This is our seventh summer in Dallas. Until this point, I have not been a big fan. It's just too dang hot. Now that I have children however, and we have moved to a different apartment, my attitude is changing. We're having a blast. It's so fun to watch the kids having such a good time with bikes, pools, and ice cream. We've especially enjoyed getting to know our neighbors, the Watsons.
We've hit it off. We have a lot in common: little kids, a love for ice cream, and the Christian faith. Kevin is working on his PhD at Perkins Seminary at Southern Methodist University. So, we love chatting theology while we laugh our heads off at the hilarious things our kids do.
One of the many running gags as been about our little Ecumenical movement. Though barely, since we are both Protestants (he's a Methodist, and I'm a Baptist), it's been fun to compare notes and discuss issues from our different perspectives.
Kevin gave me a copy of his book, A Blueprint for Discipleship: Wesley's General Rules as a Guide for Christian Living. It's a short work, 128 pages including the appendices. It's set up in nine chapters and is designed to be used in a small group setting. Kevin is an excellent writer with a gift for clarity and accessibility. You could totally hand this book to a brand new Christian without worries that he or she would be lost in the concepts or vocabulary. Each chapter has a nice review of the previous ground, which is especially helpful if you are going to use this over the course of nine weeks.
Watson's goal is to introduce and recommend John Wesley's method for Christian discipleship which is summarized in Wesley's essay entitled The Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies (often referred to as "The General Rules") The essay is printed in its entirety in Appendix A.
Watson begins by giving the reader some historical background to Wesley and the Methodist tradition. He talks about Wesley's system of tiered meetings of small (band), medium (class), and large groups (Society). He continues by unpacking the General Rules of which there are three: (1) Do no harm; (2) Do all the good you can; and (3) Attend upon the ordinances of God. Watson shows the Biblical basis for these rules, restates them in contemporary lingo, and includes plenty of interesting illustrations to captivate the reader and to show the relevance of Wesley's outline to our present-day context.
Though Watson's intended audience is obviously the Methodist tradition of which he is a part, there are plenty of take-aways for Christians of other stripes. Wesley was an organizational genius, and a brilliant theologian. His wisdom still applies today. Though Protestants of other traditions won't agree with everything, the principle thesis should be universally accepted: Christian discipleship occurs best in gracious, but deliberate and disciplined community. It is not enough to fill our heads with Bible knowledge or drift from worship service to worship service. We must be intentional about asking one another the critical question in the context of loving relationships: "How is it with your soul?"
This book is challenging and convicting. And now that I'm getting to know its author, I appreciate it even more. He loves the Lord and His Church. Thanks, Kevin.
John Gram wrote the following review of William Young's The Shack. Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not?
Some friends asked me to write a review of The Shack, so here it is:
Like most of you, I had heard of The Shack long before I actually picked up a copy to read. There are certain books that I read not because of personal interest, but because as a minister I want to know what my congregation is being exposed to, as well as the Church at large. Given the popularity – and controversy – surrounding The Shack, I figured that this was one of those books I probably needed to read for myself.
For those of you who don’t know the basic story line, the book revolves around a man named Mackenzie, or Mack, for short. Mack grew up with a “religious,” yet horribly abusive father. Mack finally leaves home at 13 and leads a hard life, but eventually things fall into place. He marries a wonderful Christian woman, and he has five great kids. But then an unspeakable tragedy – “The Great Sadness,” as the book calls it – shakes Mack to his core. On a camping trip, his youngest daughter, Missy, is kidnapped and brutally murdered. The guilt, pain, and anger slowly consume Mack, until one day he receives a note from God inviting him to the same shack where Missy was murdered. Mack spends a weekend with God, during which time He comes to understand the nature and purposes of God more clearly, and ultimately comes to peace with what happened to Missy.
The Shack is not a great literary work. The writing style kept the book in my bathroom to be read in segments, as opposed to on my bedside table at night when I do my pleasure reading. The plot and dialogue do little more than carry the reader awkwardly to Young’s next lecture point.
MACK: “Wow, Jesus, it’s as hot as Hell out here on the lake.”
JESUS: “Well, speaking of Hell, Mack, let me spend the next few pages telling you all about how I see it and how the Christian Church has it all wrong.”
Okay, so it’s not quite that bad, but it gets close at times. That said, the book did not have to be written brilliantly to accomplish its purpose. The storyline and the characters are really just a vehicle through which the author can express His views on God, suffering, justice, etc. There is actually something quite appealing and engaging in choosing to write this book as a novel, as opposed to a theological treatise, which is really what it is at its heart. Very few believers – rightly or wrongly – would pick up a book called, The Problem of the Nature of God and the Presence of Suffering, but the book’s form as a novel has made it quite successful. And because of its packaging as a novel, many more believers are engaging with the difficult and important questions which Young raises.
What I do appreciate about The Shack is its apparent commitment to Trinitarianism. I say apparent because I know that others have accused it of failing at this point. Personally, I don’t think you could read The Shack as a member of a non-Christian religion or as a modalist (one who believes that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are different “modes” which God assumes at different times, rather than three co-existent persons) and agree with Young’s portrayal of God. Some have accused him of modalism, and perhaps they have a point; there certainly are some parts of His description of the Trinity and God’s interpersonal relationships that leave me uncomfortable. However, these came across to me as temporary “slips” in discussing a very difficult subject, rather than evidence that Young is not committed to an orthodox Trinitarian view. Of course, I’ve never met the man, so I can’t say for sure. The Trinity is one of those great mysteries of the Christian faith that we can more easily define by what it is not, than what it is. Regardless, it is certainly Young’s working out of his Trinitarian views that causes most of the controversy in his work.
In The Shack, God the Father reveals Himself as a black woman for most of the story. Part of the author’s purpose in this is to challenge the image of God as a white grandfather that we all struggle against because of cultural and historical pressures on Christianity. In addition, Young uses Mack’s own childhood experiences to explore the difficulties that many men do have in calling God, “Father.” Revealing God as a black woman helps work through some of these, as well. I really don’t have a problem with Young doing this. He acknowledges that God has revealed Himself as Father and I think he does a good job of upholding the importance of God’s choice in self-revelation. However, it is important for us to remember that God the Father is spirit – neither male, nor female – and I think Young does this tastefully, not with an attitude of “Nyah! Nyah! I’m going to break your stereotypes!”
I’m not really sure how to comment on His portrayal of the Holy Spirit. He does better than most Christians in treating the Holy Spirit as a being with personality, as opposed to an impersonal force. Young decides to portray the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman, probably for similar reasons that God the Father is an African-American woman. I suppose he does a fairly good job at staying faithful to the very limited portrayal of the Spirit which we receive in Scripture.
Most of the problems I have with The Shack on theological grounds are probably accounted for by Young’s view of Christ. After all, most of our understanding of God as a whole is rooted firmly in how we perceive Jesus, God come in the flesh. Young explicitly defends the dual nature of Christ – fully God and fully man – though how he flushes this out causes me some serious concerns. However my greatest concerns come with Christ’s portrayal as a humble, gentle handyman. This is probably my biggest bone to pick with the emergent movement in general: their understanding of Jesus Christ doesn’t seem to be informed by any of the New Testament past the gospels. The resurrected, glorified, “Son of God in power,” does not appear in this work. There is one scene in The Shack where Jesus appears as a King, but it’s an aberration in the novel as a whole. I appreciate what the emergents are reacting against – the image of an aloof, transcendent God who, at worst, could crush you with His little finger (and by the way, is probably looking for an excuse to do so, anyway) and at best, is a far cry from the “Daddy” of Jesus’ prayer. But we must maintain God’s holiness and fearfulness even in His familiarity, and we must maintain his might, wrath, and power, even in His intimacy. In justifiably reacting against one extreme, I think that Young swings too far towards the other. In the end, his portrayal of God is not comforting for me; it is too small and too single-faceted.
Young’s very negative views on authority and institutions, as well as his issues with words like “religion” and “Christian” and various “nouns”– which never really rise above the level of anal semantic objections that simply point out the structure and limitations of language rather than offer any real insight – probably stem from this miopic and anemic view of God in The Shack. While his Trintiarianism is not fatal to the book as a whole (he certainly makes some points worth considering) it does lead to some unorthodox – and a times, dangerous – conclusions, such as his suggestion that the Godhead submits to humans even as humans submit to God in our relationship with Him. This is the sort of “God is a gentlemen” and “Love never imposes” theology that has become quite popular lately, but fails to account for the entire revelation of Scripture.
Honestly, I don’t think that a well-read Christian will find anything new in The Shack. Young offers the standard modern church answers to the problem of suffering, such as God can’t end suffering without limiting human freedom, God doesn’t cause suffering, but allows it for good, etc, etc. He’s changed the packaging, but not really the message. And in the end, Mack receives no real answers, but learns to rest in the goodness of God and his inability to understand the answers, anyway. Perhaps the best way to describe The Shack is a kinder, gentler version of the book of Job.
I suppose these are the sorts of issues that one runs into when one decides to put 250 pages worth of words into God’s mouth. That may seem a little harsh. After all, Young isn’t standing on the rooftops, screaming, “Thus saith the Lord!” And yet, I don’t think this is all that unfair of an analogy. If you are going to put words in God’s mouth, you shouldn’t be held to a lesser standard because you do it in a novel. And The Shack is much more polemical than prophetic. Some folks will probably be uncomfortable with The Shack because it doesn’t share the same assumptions about God, life, death, etc as their own system of theology (Indeed a systematic emergent theology sounds a bit like an oxymoron!). These disagreements are fine. At other times The Shack seems unfaithful to the revelation of Scripture. Would I call it heresy? No. I’ve learned from a good friend to reserve the word “heresy” for damnable beliefs. In other words, if you believe this is true about God, then you do not have saving knowledge of Him. (After all, as uncomfortable as it makes us, Scripture offers right beliefs as just as important a test of salvation as ethical behavior or love.) I do not believe that the portrayal of God in The Shack or the theology of The Shack is heretical in this sense. And in the end, there is some real good to be gleaned from reading it.
Thus, I have no problem with Christians reading and discussing The Shack. It raises some very important and difficult questions with which the Church needs to wrestle. There is too much cotton candy preaching and too much sugary-sweet music and literature that is more likely to give a person diabetes than true inspiration. We need books like The Shack to see where the Church is not measuring up, as well as to evaluate the sort of thinking and thinkers that the Christian community is producing. The Shack should be read with discernment, but so should every other Christian author. It just might need a few more grains of salt than usual.
I’m on the hunt for excellent resources for discipling children. I’ve enjoyed hunting around on the Internet and at Barnes & Noble looking for the best Children’s Bible. Today, I’d like to recommend two. The first is for younger children, and is aptly named The Beginners Bible: Timeless Children’s Stories. Published by Zondervan, it’s apparently pretty popular boasting, “The bestselling Bible Storybook of our time––over 5 million copies sold!” I like it because it is well illustrated. The graphics are colorful and consistent. There is plenty on each page to capture my 18 month old’s attention while she listens to the stories. The stories are fairly well written, with a young audience in mind (recommended for children Ages 6 & Under). My daughter has nearly destroyed her copy with lots of love. It’s probably her favorite book, which is remarkable, since she has lots of books. It contains over 90 stories from the Old and New Testaments.
Its weak points are consistent with most other Bibles for Children. Namely, the episodic nature of the stories lacks any cohesion to a larger plot structure. Now if your goal is simply to lay a foundation by getting these episodes into the consciousness of your child, than this criticism doesn’t matter that much. Which is why I’m still using this Bible, and am willing to recommend it as a good resource for the very young.
However, I will insist that you graduate your child to a better Bible as soon as you possibly can. In fact, we are already transitioning our 18-month-old to The Jesus Storybook Bible, which I whole-heartedly recommend. Also published by Zondervan, this Bible cares deeply about the larger narrative of the Scriptures (creation, rebellion, redemption, and re-creation). The illustrations are breathtaking. (In fact, my wife has stopped me twice from cutting the pages out and hanging them on the wall!) This Bible is still episodic, but it weaves the stories together with common phrases, foreshadowing, and summary. 
For example, after the story of Abraham’s offering of Isaac, the author (Sally Lloyd-Jones) writes, “Many years later, another Son would climb another hill, carrying wood on his back. Like Isaac, he would trust his Father and do what his Father asked. He wouldn’t struggle or run away. Who was he? God’s Son, his only Son––the Son he loved. The lamb of God.”
Obviously, the narrative of each story is a lot longer than that of Beginner’s. So, it will have to be reserved for children who can sit a bit longer (publishers recommend age 4 & Up). However, we’ve found that our 18 month old can already sit through these stories, because, I believe, for two reasons: First, the stories were obviously written to be read aloud, by an author who knows how to use language to communicate to children; Second, the illustrations hold attention. This Bible is superb. Understanding how the diverse stories of the Bible fit together in a larger plot structure came very late for me in my own walk. I think we can do a better job of showing our young Bible students how each story relates to the Gospel, and I’m thankful for this excellent resource
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