Monday, August 31, 2009

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?

What is Christianity? I mean at the very center of our faith what is there? Maybe I am talking about what C.S. Lewis called, “Mere Christianity” and Chesterton referred to simply as “Orthodoxy”. If we were to compare the faith of Adam, Abraham, Peter, Augustine, Calvin, Sproul, Miquel in Belize, Don Michael in Scotland and Thokosani in Malawi, what would they have in common? The expression of their faiths is vastly different but surely the central characteristics would be the same.

I am firmly convinced of Covenant Theology. Covenant Theology believes that the unifying idea of all of Scripture is the covenant of God. The covenant is, simply put, the terms of man’s relationship with God. We can use lots of words to describe it but the central concept of a covenant is a relationship. I think that relationship with the one true God is the heart of Christianity. God initiated a relationship with His image in creation. That relationship was broken by sin but restored through Jesus. This relationship was at the heart of the Old Testament worship which included sacrifices and feasts. In the New Testament it is central to the sacraments of baptism (in which one enters a relationship with God and His church) and Communion. For this reason Jesus describes the greatest commandments as loving God and loving our neighbor. That is to say, maintaining right relationships.

I am sad that too often relationship with God has been replaced with a reliance on religious rites. The rites are good but not as replacements for knowing Jesus, John 17:3. We read and study our Bibles confident that this is the way to eternal life all the while missing Jesus say to us, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” We list our prayer requests in bulletins and web-pages. We read the list to God expecting Him to heal our diseases and make us prosperous all the while missing that God’s plan for us includes suffering and hardship which enable us to trust Him more tenaciously. Our hope is to be His presence through the difficulties rather than the removal of hardship, Psalm 23:4. And yet we go on in our superstitious religion while God still invites us to more, Isaiah 1:14-18, 29:13; Revelation 2:4, 3:18-20.

A friend recently asked me, “How is Jesus exalted in The Shack?” At first I wanted to write about the truths found in The Shack but I hate being an apologist for men and I do not think he really wanted an answer. Non-the-less, my answer to him is this short observation. Jesus is exalted in The Shack as William Young tries to direct people away for the superstitious elements of Christianity and back to the heart of our faith, a relationship with the one true God.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Shack: Review of a Review

Recently I had two different people refer me to Tim Challies review of The Shack. I am not a polemicist. Although I loved The Shack, I do not want to defend William P. Young. What i do want to do is encourage God's people to meet the real God who loves us so much that he took on human flesh, died for us, rose again and continues to relate to us through His Spirit. The Shack points us to that goal.

You can access Tim Challies' critique at http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/the-shack-by-william-p-young.php

In the following paragraphs I will respond to some of the comments that Challies makes in his critique. Challies breaks down several flaws he sees in The Shack.

THE TRINITY
“Young teaches that the Trinity exists entirely without hierarchy and that any kind of hierarchy is the result of sin. The Trinity, he says, “are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command or ‘great chain of being’… Hierarchy would make no sense among us.” Now it’s possible that he is referring to a kind of dominance or grade or command structure that may well be foreign to the godhead.” That is exactly what William Young says he is referring to. The section quoted above begins on page 121 with a question from Mack, “Isn’t one of you more the boss than the other two?” The issue that Young is addressing in his statements about hierarchy in the Godhead is the issue of “command structure.” It is too bad that Challies missed that part of the story and therefore the point. Apparently he actually agrees with Wiliam Young on this point.

Challies continues, “And the Bible makes it clear that there is some kind of hierarchy even within the Trinity. The Spirit and the Son have submitted themselves to the Father. The task of the Spirit is to lead people to the Son who in turn brings glory to the Father. Never do we find the Father submitting to the Spirit or to the Son.” Does not the Father submit to the Son when the Father answers Jesus prayers, particularly the prayer that He glorify the Son, John 17:1. In this the Father shows the mutuality of submission by giving glory to Jesus. The economic unity of the Godhead as displayed in Ephesians 1:3-14 is clear that the members of the Trinity work in concert with one another, all united in purpose all in absolute agreement with one another mutually submitting to each other in the given arenas of their work in salvation.

Challies writes,“There are other teachings about the Trinity that concerned me. For example, Papa says “I am truly human, in Jesus.” This simply cannot be true. God [the Father—a term that the author avoids] is not fully human in Jesus.” Jesus Himself said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” How is Young’s statement any different? Is it possible that when Papa made the statement he was referring to the unity of the Godhead?

Challies himself stumbles over the concept of the Trinity when he refers to the Father as God and Jesus and the Spirit as distinct from God. “but otherwise God is this woman. Jesus is a young to middle-aged man of Middle-Eastern (i.e. Jewish) descent with a big nose and rather plain looks while the Holy Spirit is played by Sarayu, a small, delicate and eclectic woman of Asian descent. By this point many people will choose to close the book and be done with it. But for the purposes of this review, let’s just assume you are able to get past seeing God and the Holy Spirit portrayed in this way and let’s press on.” Obviously when Challies refers to God here he means the Father. Young avoids this rather common error. He always refers to the members of the Godhead according to their titles, Father, Son and Spirit while together they are God. In fact on page 87 Mack asks, “which one of you is God? I am said all three in unison.”

FORGIVENESS
Challies writes, “Nowhere in Scripture will we find the idea that we can or should forgive an unrepentant person for this kind of crime. Rather, Scripture makes it clear that repentance must precede forgiveness. Without repentance there can be no forgiveness.” Actually the opposite is true. Romans 5:7 indicates that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. Ephesians 4:32 calls us to forgive just like God in Christ forgave us. In addition, if repentance precedes forgiveness, have we not made our work a requirement for salvation. Another problem with Challies’ assertion is that it would be possible for someone to be regenerated but not forgiven in that he may not have repented yet. Add to this the difficulty of which sins need repentance before forgiveness? It would be possible, if not probable, that a man has unknown sins that he never repents of doing. By Challies’ statement, he is not forgiven. In fact, no one could be and grace is now removed.

SCRIPTURE AND REVELATION
“’In seminary [Mac] had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects… Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges?’” Here we see Young pointing away from Scripture rather than towards it. Through Mack he scoffs at the idea that God has spoken authoritatively and sufficiently through the Bible. The point that Young is making is the exact same point made by Jesus in John 5:39-40, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life”. God is not silent. Psalm 19 tells us that He screams through creation. John 13 and 16 both have lengthy sections referring to the work of the Spirit in leading and guiding us. Psalm 37:4 speaks of God subjectively giving us desires. A major point of the Shack is to move believers away from formalism and into a vital relationship with Jesus Christ.

SALVATION
Challies states, “He denies that all roads lead to him (since most roads lead nowhere) but says instead, ‘I will travel any road to find you,’ Whether Young holds to universalism or not, and whether he believes that all faiths can lead a person to God, the book neither affirms nor refutes." The contradiction presented by Challies here is mind-boggling. He asserts that the book neither affirms or refutes whether all faiths lead to God one sentence after he observed that Young “denies that all roads lead to him…but says instead, “I will travel any road to find you.” Young is a little Arminian at best on this point but for Challies to refer to the clear statement that Young makes denying universalism and then assert that Young never affirms or refutes it is intellectually dishonest.

CONCLUSION
Challies frequently opines that Young does not give biblical proof. It seems to me that Challies is asking this novel to be an exegetical work. That is not the point. The book is a novel and is held to different literary standards than a systematic theology textbook.

I think that The Shack is an excellent book. It has weaknesses. Young is fuzzy in some of his theology. The book is also kind of preachy; but most of it is supposed to be God speaking. The Shack challenges the formalistic tradition laden Church to think about her practices. For too long we have treated our faith like a superstitious practice rather than a real relationship with the living God. I for one want to worship a real God; one who is able to be utterl transcendant and yet reach into my life. How about you?

About Me

My photo
I have been a PCA pastor since 1993, having been a pastor in Arizona, Florida, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and as the Team Leader for MTW’s work in Scotland. I am currently the Senior Pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in York, PA. As a pastor, my desire is to help everyone I meet live out Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in Heaven but You, and besides You I desire nothing on earth.” I love my Wife Robin, my two sons, Patrick and Michael and my daughter in law, Britney. I am firmly wrapped around the fingers of my granddaughters.

Followers