The Shack: A Journey from Pain to Truth to Error
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About this ebook
This book offers a new kind of critique of The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity. It views The Shack from a confessional Lutheran perspective. Its primary concern is the chief article upon which the church stands or falls, namely, justification and the redemption we have in Jesus.
Looking for healing for his Great Sadness, the author of The Shack hit upon a particular strain of thought from the renaissance of Trinitarian theology that happened worldwide in the 1980s and 1990s. This theology has much to be commended. Tragically, however, it departs from the teaching of Scripture about the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for us on the cross. It denies the wrath of God on sin, and denies that Jesus bore that wrath for us. The Shack teaches a different theory of the cross that springs from perichoretic speculations about the Trinity.
T. R. Halvorson
T. R. Halvorson was born in Sidney, Montana on July 14, 1953, baptized at Pella Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sidney, Montana on November 8, 1953, and confirmed at First Lutheran Church in Williston, North Dakota in 1968. He and his wife, Marilyn, are members of Trinity Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Sidney, Montana. They have three sons and six grandchildren. T. R. farms at Wildrose, North Dakota, and is Deputy County Attorney in Sidney, Montana. He has been a computer programmer; and an author, conference speaker, instructor, and consultant to industry in online legal information. He is among the authors of the religion column in the Sidney Herald at Sidney, Montana. He is the Editor of LutheranCatechism.com, and blogs at TwinStoneWarden.com.
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The Shack - T. R. Halvorson
The Shack:
A Journey from Pain to Truth to Error
by T. R. Halvorson
Copyright 2017 T. R. Halvorson
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed to the purchaser only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, please purchase your own copy.
Description
This book offers a new kind of critique of The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity. It views The Shack from a confessional Lutheran perspective. Its primary concern is the chief article upon which the church stands or falls, namely, justification and the redemption we have in Jesus.
Looking for healing for his Great Sadness, the author of The Shack hit upon a particular strain of thought from the renaissance of Trinitarian theology that happened worldwide in the 1980s and 1990s. This theology has much to be commended. Tragically, however, it departs from the teaching of Scripture about the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for us on the cross. It denies the wrath of God on sin, and denies that Jesus bore that wrath for us. The Shack teaches a different theory of the cross that springs from perichoretic speculations about the Trinity.
Contents
Abbreviations
Preface
Chapter 1. Not Just a Novel
Chapter 2. Pain
Chapter 3. Pain to Truth
Chapter 4. Truth to Error
Chapter 5. A Lutheran Critique
About the Author
Endnotes
Abbreviations
FC Ep
Epitome of the Formula of Concord (in McCain, Paul Timothy, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).
FC SD
Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord (in McCain, Paul Timothy, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).
LC
Large Catechism (in McCain, Paul Timothy, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).
RTT
Christopher Schwöbel, ‘The Renaissance of Trinitarian Theology: Reasons, Problems and Tasks,’ in idem, ed., Trinitarian Theology Today: Essays on Divine Being and Act (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995).
SA
Smalcald Articles (in McCain, Paul Timothy, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).
SC
Small Catechism (in McCain, Paul Timothy, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).
TS
Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity (Newberry Park, CA: Windblown Media, 2007). Kindle edition.
TSR
Kruger, C. Baxter. The Shack Revisited: There Is More Going On Here than You Ever Dared to Dream FaithWords. Kindle Edition.
WA
D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Weimar: Herman Böhlau, 1883–.
Preface
The novel, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity, has come out as a movie. It is time again for Christians to have discernment about this material.
Many Christians have written previously about false teachings in The Shack. A number of worthy critiques of The Shack have been written from Reformed and Arminian perspectives.¹ Those address a catalogue of problems with The Shack. They are worth reading.
Those who have defended it have given three main defenses:
It is just a novel. It is not meant to teach religion.
Don’t be so nitpicky. No book is perfect. Any errors of doctrine in it are small matters.
It really helped me with my own tragedy, loss, or pain.
The approach of this book is different. It adds something to the existing body of literature. This book views The Shack from a confessional Lutheran perspective. While it does deal with the preliminary question about novels and movies teaching religion in Chapter 1, its primary concern is the chief article upon which the church stands or falls, namely, justification and the redemption we have in Jesus.
The theology and the story of The Shack arise from two pressures:
Pain, tragedy, loss, trauma, and suffering.
The perceived inadequacy of Calvinistic and Wesleyan-Arminian evangelicalism to heal pain.
The author, Wm. Paul Young, had a severely abusive childhood. It is a painful story. Mackenzie Phillips (Mack), the main character in The Shack, had a severely abusive upbringing by his hypocritical Christian father. It is a painful story that Young tells very well. Chapter 2 relates these pains and Young’s claim of the inadequacy of traditional Protestantism to heal them.
Parallel to Young’s experience of the Great Sadness,
there was a renaissance of Trinitarian theology