Demons. Other theories are that they escaped somehow to underground caverns in the earth. Some think that the earth is hollow, which is a old theory. But these Nephilim now live in these underground caverns in the hollow earth.

Still others believe that Nephilim escaped to a distant planted or star. The most common held home is belived to be planet X, or the 12th planet, otherwise known as Nibiru.

This theory says that these Nephilim have been visiting us for a long long time and will come back in force on of these days. We know them now as Aliens, UFO's and the like. They are the ones responsible for all the aleged abductions and experiements as they continually alter the human DNA.

My question is this. Does anyone out there believe all this? if so, how much do you believe and at what point does your belief stop?

So, tell me what you think?

Did God Contradict himself?

This was sparked by a post on another blog. His stand was this..Everything God purposes to do, He does. If all people everywhere are not saved, then He has not purposed/intended for all people everywhere to be saved. So he is saying that God intended only but a few to actaully be saved and the rest are destined to be seperated from God.So the issue is did God really intend everyone to be saved or did he just intend that a few know him.

This is the age old arguement of Pre-Destination vs free will. If God pre-destinied only a few to be saved, then he pre-destined some to not get saved. If we are destined to do one of the other, then we are not free to choose, Right?

The problem is that we are human. Our thought process is limited to what our bodies can perceive from our environment. We are constrained to liner space and time.We are desperately trying to understand the thought processes of a being that does not have these limitations. God is not limited by space, or time. He is not constrained within a fleshly body. He knows the choices that we will make in our life even before we do. He probably knew this even before we were born. Now does this mean that we don’t have free will to make our decisions?Not at all. To us free will and pre-destination are 2 extremes that cannot possibly coexist.

I submit to you that they can and do work together quite nicely to a being that does not have the limited brains that we do.I submit that the problem that you propose is also not a problem at all. God knows who will and will not be saved even before we were all born. Now does that mean that he does not will that all be saved? Not at all. It simply means that he has that foreknowledge of who will and who will not be accept him. So to us, with our limited brains, we think that he only chose a limited few to be saved.But to a God that is able to think way beyond the limitations of space and time, this makes perfect sense.