Hacky Shackin’

I just finished posting a reply regarding the lousy book "The Shack" on a Facebook site, and thinking about it again now, I believe it is worth posting here to my blog as well. If this book is going to keep popping up every handful of months for a while, maybe someone will stumble across this post first and then not waste their time reading it in the first place.

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A very real problem within the Christian faith is the basic tendency among believers to just accept anything that purports to be Christian as actually being Christian.

You see it all over the place. From so-called Christian radio stations that proclaim themselves to be "safe" for the whole family when they play an awful lot of music that isn't only vapid, but downright lousy theologically, to books that teach beliefs that absolutely are not Christian, such as Your Best Life Now, and The Shack.

If a book hits the "Christian Best-Seller" lists, you can bet that someone will give away two dozen copies at Christmas, usually without having read it themselves first; like people did with The Purpose-Driven Life a few years ago. Sadder still is that many professing Christians today have spent so little time learning what the faith truly teaches that even when they do read (or listen to) something themselves, they don't recognize what is correct or not - they just accept that because it is labeled 'Christian' it must be so. And accepting it, they generally assimilate it and disseminate it.

I've had several believers tell me the exact same thing Daniel mentioned above about how because of The Shack they suddenly understand The Trinity; the discussions get hard quick when I point out that what the book "teaches" is in no way representative of what Christianity teaches the Trinity to be.

I get blank stares when I tell them that The Shack teaches modal monarchism: that Father, Son, Holy Spirit are just "modes" or aspects of the same God that the individual perceives for themselves. Basically, that God puts on different masks to appear as we want/need Him to at the time. The Jesus mask comes out when we want a buddy, the Father mask comes out when we need spanked, and so on.

That is absolutely NOT what the Christian faith teaches or believes; it is in fact the exact opposite of what the Trinity (triune nature of our God) is defined as - Three separate and distinct persons who are one being: God. Not one guy swapping out job hats like that guy on Green Acres always did.

So what happens when a believer, or someone close to becoming one gets an idea like what is in that book in their heads as a way to understand or recognize something regarding the Godhead? They end up believing in and worshipping a false image of God, and that is idolatry.

Besides that, putting forth any image of God the Father is a sin in itself, as He is the Invisible God, and we are to make no graven images of Him. Why? One answer is that no matter how talented we are, no matter how hard we try, and no matter how much we do it as an act of love, the best representation of God the Father we will ever attain is nothing at all compared to Him, and all we've done is detract from His glory in making it: given others a smaller 'view' of God.

I read tons of stuff, and I read countless books because others suggest them to me, especially Christians. Some are excellent, some are pretty good or at least offer some solid insight of a sort, some are uplifting and encouraging, but most, and sadly I do mean most books on the shelf of your local Christian Book Store are weak at best, and many (like The Shack) are downright dangerous to the believer. Christians should no more be reading it than they should be reading garbage like The Secret.