The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity is consistently ranked in the top ten at Amazon.com, it also currently holds the title of the # New York Times Bestseller. This very popular book is dangerous and offensive. It purports to be a book about God but presents a very distorted view of Him. The Holy Spirit is represented by a woman and God the Father is represented as a mother. One of the central messages is that God is love which is correct. However, I found many other very disturbing messages: namely that God gave us the commandments to show us how we couldn’t live up to them. It takes the typical view of the Church as a monolithic institution imposing the “traditions of men” that Jesus so rightly railed against. This book attacks our Holy Magisterium and the Church Jesus founded that not even the gates of hell will prevail against. This book is dangerous on more levels because it presents a new age belief that God’s laws and rules don’t seem to apply. It seems that one is ok and completely forgiven with out consequences as long as they don’t judge another person. Judgement is portrayed as the gravest sin.
This is extremely dangerous because it is conditioning people to be passive. Not to stand up for what they know to be true and good, and against what they know is evil and against God out of fear of being portrayed as judgmental.
But when we stand up against things as abortion, same-sex attraction, and others… (Which the Bible clearly states are evil, and the Holy Book that the author tries to dismiss as something that shouldn’t be paid attention too.) the the person committing these sins is not the one being judged or condemned, it’s the action.
Jesus said to hate the sin, love the sinner (I’m a sinner too!). But many people don’t know the difference. They assume it’s one and the same. So they conform to accept the sin in hopes of not looking/seeming judgmental.
The author takes some theological truths, and then adds some untruths. This is actually a very popular sales technique I learned in a business class I took in college. If the reader isn’t that in tune with the subject presented, you present facts that the person knows are truth, and then you can mix in a few untruths with the truths. Because the person knows there are some truths, they will assume that the untruths are true because of the other truths presented are there. They think it to be creditable. And they don’t know enough about the subject/product to know otherwise. The truths, make everything look credible.
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