"The Shack" has tried to create mass acceptance of a viewpoint that denies the existence of evil and the costs and consequences of unbelief - UPDATE

I was so relieved to read WorldNetDaily's expose of The Shack today, which has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide and a film version is reportedly in the works.

Millions of evangelical Christians are among the masses who have embraced William Paul Young's "The Shack" as though it were gospel. Even three years since its release, "The Shack" has remained on numerous best-seller lists for more than 100 weeks – a claim no other book can make.

In "Burning Down The Shack", author James De Young exposes what he says is "the greatest deception to blindside the church in the last 200 years!"

A New Testament language and literature professor at Western Seminary in Portland, Ore., he's also a former longtime colleague of Paul Young, and was his Portland-area neighbor when Young wrote "The Shack." In 1997, De Young and Young even co-founded a Christian think tank, called M3 Forum, and for the next seven years they discussed and probed topics, doctrine and problems facing the church as it approached the New Millennium.

I said I was relieved because a dear friend highly recommended it, but I was so troubled by it that I just had to read it twice hoping that I could understand and then explain to her what it was that bothered me. Not being as well-versed in the New Testament as Professor De Young, I just couldn't put my finger on it except to say that I had initially stopped reading it when the story began by including a glowing mention of American journalist and commentator Bill Moyers--who drips with far left superiority to the point of nausea.

Anyway, thank you World Net Daily!

Just like the television series LOST can leave you feeling a bit teary-eyed at it's end even though you know you've been conned into thinking you liked a story that is so basically flawed, so it is with "The Shack."

Thanks to Professor De Young, we are reminded that we won't be deceived when we return to the true source for the real story.

UPDATE - Burning Down the Shack- Review by Warren Nozaki (January 3, 2011)

What sets Burning Down “The Shack” apart from the rest is the fact that James De Young and William Paul Young are well acquainted with one another. In fact, together they co-founded a Portland, Oregon based Christian think tank in 1997 called the M3 Forum (p. xiii). Burning Down “The Shack” thus offers an assessment from a capable Christian thinker with unique insights into the heart and mind of The Shack creator.

De Young’s book confirms the same theological problems others have observed. Namely, The Shack errs in personifying the Trinity as a Black female housekeeper, a big nosed Jewish man, and a mysterious Asian woman (13–22). It errs in depicting Papa (the first person of the Trinity) with crucifixion scars, implying the Father suffered on the cross (patripassianism), which is a way modalism distorts the distinctions of the persons in the Godhead (25–28). It errs again in suggesting the incarnate Christ never drew upon his divine nature to do anything (22–25). It errs, moreover, in its teaching on the salvation of sinners (135–139). It is on this last point that De Young’s close association with Young proves most valuable.

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