Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Shack is well written and timely to the needs of a church strangled by theological bickering and relational tepidness--and we all know how much Jesus loves lukewarm attitudes in matters of faith and life. Evangelicalism in particular has become the modern equivalent of the Pharisee party with its right theology--political right wing theology, perhaps--and its wrong relationships. Consider the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals: he wasted thousands of words condemning homosexuality and then turns up gay himself. The real problem is this: correct theology--practicing homosexuality is sin, for example--is weakened by wrong relationships--condemning homosexuals, instead of directing them to our redeemer. In his Amazon review of The Shack, Tim Challies says he reviewed to satisfy requests he received. To make a long review short, he says The Shack suffers from a subversive attempt to undermine orthodox Christian faith. This is simply not true. On the essentials of the faith--Christ as the single way to God and as the truth that sets us free--The Shack is totally orthodox. Jesus is presented as who he was and is and is to be--the Word who became flesh, who gave up his godly glory, who became a servant of lost humanity, who lived his life in total dependence on the power of his Abba, who forgave his murderers, who cried out in agony from the cross, who is alive in us today through the power of the Spirit and who is the coming King. This is all in The Shack. Perhaps, like many other theologians, Mr. Challies suffers from educational blindness. Our salvation is totally about reconciliation relationship to God because of the blood of Christ. To point this out, in the separation, Christ astonishes the goats who claim salvation because of their great works. His response, "I never knew you." Wake up people, salvation is about knowing God through the Spirit and in the heart. The works bubble up and overflow from that relationship. The Shack is fiction and contains some speculations on debatable issues. Many of the ones on the nature of the Trinity, for example, ring true to biblical revelation. But undermining the faith? No. And undermining it subversively? For goodness sakes, Mr. Challies, stop bearing false witness against Mr. Young.