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The synopsis:

"Mack" Philips took his three children on a family camping trip while his wife visited her sister. Just as they were about to leave the campsite, the two older kids decided to take a last canoe ride before heading home. As their canoe overturned, and Mack went to help them, his back was turned and the unspeakable happened. Mack's youngest daughter,Missy, was abducted by a known child predator. After a massive search, evidence of Missy showed up at an abandoned cabin. Although they never found her body, everyone knew the worst had happened. For the next four years "a great sadness" fell over Mack and his family, until a note from God showed up in his mailbox. What happens next will move you to a greater understanding of God's unfailing love for us all"

Some Points to ponder from The Shack
> there is a total disprespect for God by the main character
> a false view of God is presented
> the author mocks the importance and uniquiness fo the Bible
> the Bible is equal to whatever you can imagine personally about God
> The Bible is not true
> God won't judge people for their sins
> The Godhead is a circle of unity
> There is no such thing as eternal judgment or torment in hell
> Jesus is found by all people taking different paths and different journeys---but all roads lead to God
> There is no need for faith, reconciliation etc. because everyone goes to heaven


So--The Shack, read by many including Christians and endorsed by same---edifying or deceptively destructive?

I agree strongly that this book is horrible. Fiction novels are best to be left unread anyway. The Bible is our guide. Many authors corrupt people's minds through deceiving imaginations, as well as false ideas hidden in their works. This book is a bestseller for one reason: people have tickling ears and would much rather be in their comfort zone than follow the holy life that God calls them to live.

(01-02-2009 11:49 AM)DarkGlass1312 Wrote: [ -> ]I agree strongly that this book is horrible. Fiction novels are best to be left unread anyway. The Bible is our guide. Many authors corrupt people's minds through deceiving imaginations, as well as false ideas hidden in their works. This book is a bestseller for one reason: people have tickling ears and would much rather be in their comfort zone than follow the holy life that God calls them to live.

I think many people are seduced by not only reading things that hold perverse or untrue doctrine, but they do so because of an unsatiable need to read...and they spend much more time in other books than they do the bible.

If one were to poll how much time per day is spent reading and studying Scripture, and then poll how much time per day is spent reading a novel, watching tv etc...I think it would likely shock many as to how much time is spent on other things. Part of the problem within Christianity is the lack of studying to show one is approved, which then allows for a limited allotted time for that. And that shows in what is accepted and not accepted as truth.

2Ti 2:15-16
(15) Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
(16) But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

Php 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.

1Ti 4:7 But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
2Ti 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

2Pe 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Many have become unarmed and unable to discern between good evil, and that is why books like the Shack are endorsed and promoted by many Christians.

Would it shock you if I told you that I do not read the Bible?

That I cannot, for I have been so terrorized by it that I cannot bear to do anything other than dip into it as a reference from tim to tim. And this has been going on for over 20 years. If i try to read long tracts of it I will find someithing whereby i will feel impaled and terrified

I do love a good whodunnit, a new remake of a sherlock holme was on tv yesterday.

I dont read fiction as it bores me, but i read history for pleasure - another reason why i do nottrust christians when they try to talk on history

Though i did read the Da Vinci code a couple of years ago. It was fun, but i knew enough history and theology not to be talen in by the self indulgent **** that the author was peddling.

However i do pray, by which I mean two way conversations with a spirit being who must be christ, and sometimes we talk for hours

---

Im not saying i have got beyond the Bible, i am saying that I think i have finally started to do what it is about, namely the relationship with the Spirit. the Bible is not an end in itself it is a means and an aid, indispensible, of course, but the goal is the person who is christ. Repenting of bibliolatry I am morfable to see this than before

For you see as I get some modicum of confidence in God I no longer need to have a fearful deathgrip on the Bible. Such was never holding fast to what is good

And as, given that as i get older i am more convinced than ever of sola scriptura, no other book is likely to take me from God (or give me an escuse to wander from him, which is a more correct view of things), so then I am free to read what i like. Even fiction, which i may do from time to time, because my disinclination for fiction is not a matter of principle but of taste: movies, which i enjoy greatly do some of what novels do but much quicker

Hey there Stref,

I can't say that I am not troubled by your statements, because I am. And concerned.

You have been thru many struggles and incidents over the years that have affected you deeply. It is fully true that it is about a relationship with Jesus Christ. Without Him we really should be afraid of death and what the future holds.

Part of a relationship with Christ is to change and be more like Him. No--we can never be like completely like Him, never be without the flesh pulling us into sin, never have the right answers all the time, never be holy as He is holy. And yet God calls us to that and the only way to deal with those things is to allow Christ to change us, and work through us. It's how the apostles walked with Him and it's their example to us.

You talk often of your sin and how awful you are. Paul addressed that in himself

Rom 7:14-25
(14) For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
(15) For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
(16) If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
(17) Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
(18) For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
(19) For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
(20) Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
(21) I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
(22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
(23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
(24) O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
(25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Quote:That I cannot, for I have been so terrorized by it that I cannot bear to do anything other than dip into it as a reference from tim to tim. And this has been going on for over 20 years. If i try to read long tracts of it I will find someithing whereby i will feel impaled and terrified

I was immediately drawn to a scripture, that was first introduced to me when I was 14 or 15 and was going through a time of terror of the enemy, believing that he was going to "get me" when in my room at night.

2Ti 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

We have a promise that in Christ, there is no condemnaton when we know Him and our desire is to serve Him, because the Holy Spirit gives us the desire and grace to do His good will. The terror comes from the enemy. It's that simple.

Rom 8:1-17
(1) There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
(2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
(3) For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh:
(4) That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
(5) For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
(6) For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
(7) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
(8) So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

If we know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord we have this promise:

(9) But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
(10) And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
(11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
(12) Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
(13) For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

Stref, if your hearts desire is to live for Christ and you have the Holy Spirit, He is at work in you, "moritfying" the things of the flesh.

(14) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
(15) For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
(16) The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
(17) And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

It doesn't make us perfect, but it makes us a sweet savour to God because of Christ in us.

2Co 2:14-15
(14) Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
(15) For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:

The only way to get relief from the terror of reading the Scriptures, Stref, is to allow God to fight the battle for you. It has always been His battle.

There is nothing we can do to overcome these things in our own thinking, in our own wills or knowledge---it is totallly and completely His battle and His victory which we can claim.

Without the Scriptures, you cannot know all that He wants of you, nor can you know Him in the way He intended.

Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

2Ti 3:16-17
(16) All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
(17) That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Luk 24:45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

Rom 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

2Pe 3:15-16
(15) And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
(16) As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Stref, in order to have the victory, you need to be able to ask in faith.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

If you are praying, and believing, then you can ask God to deliver you from this so that you can study to show yourself approved and be obedient to His call to do that. He loves us and wants to help us. When we are weak then we are strong--if we let Him.

If you have the Spirit of Christ, you will have a thirst after righteousness and reading His Word. I would challenge you to allow the Holy Spirit to teach you through the Scriptures because that is how we learn and grow in Christ.

If, when you are hearing that voice and communing and praying---the question would be, Why isn't it telling you to read the Word of God?

Who would tell someone not to read the Word of God, Stref?

but I am riddled with unbelief. Do i want to live for Him? NO! do i trust him? NO! Am I believing? NO! Do I even want to hear from him NO (became aware of this just yesterday) Do i listen to him? NO, i change the subject continually, ignore him, twist his words or just jibber in fear. I did a Jonah and fled a career in a symphony orchestra because i believe it a waste of time. And God tells me he never wanted me to work in horticulture or as a temp or as a wood worker, because i was ungrateful for my gift as a musician etc etc etc. Did the dead letter do this?

one thing. My speaking of my sins is not condemnation. IT IS TESTIMONY for though it has not yet sunk through that there is no condemnation ther has never been any hint of condemnation in the manner of this Spirit who talks to me.

Am i toface these things? why do you say he wil mortify the flesh but refuse my talk of conviction of it and repentance as a gift of grace. I am describing his mortification of my flesh, not hurting me but drawing out the hurt as one would draw puss from an inflamed boil

or should i just shut up and leave?


you ask a string of questions, i amswered them in the first paragraph. one remains

can i conjure these up? NO?

You say i cannot do them perfectly. i say I CANNOT DO THEM AT ALL, and i am not about to water down his word to make me a good if struggling saint. i am long past that

If you think my insights are good i got them from this spirit being who has been my constant companion since he got my attention in perfect peace showing me his holiness and my sin back in 1983

I have some kind of relationship with a Spirit being who canot be my imagination. Am even I able to lead myself out of madness through a conversation that has lasted over 25 years? When i panic when he speaks he calms me down, the way any book can never do

As a careful strategy he turned what i was terrified of into something that awes me, namely the imperium of the Tsar of Heaven. I am drawn back to him not by faith as commonly taught, but by fascination and by sober knowlege that my need will kill me, literally, if not met.

SO that means i must have some kind of amenability to His voice, not that that means i dont fight it tooth and nail. If that amenablity is what you mean by faith, perhaps. but it is nothing i will into existence

I am long passed holding to scriptures in a death grip. The Spirit that I am talking to is having me admit that all this is legalistic and he is bringing to the surface my rebellion and unbelief that all my conventional relgiosity actualy stirred up. And when i do so like a patient father he is persuading me to repent

Why isnt he telling me to read the Bible? because he knows that i am so terrorized that it does no good.

one of the sins i did repent of is bibliolatry. i can define it if you like

But this spirit has confirmed time and time again that everything that he says is entirely biblical, but without my being impaled in mortal terror by a verse, any verse

I am sorry but your counsel is well meant but it is what nearly destroyed me,. Did i mention 2 stays in a psych ward, 12 years of being on a sicknes benefit? the constant tension to the point of pain over 25 years

THis is another reason why I do not go near churches their conventional cousel is what drove me mad, and i mean mad, in the first place.

What comforted me in the night horrors was not the Book, but the PERSON the book talked about.

think of it this way. The Bible is a photo, a true one that we ned to know, but it is NOT the PERSON unless you would have me beleve that it was the book that was crucified for me. it is like a bride on her wedding night gazing at the wedding photos and ignoring her husband

But though you say correcltly that God would not have me afraid, (in my heart i am not reallyt convinced so of what value is clinging to a bible verse) im sorry the devil has nothing to do with it.

Would i have a new convert not read the Bible? that presupposes a legalist stance and a legalist mindset.

I would recommend it, but if he fell into despair as i did would i have him force read the verses he panicked over? certainly not

When I read your words, I am deeply concerned, for God would never tell someone that that they are ungrateful for a talent that He gave them and therefore could not condone work that they had done. How awful for you to be under that kind of conviction!!

Stref:
Was I THAT UNCLEAR???

I AM ungrateful. I am the one the bitterly resents being a musican, who wished I had never taken up the bass in the first place, who regards classical music as sin and who thinks that to get paid for music making is to propound a fraud. I never said God did not condone the work

I SAID ****I***** DID NOT.

was I that unclear??

Really, I want to know
.
I left the orchestra against his command and ran to horticulture then to temping then to woodworking. labouring in a factory with some boys who left school at 15. clearly if i refuse to obey him to be in a symphony orchestra it is because i am ungrateful for his gift of music

and as the lord lives i am ungrateful. I bitterly resent being seen as a musician,. i am a thinker, a philosopher and god willing a theologian before i will even consider being seen a some two bit bull fiddler

AM i to repent of this ingratitude or not? and would God tell me my sins? or not? how can i be set free if i wont confess, and how can i confess if i am not under conviction, did you completely miss what i said to you that ther is not one shred of condemnation in what he said or how he said it?.

Maybe i am wasting my time being here. you dont seem to get it . If it wasnt for this voice i would be dead, you know.

you werent there the night the tension exploded in 1984. i literaly thought i was going to die. and how did THE Spirit to whom i cried thast night move me to some measure of peace? by granting me repentance of thehsins whereby in unblief i dare not relax to such a degree as to experience those terrifying spasms?

or would you have me not admit my unbelief.

what is the use? i speak of grace and all you hear is condemnation. Am i so incapable of writing precise and clear prose.

sheepwrecked, email me privately if you weant to reply, im leaving this site for a few days at least.

Im sorry i dont think you understand what conviction is. it is the EXACT OPPOSITE of anything burdensome.

as for romans 8:28, how can everything work for my good when *I* dont love him ands never did, read the passage closely

---

QUOTE: Many times I have to force myself to write because it is draining and I just plain don’t “feel like it”. No where does God say what He has asked us to do will be easy or joyful.

Strefanash

now this is a theolgical question thats should be answered. You say nowhere, i say that is not true. "His yoke is easy his burden is light" why is it hard for you, why is it hard for me? because it is feigned obedience it is force against my own heart therefore it is not whole hearted obedience. and that is the defintion of legalism. if you dont want to write essays why do you think god is honoured at your sacrifice. if you dont want to do it it is not the best we can offer, it is not our heart, it is defiled flesh.

so why bother?

when i spend a lifetime being consistent in my efforts where is the abundant life, the joy and the peace. where is the rest, the life so radiant that it is being transform from glory to glory

I was nothing if not consistent. why are they perpklexed at me when i did as they told me but they themselves only trifled with their very own principles. and when i was consistent i fell into despair. but will they blame their own counsel whereby i obeyed it almost unto death but they did not? of course not, fool that i am

I have been deceived. The question is who by.

If GOD tells me i should soldier along in a hard life, making excuses for my lack of abundant joy peace and rest by falsely claiming that he never saiod it would be easyl (BUT HE DID,I SAY) holding to what amounts to pie in the sky when you die; then HE is the one who deceived me.

If you dont like me saying this i will tell you job's comforters did not like him being honest for a change either.

i wil stay away for a while lest i really ofefend somebody

From Lighthouse Trails Research:

Quote:In a recent radio interview, The Shack author, Paul Young, told the interviewer he did not hold to the traditional view of the atonement in that he does not believe Jesus Christ bore the punishment (i.e., penalty) for man's sins when He died on the Cross (transcript).

He also stated, with regard to this topic: "I don't know if you're aware, but that's a huge debate that's going on in theology right now within the evangelical community." That debate, to which Young refers, is the new theology (or as we call it the new spirituality) that is entering Christianity through contemplative and emerging figures such as Brennan Manning, Brian McLaren, and Marcus Borg.

This "huge debate" states that a loving Father would never send His Son to a violent death on behalf of the sins of others. And while they do not deny that Jesus did physically die on a Cross, they insist that His death was not to be a substitutionary act wherein He was punished for our sins. Rather, they say, He was killed by man, not for man. And he was a perfect model of sacrificial servanthood. As Episcopal new spirituality author, Alan Jones, states, "Jesus' sacrifice was to appease an angry God. Penal substitution was the name of this vile doctrine" (Reimagining Christianity, p. 168).


Contemplative proponent Brennan Manning, quoting Catholic mystic William Shannon, says: "[T]he god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased . . . does not exist" (Above All, pp. 58-59). Mystic Marcus Borg has this exact same view. He is opposes the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement and sees the Cross as merely a metaphor for transformation in the mystical sense. 1 Brian McLaren shares this view (and indeed resonates with Borg) when he says that hell and the Cross are "false advertising for God." 2

The Shack, still at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, is being heralded as one of the best Christian books ever. But as Lighthouse Trails and other concerned ministries have reported in a number of documented articles, The Shack is not a Christian book, and it should not be packaged, presented, and promoted as such.

While many who have read The Shack, tout that it has changed their lives, what these people do not understand is that the book appeals to people's senses; thus, the book is sensual. And because it makes people feel good, they assume (wrongly) that it must be from God. But The Shack is appealing to the carnal man and not the spiritual, and as the Bible warns, there is a "wisdom [that] descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish" (James 3: 15).

for the full article:

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/...more=1&c=1

From Way of Life, Friday Church News Notes, April 3, 2009:

AUTHOR OF THE SHACK DENIES SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT AND HELL FIRE (Friday Church News Notes, April 3, 2009)

In an interview on March 13 with Kendall Adams of KAYP radio, William Young, author of The Shack, denied substitutionary atonement and hell fire, two cardinal doctrines of the biblical Christian faith. When asked, “I take it that you wouldn’t agree that the cross was a place of punishment for sin,” Young replied, “No. I don’t; I [don’t hold] a penal substitution point of view.” Young also said, “I don’t think that hell is physical fire and that kind of stuff and it is not an issue of separation from God.” The Shack is very popular among emerging type churches, but it presents a false god. For more on this see “The Shack’s Cool God” at the Way of Life web site.