The Shack :: The Tentative Apologist

Post tagged with The Shack

"The Lovely Bones," and why Roger Ebert will not like a film version of "The Shack"

January 22nd, 201011:27 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

Film critic Roger Ebert clearly did not like the film adaptation of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. While I haven't read the book or seen the movie, I certainly found Ebert's review revealing. Ebert is one of the most interesting film critics to read, especially in reviews like this where he dons his moralistic hat. (As you read the excerpts of th...
"Can Christians call God 'Mother'?"

September 24th, 200903:15 PM ET

By Randal Rauser

Much of the controversy that has been stirred up by William Paul Young's bestselling novel The Shack relates to the depiction of God the Father as an African American woman and the Spirit as an Asian woman. With this daring innovation, Young introduced the evangelical church to a debate that has been going on for several decades in the mainline Chr...
The Continuing Saga of "The Shack"

June 20th, 200910:48 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

Bestsellers come and go. Like a meteor flashing brilliantly in the night, they rise steeply on the charts and then disappear just as quickly back into the darkness. But not The Shack. Twenty-six months after its release, and a year after it topped out on the New York Times bestseller list, it continues to sell hand over fist. For instance, at most ...
Who needs truth when you've got Jesus? (Part 1)

April 13th, 200911:11 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

In my previous two posts I established that Mark Driscoll has made claims against The Shack which are simply false. What saddens me is that there are people who nonetheless defend his statements (both in this blog and elsewhere). It is not that they provide evidence that his statements are true. Rather, they suggest that somehow my opinions ar...
The Shack under Attack? A Response to Mark Driscoll (Part 2)

April 11th, 200912:42 PM ET

By Randal Rauser

Perhaps the single most controversial aspect of The Shack is the display of God the Father as an African-American woman named Papa and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman named Sarayu. Mark Driscoll's concerns about this narrative feature are striking indeed: "It's goddess worship! If God the Father is really God the mother, that changes everyt...
The Shack under Attack? A Response to Mark Driscoll (Part 1)

April 08th, 200910:40 PM ET

By Randal Rauser

In my last post I promised to turn to two criticisms launched against The Shack by one of the fifty most influential pastors in America. That pastor is Mark Driscoll, one of the leading Reformed spokesmen in the country today, author and pastor of the booming Mars Hill Church in Seattle. I am concerned here with a 7-8 minute excerpt of Pastor ...
Before you call your brother a heretic...

April 06th, 200901:58 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

In The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis famously warned against "two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessively and unhealthy interest in them." I am reminded of this as I reflect on two parallel attitudes that one can have t...
Is there heresy in The Shack? (Part 3)

April 03rd, 200911:42 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

In the last post I closed by asking whether a Oneness Pentecostal would necessarily go to hell for denying the doctrine of the Trinity. The assumption that she would necessarily go to hell depends on a soteriological view of heresy (that is, one relating to the doctrine of salvation). But it seems to me that this understanding of heresy is mistaken...
Is there heresy in The Shack? (Part 2)

March 31st, 200910:35 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

Imagine that you fly down to Australia to go on a hunting expedition. The morning that you are to leave your friend tells you that you will be hunting wombats. Before embarking on the expedition wouldn't it be wise to be clear on how wombats are defined and thus how they are to be identified? Of course! (wom-bat, noun, "any of several stocky, burro...
Is there heresy in The Shack?(Part 1)

March 30th, 200910:35 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

Critics of The Shack have lined up to charge the book with heresies ranging from idolatry and goddess worship to universalism. As a theologian who has written a book on The Shack (Finding God in the Shack) I have concluded that such charges are without merit. Of course this is not to say that the book "gets everything right" (what book written...

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An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).