#1 Bestseller The Shack- Speaks of Oneness?

[My Own Eyes]

Originally Posted by Ferd

I suspect the book provides something positive about God that a person can gain from having read it.

If it blessed you that is great. I have not read the book. likely I wont but not because I have adverse to such. Ive got a lot on my plate right now.


the only issue I have (and it is purely second hand...) is this notion of universal salvation that seems to be taking hold.

But if you found something positive that helps you with your understanding of God then Good for you!

Because it's been awhile since I read it (actually it was February, so a good 4 months ago), and because you mentioned the UR, which was exactly what made me read it in the first place, I went and looked up the discussion that I had, had at a different forum. Here is the questionable passage, along with my thoughts...

(Jesus Speaking) "Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republican and many who don't vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved"

"Does that mean," asked Mack, "that all roads will lead to you?"

"Not at all," smiled Jesus as he reached for the door handle to the shop. "Most roads don't lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you."

I wrote: Take special note of when he uses the word "were" and when he uses the word "are".

Also he is pointing out that He has no "desire to make them Christian", that identifying oneself as belonging to a Christian Denomination, does not make one a follower of Jesus.

[SDG]

Ferd ... you and I reject Christian Universalism which this book espouses ...

However after listening to Mr. Young on the radio today ... I could not help but think He's become very Oneness in his view of the Incarnation which has stirred up the ire of many bible scholars also.

[My Own Eyes]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

Ferd ... you and I reject Christian Universalism which this book espouses ...

However after listening to Mr. Young on the radio today ... I could not help but think He's become very Oneness in his view of the Incarnation which has stirred up the ire of many bible scholars also.

Dan, did you read my post above? I don't think he does espouse UR.

[Cindy]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

'Shack' opens doors, but critics call book 'scripturally incorrect'
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

PORTLAND, Ore. — By rights, William Young, 53, should be a mess.
Emotionally distant from his missionary parents. Sexually abused by the New Guinea tribe they lived among. Grief-stricken for loved ones who died too young, too suddenly. Frantic to earn God's love, yet cheating on his wife, Kim.

Young functioned by stuffing all the evil done to him and by him into a "shack" — his metaphor for an ugly, dark place hidden so deeply within him that it seemed beyond God's healing reach.
His adultery, 15 years ago, finally blew the doors off that shack, forcing him to confront his past. "Kim made it clear," he says. "I had to face every awful thing."

Now, his first novel, The Shack— centered on dialogues between a miserable main character, Mack, and three unorthodox characterizations of the Holy Trinity — telescopes Young's transformation to a man spiritually reborn and aware every moment of God's love. It slams "legalistic" religions, denominations and doctrines. It barely even mentions the Bible.


Instead, Mack's secrets, lies, pain and fears are swept away in a 48-hour encounter in the woods with a sassy black woman who embodies God the creator. Jesus is portrayed as a big-nosed carpenter in a plaid shirt; the Holy Spirit is an Asian sylph called Sarayu.

So why are critics calling it heresy?

They say Young's surprise hit, which has been in the Top 50 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list for 10 weeks (it's now No. 17), promotes a wrong-headed view of universal salvation, as free to all as an open bar at a party.

They read Young's message as saying you can just discover Jesus' love inside yourself, turn your life over to him, and you're on your way to heaven. No need to put in time in the pews or know theology.
Albert Mohler, a leading theologian of the Southern Baptist Convention, which takes the Bible literally, trashes The Shack in his weekly radio show, calling it "deeply subversive," "scripturally incorrect" and downright "dangerous."

Says Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle: "If you haven't read The Shack, don't!"

Driscoll, whose multi-campus non-denominational church is packed with 6,000 people each weekend in the least-churched corner of the nation, says he is "horrified" by Young's book. He says "it misrepresents God. Young misses the big E on the eye chart."

To Driscoll, doctrine is essential, like a fence the Almighty erects to safeguard the saved from error.

The Shack has fans, too. Young gets nearly 100 e-mails a day from readers saying they found solace and inspiration in his novel.
They overlook the clichés ("Religious machinery can chew up people," Jesus says), stereotypes, like the Jewish Jesus' big nose, and the awkward prose. The black female God, incongruously called Papa, tells Mack, "Don't just stand there gawkin' with your mouth open like your pants are full."

Incredible journey
Minister Steve McVey of Tampa, author of Grace Walk, praises The Shack.
McVey says Young connects with people outside of, or unhappy with, institutional churches that "tell us what we ought to do for God, while grace focuses on what God has already done. A person discovers grace when you come to the end of your own self-sufficiency and realize you have been made acceptable through Jesus Christ and him alone. You can't score points with God."

Today, Young, who goes by his middle name, Paul, happily recounts how he finally tapped the wellspring of God's love he says was always there for him to find.

He exudes quiet calm, disrupted now and then by bursts of enthusiasm, like bear-hugging strangers on first meeting.

Ordinary things delight him. He walks up to Multnomah Falls, his plaid shirt and fleece jacket coated with the mist of the cascading water, his smile irrepressible.

This majestic waterfall plays a role in the novel's opening pages. Mack tells his little daughter, Missy, the legend of an Indian princess who hurls herself over the falls to save her people from death.

Will I have to die to save others? she asks him. No, he tells her, Jesus has done this for you, and she sleeps soundly, secure in Christ.

The foreshadowing is hardly subtle: the sacrifice of an innocent life for the sake of salvation. Missy is kidnapped by a serial killer and is murdered in a filthy, deserted shack in the wilderness.

Years later, Mack, still devastated, receives a note inviting him back to the shack. It's signed "Papa," the name his more resilient and spiritual wife, Nan, uses for God.

Mack's weekend at the shack is a compressed journey toward belief, forgiveness and acceptance.

But what a trip. Instead of a dump, this shack is a mansion in an Eden-like garden where God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit embrace him. For two days, they talk, eat, walk, garden and share visions of heaven, where little Missy romps happily.

They tell Mack they live in a loving relationship without hierarchy, guilt or shame, all fully human, all divine. They say that through Jesus' death, God is "fully reconciled" to the whole world, so that all might discover God's love.

It's a vision of joy to Young, however far it strays from most evangelical dogma.

Young was born in Canada to missionaries who brought him as an infant to New Guinea to live with the primitive Dani tribe. He says he was subject to the harsh verbal attacks of his unhappy father, and sexual assaults by tribesmen. He went to a missionary boarding school at age 6, he says, and was molested by older students.

He never lost a sense of God, but to Young, God was distant and judgmental. "I learned to survive by becoming a performer/perfectionist," he says.

Even as he roamed the world and eventually wound up in a Bible seminary for the Christian Missionary Alliance, he knew he wasn't meant to be a pastor or missionary. He finally graduated from Western Pacific College in Portland and landed at a Four Square Gospel church, working with collegians.

There he met Kim, who poked holes "in my version of being a perfect performer to earn God's love. You can't perform for God. You can't run. You can't hide. You can adapt, but that won't heal the stuff you've buried deep inside, in your 'shack.' "

Soon after they married, waves of tragedy gouged their life. When he was 25, his 18-year-old brother died in a work accident, Kim's mother died unexpectedly, and his niece, 5 years and one day old, was run over by a cement truck while riding her new birthday bicycle.
Grace seemed nowhere in sight.

Young was 38 and the father of six when his life took a hairpin turn after his adultery. He spent a year in counseling, years more soul-searching, marveling at Kim's steadfast commitment, before he reached wholeness in faith, he says.

He wrote The Shack in 2005, prompted by Kim. She wanted him to open up his heart and his thinking to their children, now ages 14 to 27. The book was meant to be like the box top on a jigsaw puzzle, the picture that shows where all the pieces fit, Young says.

Is this fiction or non-fiction?

[SDG]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

Ferd ... you and I reject Christian Universalism which this book espouses ...

However after listening to Mr. Young on the radio today ... I could not help but think He's become very Oneness in his view of the Incarnation which has stirred up the ire of many bible scholars also.

Of course, He's portrayed the Trinity in 3 fictional persons but espouses some that the Father also died on the Cross ...

Here's one trinitarian speaker .... who believes the Shack teaches Modalism...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK65Jfny70Y

[SDG]

The book is fiction, Cindy

[SDG]

Originally Posted by My Own Eyes

Dan, did you read my post above? I don't think he does espouse UR.

There appears to be various references in the book that link his doctrine to Christian UR, MOE.

Also apparenty he embraced Christian UR 4 years ago.

Who is the author? William P. Young, a man I have known for over a dozen years. About four years ago
Paul embraced “Christian universalism,” and has defended this view on several occasions. While he
frequently disavows “general universalism,” the idea that many roads lead to God, he has affirmed his
hope that all will be reconciled to God either this side of death or after death.

Christian universalism (also known as universal reconciliation) asserts that love is the supreme attribute of
God that trumps all others. His love reaches beyond the grave to save all those who refuse Christ
throughout their lifetimes. Even fallen angels, and the Devil himself, will one day repent, be delivered from
hell enter heaven. There cannot be left in the universe any being whom the love of God does not conquer;
hence the words, universal reconciliation. This view of future destinies claims many texts that seem to
assert that the reconciliation Jesus accomplished on the cross extends to all creatures (Rom. 5:18; 2 Cor.
5:16-20; Col. 1:19-20), that all universally will confess him as Lord (Phil. 2:6-11), and that God’s desire
that all be saved (1 Tim. 2:4) will be accomplished. Nothing can thwart God’s will and love.

On current web sites the editors of The Shack indicate that they worked with the book for over a year. The
editors went through and eliminated, they claim, the universalism as defined above. Yet a careful reading
shows that The Shack rests on the foundation of universal reconciliation. This is not unexpected when the
author (in his “Acknowledgments”) cites many writers who have influenced him, several of which are
universalists.

Many others have pointed out the theological errors they find in the book. They fault Young’s view of
revelation and the Bible, his presentation of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ death and the meaning of
reconciliation, and the subversion of institutions that God has ordered, such as the government and the
local church. But the common thread tying all these errors together is Christian universalism. A study of
the history of universal reconciliation that goes back as early as the third century shows that all of these
doctrinal deviations, including opposition to the local church, are characteristic of universalism. In modern
times it has undermined evangelical faith in Europe and America. It has joined with Unitarianism to form

the Unitarian-Universalist church.

http://theshackreview.com/content/Th...eview2Page.pdf

[My Own Eyes]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

There appears to be various reference in the book that link his doctrine to Christian UR, MOE.

Also apparenty he embraced Christian UR 4 years ago.

http://theshackreview.com/content/Th...eview2Page.pdf

Well Dan, as you admit you haven't read the book, I don't really understand how we can have a decent debate about it.

[SDG]

5) There is great error in the portrayal of the Trinity. Young asserts that the whole Trinity became incarnate as the Son of God, and the whole Trinity was crucified (p. 99). Both Jesus and Papa (God) bear the marks of crucifixion in their hands (contra. Isa. 53:4-10).

Young’s error leads to modalism, that God is singular and at different times assumes the different modes of Father, Son,and Holy Spirit, a heresy condemned by the early church.

Another attack that the book promotes MODALISM ....
http://theshackreview.com/content/Th...eview2Page.pdf

[SDG]

Originally Posted by My Own Eyes

Well Dan, as you admit you haven't read the book, I don't really understand how we can have a decent debate about it.

Not looking for debate ... MOE. The premise of my thread is to bring attention the criticism some Trinitarians are bringing to the forefront ... about the book promoting modalism ... or Oneness doctrine, in a sense.

It was Ferd who also highlighted that many also believe it teaches Christian UR doctrine. The pdf ... gives references in the book that appear to show leanings toward UR.

The quote I provided also is from an acquaintance of his who states that Young indeed believes UR doctrine.

Just passing along info.