You may come across a book called "The Shack".
I read it and with all my being I wish I hadn't.
It is a dangerous, dangerous book and full of false teaching.
I should have heeded the warning signs, but I didn't. When I was told about the book my internal radar went off. It's probably the first time I've got my hands on a new book and not read it straight away. I've had it for a week and only read it last night.
It's an intoxicating mix of lovey-huggy, New Age Eastern mythology with just enough "Christian" truth to dull the warning signals.
At the point where God is portrayed as a warm, loving African American woman, the radar started screaming in my head, but to my shame I ignored it. I was curious about the term used for the Holy Spirit. A quick google search this morning revealed that it is a Hindu term. What place does a Hindu word have in a book that purports to be about Christianity?
Sin was missing. Accountability to God was missing. Justice was missing. Judgement was missing.
It was heavy on love and forgiveness but light on what we need forgiveness for. It smacked of Universalism and its instant popularity should serve as its own warning. The message of Christianity is NOT popular. It is foolishness. This book may be many things, but foolish it isn't.
Make no mistake. This book is frightening - not because of its subject matter, but because it has the ability to get in under the defences of the unwary. It is dangerous and should be left well alone by any person who holds the Bible as the final authority.
Edited for clarification:
My objection to God being portrayed as an African American woman has nothing to do with the African American part. The woman part is another matter - it's distasteful and blasphemous. What I most object to is the portrayal of God as a human person at all. It is completely unscriptural to teach that God the Father is human. It is also unscriptural to portray God the Father as appearing in different guises depending on the state of the human person to whom he is speaking. God is God; eternal and unchanging. To preach God as some sort of chameleon is to dance on the edge of blasphemy and to deny, if you will, his God-ness. Exodus 20: 4-7 gives some quite specific warnings. The God of "The Shack" is not the God of the Bible and therefore is not to be praised or worshipped. Additionally, we are warned not to misuse the name of the Lord. It seems to me that the book espouses a blatant misuse of God's name and we should not treat that lightly. The Israelites were warned about playing fast and loose with God. It would appear that we perhaps need to ponder that warning anew.
Recent Comments