“Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies.  Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes.”  Wm. Paul Young

Why do you suppose some are so drawn to controversy?

So wherever you assemble, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy.  (1 Timothy 2:8; NLT)

I promise to make this my last post on The Shack — at least for now.  But I did want to take one last shot at peaking your interest in this fascinating book.

If you’re drawn to controversy, there’s certainly a lot of that surrounding this book.  I loved what Brandilyn Collins wrote in her blog regarding The Shack, “It doesn’t contain the entire orthodoxy of Christianity, but that’s not its focus. Its message is of God’s love, and it is, in the end, a novel. However, there certainly is some controversy, although the naysayers are far outweighed in number. I do recommend reading the book because so many people are talking about it. It’s not fair to voice opinions without reading the thing.”  I couldn’t say it any better than that.

Kim Gentes writes, “One could argue that the images and metaphors may not sit well with the buttoned-down theocrats, and that, yes, perhaps the allegories aren’t perfect at every level. But the over-arching nuance of Young’s book is not that we need a theology class — it’s that we need to actually live what we say we believe. That God is love. That His efforts towards us have always been completely done in love, and will continue so. That His primary purposeful intent in dealing with mankind is to make Himself and His love completely and gloriously sufficient for us, whilst giving us the freedom to reciprocate that love back to Him in words and lives of praise, thanksgiving, and worship.”

With those two quotes, I will leave you be…at least on this topic.

Prayer Power
Lord, thank You for using a servant like Paul Young to draw our attention back to You.  It will be fascinating to see how all this plays out over the next several years.  What a blessing to be alive in times such as these.

Link of the Day
USA Today report on “The Shack”

Blessings on you as you choose to think for yourself.

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“Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself — to serve.”  William P. Young

How important are relationships to you?  How well does your day-to-day life reflect that value?

Then God said, “Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life — the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals, and small animals.”  (Gen. 1:26; NLT)

Let’s go back to The Shack.  The book has a very compelling story line which embraces a question that is on everybody’s heart, Christian and non-Christian alike.  If God is real and allegedly so good, how can there be so much evil in the world?  (This question is the basis of the theological focus called “theodicy.”  Not that it matters much, but it just might help you win a game of Scrabble some day.)

Does Paul Young answer the question that centuries of theologians haven’t been able to?  Certainly not, but he does offer some refreshing viewpoints that deserve further reflection.  In my mind, the beauty of the The Shack is not in the answers it offers, nor even in the story line, but lies within the ongoing conversations with Mack, the main character of the story, and members of the Trinity.  The book’s strength, to me anyway, lies in its ability to cause me to consider several issues that I thought I was sure of in a whole new light.  As I mentioned last week, it takes grace to a whole new level in my thinking.

Let me quote some of the conversation on one of the central themes of the book–relationship.

Read the rest of this entry »

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“If anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.”  William P. Young

If 10 is total acceptance, how would you rate your acceptance with God on a scale of 1 to 10?

Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God.  (Eph. 2:8; NJB)

Last Monday, I started to tell you about what has become one of my favorite books of all time, The Shack by Wm. Paul Young.  The book is fictional, and would probably fall in the “realistic fiction” genre.  In other words, it’s a novel.  It’s not true, but maybe it could be.  Maybe it’s true, although I doubt it.  But I am sure that much of it is true…the trick is to decide which part is true and which isn’t.  Are we having fun yet?

In some ways, this is similar to the parables of Jesus — made up (?) stories that were given to illustrate a truth.  Today’s link is a great little story from William Young’s blog that demonstrates this kind of writing.  I encourage you not to miss it.  The theme of The Shack is grace and God’s love for each of us.  When you see that as the underlying message, you begin to understand why the book has created such a controversy.  Since the beginning of Christianity, there has not been many theological messages that have created more controversy and division than grace — just ask the Apostle Paul.

In my experience, you don’t find too many churches that truly believe in grace as taught in the New Testament.  Oh, they give it lip service, but then the rules start to emerge.  I was first introduced to true grace about five years ago by a little book written by Bill Gillham, titled Lifetime Guarantee: Making Your Christian Life Work and What to Do When It Doesn’t.  Now there’s a book that truly changed my life.  That particular book launched me on a almost year long study on the topic and forever altered my theological perspective.  So with that as background, my affinity for The Shack and its message should be a little clearer.

Eugene Peterson, whom many of you will recognize as the author of the highly popular Bible paraphrase, The Message is quoted as saying, “When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of the Shack.  This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his.  It’s that good!”  I would love to agree, but unfortunately can’t.  Bunyan wrote on a topic far less controversial than Young has picked.

Wayne Jacobsen, part of a team who worked with the Wm. Young on his manuscript for over a year and also part of the company formed to print and distribute the book calls The Shack “edgy.”  He said, “We knew The Shack was edgy enough to prompt some significant backlash, which is why so many publishing companies didn’t want to take it on at the beginning….What is surprising, however, is the hostile tone of false accusation and the conspiracy theories that some are willing to put on this book. Some have even warned others not to read it or they will be led into deception.”

Let me end today’s DG with Jacobsen’s counsel.  He said, “If you’re interested, read it for yourself. Don’t let someone else do your thinking for you. If it helps convey the reality of Jesus to you, great! If all you can see is sinister motives and false teaching in it, then put it aside.”  By now you already understand where I am in all this controversy.  I have suggested to others that this book is a great book to begin to understand the unfathomable love that God has for each one of us.

Prayer Power
Lord, help us to learn that love and humility unifies rather than divides.  Teach us to read and listen to others with Your love and humility.

Link of the Day
Fiction, Truth, Reality and all that stuff…

Blessings on you as you consider the true meaning of grace.

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“Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.”  author unknown

What have been some of the most life-altering books you have ever read?

However, he has given each one of us a special gift [i.e., grace] according to the generosity of Christ.  (Eph. 4:7; NLT)

Let me start this out by saying the obvious…I love to read.  I used to read a lot more than I do today.  I used to read a book a week without even trying.  Today, with the competition of the Internet, email, and all the other wonderful “time-savers” (?), my average is more like a book a month.  Hmmmm…sounds like that could be a club.

It’s been years since I read much of anything that was fiction.  I don’t say that to be snooty, but it was a habit that, upon reflection, I see was developed when I went back to school.  Then, after an eternity in graduate school (just ask Sharon), even when I was finally free again to pick my own reads, it was always in the area of self-improvement of one sort or another.

All that to say that reading a book from the fiction genre has been pretty unusual for me.  Over the last several months, I started hearing snatches of controversy over a little book titled The Shack by Wm. Paul Young.  I didn’t pay too much attention, because it sometimes seems like Christians especially love to fuss with each other about things like that, although it’s usually about non-fiction or so-called “pop theology” books.  Over the months, the controversy seems to be growing, and after having read the book and done a little research on it, I expect the din to grow even louder as it has now been picked up by a major publisher who has plans for a 500,000 copy press run in June and a national campaign in the secular market in July.

I happened to be at a social gathering at a good friend’s house and saw a copy and asked to borrow it.  About a third of the way into the book, I just couldn’t resist any longer and reached for a pen and started underlining key passages.  (My friend doesn’t even know yet that he’s going to get a new book back for the one he loaned to me.)  By the time I finished the book, it has more underlining than most of my graduate school theology text books.  Now, I don’t want to suggest that The Shack is a theology book, or even on that level, but I do want to say that some of the key ideas and phrasing of those ideas in the book is some of the clearest and most articulate theological statements I have ever seen.

I’ll give some examples later in the week, but for now let me say that The Shack is one of the most significant books I have ever read in my life.  Is it life changing?  For some, I’m sure it will be.  My theology has evolved over the last several years, and happened to be pretty much in alignment with much of what I read in Young’s book, but again, his way of revealing that particular theological paradigm is nothing short of magnificent.  The Shack clearly has earned a place in my top five list of lifetime reads.

If you haven’t read it…I encourage you to do so.  Expect to be stretched.  Maybe beyond what you can stand.  But then again, that’s why they’re called growing pains.  Be prepared to eat the meat and spit out the bones.

Prayer Power
Lord, growth can be painful at times.  It is often hard to lay down that which we were so sure about.  Help us to at least be open to hear and consider that which goes against the grain.  We trust that You will guide us through the many opinions to the truth.

Link of the Day
Official website for The Shack

Blessings on you as you begin a new week–the first week of the rest of your life.

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