Tag Archive for 'Brian MacLaren'

The Shack - A Trinity Shocker!

Published
by
LayGuy
on April 15, 2008
in Books, Christianity, Digging Deeper and Rant
. 14 Comments

shack Ranking very high on Amazon’s best seller list is a book by William P. Young, The Shack. Released in May last year, many of you would probably already know about it.  As of today, it has upward of 350 reviews on Amazon.com.

Additionally Christian personalities such as Michael W Smith and Eugene Peterson (Author of The Message) have endorsed it in a positive way. Here’s what Peterson had to say:

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!

This has found many people rushing to buy the book and calling their experience in reading it, “a mind blowing experience, a spiritual stick of dynamite and a life changing book.”

So what’s the book about?  Basically it’s this:

The Shack revolves around Mack (Mackenzie) Philips. Four years before this story begins, Mack’s young daughter, Missy, was abducted during a family vacation. Though her body was never found, the police did find evidence in an abandoned shack to prove that she had been brutally murdered by a notorious serial killer who preyed on young girls. As the story begins, Mack, who has been living in the shadow of his Great Sadness, receives a strange note that is apparently from God. God invites Mack to return to this shack for a get together. Though uncertain, Mack visits the scene of the crime and there has a weekend-long encounter with God, or, more properly, with the godhead.

In a nut shell, God asks Mack to meet in the shack for a deep and meaningful about His nature.  The author was interviewed on the 700 Club on CBN and here is what he had to say:

It all sounds nice and fine and dandy until you get to meet the “god” Young introduces to Mack.  You see God the Father is an African American woman called Papa. God the Son (Jesus) is a guy from the Middle East with plain looks apart from his big nose.  And God the Spirit is Sarayu - a small and delicate little Asian girl.

Talking about messing with people’s heads!  And the fact that Christians are out there endorsing this crap and readers are saying that their consciousness is altered as a result of reading this book, blows me away.

It really makes wonder about the state of Oprah Winfrey type, new age mentality spreading across Christianity these days and how Christians are sucking this up into their minds and souls and don’t have any idea of the vomit they are consuming.

To be honest, I haven’t read the book.  But I don’t need to.  There are many people holding onto biblical truth who have exposed this book for what it’s worth. Tim Challies, author of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment and keeper of the popular blog challies.com has an awesome review about the book here.

In his conclusions, Challies says:

Because of the sheer volume of error and because of the importance of the doctrines reinvented by the author, I would encourage Christians, and especially young Christians, to decline this invitation to meet with God in The Shack. It is not worth reading for the story and certainly not worth reading for the theology.

Despite the great amount of poor theology, my greatest concern is probably this one: the book has a quietly subversive quality to it. Young seems set on undermining orthodoxy Christianity.

One of the theological areas The Shack centres on is the nature of the trinity. And Young’s characters of a black female Papa, a plain and big nosed Son and a delicate little female Asian Sarayu spirit, struck a negative vibe in me as soon as I read it.  Undoubtedly, Young’s work is in the genre of Mclaren’s work and you all you where I stand with Mclaren.

And in typical Mark Driscoll style, he nails this issue of the trinity in The Shack in his sermon series on doctrine.  Below is a snippet:

As you can see.  The Shack is a shocker when it comes to many aspects of Christianity.  Many good things are mixed with many bad things resulting in a delightful read where you may be unaware of the realigning of your understanding of crucial doctrines. And isn’t this just what the devil wants?

If the nature of the trinity does confuse you and you want to know more about this important aspect in our understanding of God, I invite you to check out Driscoll’s sermon below.

Driscoll In The News

Published
by
LayGuy
on September 24, 2007
in Christianity and Church
. 3 Comments

Good to see more action in regards to Mark Driscoll lately. He Pastors Mars Hill Church in Seattle and is one of my favourite teachers.

Mark draws heaps of criticism and praise at the same time from all over the Christian spectrum. Christianity Today has just published a feature article on the guy and I liked the description as to why Driscoll creates such a response.

Driscoll “comes off as a smart-aleck former frat boy,” according to The Seattle Times. Guilty as charged. If he hasn’t offended you, you’ve never read his books or listened to his sermons. On any given Sunday at Mars Hill, it’s possible that a visiting fire marshal will get saved. But it’s just as likely that a guest will flip him off before walking out.

The spectrum of response speaks to his sharp tongue—his greatest strength and his glaring weakness. But Driscoll also disturbs many fellow evangelicals because he straddles the borders that divide us. His unflinching Reformed theology grates on the church-growth crowd. His plan to grow a large church strikes postmoderns as arrogant. His roots in the emerging church worry Calvinists. No one group can claim him. Maybe that’s why they all turn their guns on him.

And another good quote talks about his split from the freaky little “Emergent” crowd - headed up by Tony Jones and Brian MacLaren.

Driscoll, while still emerging, no longer belongs to Emergent. Starting in 1995, Driscoll traveled around the country speaking for events hosted by Leadership Network, out of which grew Emergent Village in 2001. That’s when Driscoll split. He began to suspect that Emergent leaders wanted to revise Christian orthodoxy. Since then, Emergent Village has advocated an experimental, open approach to theology. Emergent Village coordinator Tony Jones has not sat down and talked with Driscoll in five years, Jones told me. Though they have sparred over theology, Jones spoke highly of Driscoll’s leadership gifts.

“He is uncommonly intelligent,” Jones said. “He is uncommonly articulate and humorous. He could have been a stand-up comedian. He could have been a great actor probably.”

But Driscoll seems to have tired of debates about the relationship of theology to postmodernism. Knowing his erstwhile Emergent friends will not be persuaded, Driscoll nevertheless references 641 Bible verses supporting his view in just 14 pages of Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives.

I’ve got the above mentioned book sitting on my bookshelf and indeed noticed the vast reference to scripture while the Emergent crowd barely even mentions it.

That’s what I admire about Driscoll. The guy sticks to scripture like gum to your soles and refuses to budge from it - even when it means that many people trash him for his views. The other aspect I like about him is his passion mixed with his comedy. Thanks to a fellow blogger, check out this snippet from a sermon Driscoll did a few weeks ago.

Mars Hill Church recently held a mass baptism on Alki Beach on the Puget Sound. And in typical Driscoll style, a baby seal beached itself right where the baptisms were to be held. Even though the Church had a permit for the occasion, Federal Law stated that anyone venturing within 100 yards of the seal would incur a $2,000 fine.

As you can imagine, the media and animal activists arrive and everything has now gone crazy. The setup team prayed for the seal to move but eventually they decided to move a few hundred yards away to set up elsewhere when lo and behold, the tide comes in and the seal moves.

This allowed the event to go ahead as planned and the media hung around and reported it on TV, radio and newspapers - God ordained publicity - for free! In all, over 220 people were baptised that day with 3000 people in attendance.

Check out the TV report here. And check out the photo’s on Flickr here.

Like him or lump him, Driscoll is a guy sold out to God. Sure his techniques may ruffle a few feathers but his message stays true to scripture. I suggest you check out the Christianity Today article and watch the above mentioned clips. While you’re at it, read his blog here and subscribe to his sermon podcast here and get a glimpse into the heart of a guy on mission for Jesus. Then when you see the world rage against him, and in particular the Christians, you will have a better idea as to what’s going on.

Tags: , , , ,