By now few people have not heard of William Young’s self-published runaway success, The Shack. It has spent months atop the bestseller lists, sweeping through the church like fire through a hay barn. I steadfastly resisted commenting on it, hoping the fervor surrounding it would die a quick death. Yet the Christmas marketing machine revived the beast, and Young’s deceptive falsehoods are once again being thrust upon unwitting victims.
Sadly, it is mostly Christians who are enticed to purchase this poison and distribute it as a gift. They should know better, but in the absence of reliable teaching from the pulpit, they are reduced to accomplices in the marketing of deception. The Church is unfortunately rife with pastors who are more concerned with offerings than with truth, who have willingly circumvented their roles of shepherd and teacher. They ignore the book, or in some instances, manifest a startling ignorance of Christian orthodoxy by embracing it.
One has to wonder how much more of a problem this would be if the book were a better novel. Although serviceable enough to hold one’s attention through the “story,” the writing is in no way compelling. There are many better alternatives for someone seeking good Christian fiction. Yet that is our biggest problem: while The Shack purports itself to be fiction, it is anything but a novel. It is a theological treatise, offering an alternative view of God and Christ. It is a subversive systematic theology, masquerading as fiction.
It’s Not Just a Novel…
When one dares to discuss the dangerous deceptions residing in The Shack, devotees often throw up their hands and exclaim, “For heaven’s sake, it’s just a novel!” Such a plaint suggests that they are either extraordinarily naïve or just mediocre readers. Young does not use theology as a prop; it is not ancillary window dressing to the narrative. Theology is the message; the narrative just the means of delivery. Any work that concerns the life, nature and plan of God is theology, and as such, The Shack oozes theology. There is good theology and bad theology; the distinction lies in the extent to which the theology lines up with Scripture. On that basis The Shack is heresy.
Young so frequently contradicts the plain teaching of Scripture that one has to wonder—is he theologically illiterate, or does he have an agenda? More than one commentator has suggested that The Shack appears intent on “undermining orthodox Christianity” (Tim Chailles). That so many Christians embrace and recommend The Shack reveals a startling theological ignorance within the contemporary church. A Christian recommending The Shack becomes an accomplice to its work of deceit. It is not too strong to call Young’s work heresy, for it contradicts the teaching(s) of Scripture. Yet we might go even further and suggest that it is an outright sin, in that it stands in direct violation of the Ten Commandments. The Shack presents us with a graven image of God fashioned in a form more palatable to its author. It is patently obvious that those who recommend the book—especially supposed Christians—understand little of God’s word. Those who recommend this book in church should be placed under discipline and instructed in the Word more fully.
A popular Christian novelist, speaking to a writer’s group recently in Virginia Beach, suggested that recent so-called Christian novels play a dangerous game. He noted that readers relax their critical faculties with fiction, thinking that they are entering a realm of make believe. When a novelist rewrites either history or theology, as Dan Brown did in The DaVinci Code, or William Young does in The Shack, readers consume the deception uncritically, enabling their beliefs to be altered without conscious reflection. This is particularly problematic for believers.
Young has every right to disseminate his theology, but marketing it as fiction is deceitful. Using the genre in this way takes advantage of readers. Given this clear danger, and the fact that Young’s theology is so suspect, one would expect pastors and leaders of churches to address the book. Their silence is revealing. One should not enter The Shack unless he or she is prepared to read actively, attentively and consciously, aware of its theological bias and its persuasive intent. The Shack is no less innocuous than a good sermon or a closing argument in court—it demands the full attention. The Shack is not meant to entertain but to persuade; it is not an innocuous escape but an indoctrinating lecture. Young exploits the genre of fiction to preach unorthodox theology. One seriously has to wonder about Eugene Peterson, who suggested that The Shack was this generation’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Has he merely been co-opted by the publishing enterprise or is he just a poor judge of literature? On so many levels, this is a shack Christians should avoid.
What’s the Big Deal?
Young denigrates nearly everything associated with traditional, orthodox Christianity: seminary education (91), Sunday school (98), the local church (177), family devotions (107), theological certainty (203), the adjective “Christian” (182), and the church as a whole (178). While many of us have sympathy for critiques of the institutional church, Young’s remarks sound more like the imprudent rants of an unformed adolescent, bristling under the imposed order of the adult world. It is redolent of baby-boomer resistance to authority and its rejection of submission. Young is not interested in understanding or addressing problems; he simply disparages what he rejects.
However, the book’s evil consists of more than these few gratuitous swipes at the organized church. Young subverts important Christian doctrines. He dismisses the hierarchical organization of the Trinity and minimizes the roles filled by the different persons of God. He confuses the doctrine of salvation and flirts with universalism. He has his god suggest that God does not punish sin (“sin is its own punishment,” 120); something which no doubt would come as startling news to the Jesus who endured the Cross! Young denies the biblical revelation of humanity under sin by having a man stand before God Almighty without a mediator. Then, succumbing to the relativism of our time, Young’s Jesus demurs from His bold declaration of exclusivity in John 14:6, to suggest instead that he is only the “best way” to God. In the world of The Shack, there is more than one way to God and salvation.
Yet even these are not the worst of Young’s heresies. Young blithely breaks the 2nd Commandment by offering up a graven image of God, fashioning a new god in his own image. And he rejects God’s chosen means of revelation (Word), supplanting it with the new arbiter of truth for the post-modern church—personal feelings and experience.
Young’s false image of God
The Ten Commandments—an important cornerstone of the Judeo-Christian faith—begin with God’s requirements concerning humanity’s relationship to Him. In them God explicitly forbids making an image of Him in any form, real or imagined:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” —Exodus 20:2–4.
Jesus provided the reason for this prohibition in His conversation with the woman at the well: “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4:24). God, in His wisdom, never manifested Himself in any form to humanity and expressly forbade the making of any image by which to represent Him. Yet William Young, in his wisdom, sees fit to depict God as a black woman. He even presents the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman. One has to wonder if Young has ever read the book of Romans:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. —Rom. 1:21–23
Fans of the book suggest that their faith has been revived and their understanding of God enhanced through reading The Shack. That may well be true, yet someone should tell them that the god they meet in The Shack is not the God of Abraham, Jesus or Paul! Young has created a comprehensible god, easy to visualize and capable of being held. The problem with the God of the Bible is that He is bigger than human conception. He is beyond our understanding and is impossible to hold. Which, of course, is one of His reasons for the incarnation of Jesus. God chose the Son to be God in the flesh. Yet Young spurns the choice of God. While God chose to manifest Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Young has God appear as woman, man and Siren. This adds another layer of sin to The Shack. A former teacher of mine, the esteemed theologian Bruce Waltke, explains it this way:
“God, who is over all, represents himself by masculine names and titles, not feminine ones. He identifies himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, not Parent, Child, and Spirit, nor Mother, Daughter, and Spirit. Jesus taught his church to address God as “Father” (Luke 11:2) and to baptize disciples “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). God’s titles are King, not Queen; Lord, not Lady. God, not mortals, has the right to name himself. It is inexcusable hubris and idolatry on the part of mortals to change the images by which the eternal God chooses to represent himself. We cannot change God’s names, titles, or metaphors without committing idolatry, for we will have reimagined him in a way other than the metaphors and the incarnation by which he revealed himself. His representations and incarnation are inseparable from his being” (Waltke, Old Testament Theology, 2008, p. 98).
Young’s depiction of God is sinful from start to finish. It is idolatry. It is brazen disrespect of God and His Word. It also diminishes Jesus. By giving flesh to the Father and the Holy Spirit, Young devalues Christ’s uniqueness. Jesus alone is both God and Man—the unique person in the entire universe—the incarnate God. For this alone, The Shack should not be given, but discarded. Especially by Christians!
Revelation versus Experience
Young’s rejection of God’s form of revelation—the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is accompanied by his rejection of God’s means of revelation—the written Word. Christianity follows the tradition of the Jews in confessing that the knowledge of God is transmitted through written revelation. Christians believe that the Bible is humanity’s only source of infallible revelation of God. Young consistently downplays Scripture and instead advocates personal experience as a source of knowledge of God. Young has his version of the Spirit say, “You will learn to hear my thoughts in yours.” How do we discern truth from error? Apparently, as we mature in our experience: “Of course you will make mistakes; everybody makes mistakes, but you will begin to better recognize my voice as we continue to grow our relationship.” (195–96).
Now as a charismatic, I am completely comfortable with the idea of “hearing the voice of the Spirit” within; yet I am also quick to state that when the Spirit speaks, He agrees with the Word. Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26, ESV). Later Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (Jn. 16:13). What does the Spirit hear? What the Father says, which is the Word of God. What then is the means of testing the Spirit? The Bible—which is the Word of God!
When Young refers to the Bible, he casts it in a negative light. Young dwells on how the Bible has been abused by people, which admittedly is a sad but all too common reality. Yet to abandon the Bible simply because imperfect humans have misused it is to cast humanity adrift without a rudder—which is exactly what Young does:
“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…. 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).
The Shack creates the impression that scripture alone is insufficient for humanity’s relationship with God. The apostle Paul taught differently: “[T]he sacred writings … are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 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 Tim 3:15–17). Scripture is all we will ever need to learn of God and His will. The Shack also suggests that personal experience of God can supplement what scripture might lack. The apostle John thought otherwise: “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.” (Rev. 22:18–19).
It is right and good to encourage Christians to experience God in a way that exceeds the mere act of reading words off a page. Yet we must never exalt personal experience of God over the written revelation of God. Every experience must be submitted to the Word for judgment. Experiences come and experiences go, but the word of the Lord remains forever. The Word alone is the Christian’s surest guide to the reality of God’s presence and the course of His will. To the extent that The Shack points readers away from the Bible it becomes both dangerous and heretical. Great Christian literature should lead us to a new and heightened appreciation for the Bible and its teachings. That certainly is the legacy of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The fact that The Shack treats the Bible as insufficient and unnecessary ensures that while popular, Young’s work will never achieve the status of Bunyan’s.
In Conclusion
Because of the numerous doctrinal problems contained in this book, I would strongly advise Christians to avoid it. I would definitely advise against any Christian purchasing this book and passing it out to others. Ingesting the errors of The Shack could harm both young believers and those who are unformed. I think it inexcusable that any Christian would actually recommend The Shack. But then again, given the state of the North American church today, with its absence of leadership and rejection of scripture, it is not surprising to find even church elders and employees as evangelists of its heresy.
We have reached a sad state of affairs in the church. Contemporary pastors have decided that preaching scripture and teaching doctrine is an antiquated hindrance to advancing the kingdom of God in the world. Pastors today esteem the feelings of those who are dead in their sins more than the command of Jesus or the needs of the body of Christ. Regrettably, many pastors are too cowardly to stand for the Truth. They are more concerned with filling the seats of their auditoriums than with genuinely proclaiming the gospel; they are more concerned with building buildings than they are with making disciples. Either that, or they are themselves so ignorant of orthodox theology that they do not recognize the errors of The Shack. Whatever the reason, too many pastors demonstrate neither the inclination nor the integrity to stand up in church and address this situation. May God have mercy on their souls.
We live in a time of great deception, a time when the culture and the church together appear to have decided to return to the dark ages of superstition, mysticism and spiritualism. The church has largely apostatized and its ministry is corrupt. Pastors no longer see themselves as shepherds, and their ministry is no longer about God’s revelation. Believers today must make a decision of quality to feed themselves on the Word of God. We must so immerse ourselves in the Word that we have faith to recognize the voice and directions of the Holy Spirit. That is our only hope of escaping the vortex of delusion sweeping across the earth. We need not tickle our emotions or feed our flesh with sophomoric amusements like The Shack. The time has come; the kingdom of God is at hand. The call of God is a call to come out from the darkness that will ensnare your soul. The Shack is just one such place, a place where the truth of God has been twisted and perverted for human amusement. Come out from it! It is a shack to avoid.
