"Spiritual, But Not Religious"

In his recent book, Bad Religion:  How We Became a Nation of Heretics, Ross Douthat exposes the spiritual roots of America's political, economic, and moral decline.  He argues that the problem is not too much religion (as the atheists would argue), nor is it intolerant secularism (as many Christians believe).  Instead, the problem is bad religion:  the slow-motion collapse of traditional faith and the rise of a variety of pseudo-Christianities that stroke our egos, indulge our follies, and encourage our worst impulses.

The problem lies in the fashionably "spiritual, but not religious" sentiment espoused by many teachers including Deepak Chopra, James Redfield, Eckhart Tolle, Paulo Coelho, Neale Donald Walsch, Oprah Winfrey, and Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love), and (I might add) Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi).  Douthat examines the roots of this view and finds that their "creed" shares the following four beliefs:

1. All organized religions offer only partial glimpses of God (or Light or Being).  Thus, we must seek to experience God through feeling rather than reason, experience rather than dogma, a direct encounter rather than a hand-me-down revelation.  As Neil Donald Walsch writes in his book, Conversations with God, "Listen to your feelings.  Listen to your Highest Thought .... Whenever any of these differ from what you've been told by your teachers, or read in your books, forget the words."
2. God is everywhere and within everything--especially within you.  You can encounter God by getting in touch with the divinity that resides inside your very self and soul.  At the climax of his book The Alchemist, Paul Coelho writes:  "The boy reached through the Soul of the World, and saw that it was a part of the Soul of God.  And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul."
3. Sin and evil are largely illusions that will ultimately be reconciled rather than defeated.  There is no hell save the one we make for ourselves on Earth, no final separation from the Being that all our beings rest within.  Elizabeth Gilbert assures her readers, "There is no such thing in this universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds."
4. Perfect happiness is available right now.  Heaven is on earth.  Eternity can be entered at any moment, by any person who understands how to let go, let God, and let themselves be washed away in love.  James Redfield writes, "At some point everyone will vibrate highly enough so that we can walk into heaven, in our same form."

These four beliefs compose the core of the bad religion that has been so fashionable as of late and, according to Douthat, is the core of America's spiritual woes.  I suspect that many well-meaning Christians might even be tempted to believe various forms of these beliefs.  I think of the popular Christian authors Rob Bell, Brian McLaren,William P. Young (author of The Shack), and Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz:  Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality), each of which espouse one or more of these beliefs in a Christianized form.

My church has been teaching through the book of Colossians, and I've been impressed by the similarity of the cultural pressure faced by the church at Colossae and the American church.  For both the Colossian church and the American church, the problem was not an outright denial of religion, but a new form of religion that seemed spiritual and tolerant.  The problem was and is syncretism:  the blending of religious ideas and the denial of claims to exclusive truth.   The problem was and is an over-individualization of spirituality detached from the organizational church and orthodoxy.  In response to this, Paul encouraged the Colossian believers to be faithful, knowing that Christ is supreme.  He forcefully announces the supremacy of Christ stating,

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.  (Colossians 1:15-20)

He warns the Colossian believers to not be taken "...captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ" (Colossians 2:8).  And he reminds them to hold fast to Christ, not self-made religion (Colossians 2:19, 23).  And he reminds them to hold fast to Christ in connection with Christ's body--the local church (Colossians 2:19).  We desperately need this reminder of Christ's supremacy and need to resolve to be faithful to Him no matter the cultural pressure.  "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Review of "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell

To begin with, I should say that Bell's writing style is very flowery. He uses a lot of pictures, metaphors, questions, and one-liners, so it's sometimes difficult to pin down exactly what he's saying. This is intentional, I'm sure, because Bell wants to communicate post-modern's; he's not attempting to write a theologically precise book.

I'll begin with what I liked about the book:

Bell does a good job of emphasizing that the church ought to function as a community. I think that in a lot of ways our individualistic culture has lost this aspect of the church. We ought to see our church as our family in a very real sense, and we ought to do life together in community. Bell emphasizes this, which is good. Along the same lines, he challenges our contemporary model of church where one person uses their gift of teaching and everyone else listens. If people go to a church meeting and just listen to a sermon and then go home, and this is the extent of their involvement, then I doubt biblically if this could count as being a member of that local body.

I thought Bell's emphasis on the presence of the Kingdom of God on earth is a needed corrective in our culture that tends to see God's kingdom as wholly in the future and somewhere else (in heaven). He does a good job of correcting eschatelogical naivetés by emphasizing that heaven will come to earth in the end. Also, I liked that Bell encouraged people to take a personal sabbath rest. This is much needed in our culture where busyness is seen as a virtue.

One area I particularly thought was good was Bell's treatment of sanctification (he didn't call it this). Bell states that we are not primarily identified as sinners, but as new creatures. He stresses that rather than focusing on sin management, we ought to focus on who we are in Christ, and then we will naturally begin to live as Jesus lived. This, I think, is a very powerful message and a much needed corrective. Along the same lines, he states that transformation in actions occurs when there is a genuine belief/trust in true reality--the reality that is described in the Bible. He ties this in with the idea that 'all truth is God's truth,' and the implications he draws from this for missions, evangelism, and other areas are good and useful.

Now I'll address the negative things about the book, which I'm sad to say, I think outweigh the positive things. I'll organize my thoughts under two headings: Philosophical issues, and exegetical issues.

A. Philosophical-Theological Issues
Bell begins by assuming that God cannot be described in human terms, so all our theology/doctrine are human constructs. This is a very dangerous false idea. It is true that we cannot capture all of who God is with language, but we can speak truly about God. In fact, you can't capture all of any person with language because persons are not static objects. In heaven, I will grow in my relationship with God more and more each day forever--even if I come to understand every Bible passage and theological doctrine with complete understanding--because God is a person. I will also continue to grow in knowing my wife, and every other Christian for all eternity. You can never fully know a person. However, just because I don't fully know my wife, doesn't mean that I don't know a whole lot about her. In the same way, although we may not be able to fully describe every aspect of who God is with language, we can describe Him truly. Dan was absolutely right without even reading the book. Bell is "conflating God's incomprehensibility with His ineffability." Bell also seems to draw a false dichotomy between knowledge and wonder. According to Bell, if you really knew God, then this leaves no room for wonder and awe about God. I would argue that the opposite is true. If you don't know God, then you will be without wonder and awe, and as you come to know Him and see Him as He truly is, you will grow in your wonder and awe of Him. God chose to inspire a book to teach us about Himself, and the words in that book give us true and accurate knowledge about God.

A second philosophical problem with the book is that Bell is relativistic. He seems to assume that all 'paintings' of Christianity are equally valid. According to Bell, the pre-reformation Catholic 'painting' is just different than the Reformer's 'painting.' But these two 'paintings' cannot be equally valid because they are diametrically opposed at important points. Furthermore, this idea is self-refuting because the idea that all 'paintings' of the Christian faith are equally valid, is itself a painting of the Christian faith. Is the 'painting' that says, "there is only one valid way to be a Christian" itself a valid 'painting' of the Christian faith? It seems to me that Bell has been unduly influenced by our culture's views about pluralism and tolerance. He seems to buy that in order to be tolerant, you have to accept other people's ideas as true. The real definition of tolerance is to allow someone to hold a different viewpoint even though you fundamentally disagree with them. Bell's relativism extends to two important areas: doctrine, and Scripture.

Doctrine
With reference to doctrine, Bell argues that we ought to see doctrine as the springs on a trampoline, that we jump on as we live in Christ. The springs are not the main point; they merely facilitate the main goal of "finding our lives in God." Now there is some truth to this analogy, but it is also very dangerous. If we don't like a doctrine or two, we can just take them off the trampoline and keep jumping. Here's Bell's take on the Trinity: "It is a spring, and people jumped for thousands of years without it. It was added later. We can take it out and examine it. Discuss it, probe it, question it. It flexes, and it stretches" (22). And then again, here's Bell's take on the virgin birth: "What if that spring was seriously questioned? Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian?" (26). Bell's unspoken conclusion seems to be that we could still be Christians without these fundamental doctrines; we could still keep jumping. But clearly we would consider someone who had rejected the Trinity and the Virgin Birth as being a non-Christian. You simply cannot throw out the core doctrines of the Christian faith and still call yourself a Christian. The idea of progressive revelation is that although a doctrine might be revealed over time, once that doctrine is revealed it is our obligation to believe it. People once did not believe in Jesus, but that's because Jesus had not been revealed. Now that he's been revealed, it is our obligation as Christians to believe in Him. The same goes for the Trinity and the virgin birth. If Bell wants to open up dialog to seriously discuss these doctrines, then that's great. But when he implies that we can do without them, that is unacceptable.

Scripture
Bell's relativism also extends to the interpretation of Scripture. Bell argues that the Bible has to be interpreted, a point with which very few people would disagree. But Bell goes further than this. He wants his readers to understand that they are entitled to interpret the Bible as much as anyone else (50). Furthermore, no one's interpretation is any better than anyone else's; they are all equally valid. He states, "When you hear people say they are just going to tell you what the Bible means, it is not true. They are telling you what they think it means. They are giving their own opinions about the Bible" (54). Earlier he writes, "Everyone's interpretation is essentially his or her own opinion. No one is objective" (53). Bell applies this principle asking why we worship on Sunday rather than Saturday? "At one point in church history, a group of Christians decided that the Sabbath is not Saturday, but Sunday" (56). He goes on to ask why we do not sell all our possessions for the poor, or make women wear head coverings, or why do we say a wife's role is to submit to her husband? Bell answers, "This is because someone somewhere made a decision about those texts...Somebody in your history decided certain Bible verses still apply and others don't" (55-56). The effect of all this is making people feel bewildered at ever really understanding what the Bible says. It's true that every Christian can interpret the Bible for themselves (this is what we call the priesthood of believers), but the point is to get as close as possible to the author's original intended meaning, and some interpretations are flat out wrong, and some are better than others. Furthermore, although it's true that no one comes to the Bible without any pre-understandings, this does not mean that we cannot arrive at valid interpretations of a text. By being aware of our own biases and tendencies, and examining the context and flow of a passage, we can come to an accurate interpretation of a text.

B. Exegetical Issues
In addition to the philosophical problems in the book, there are numerous exegetical problems.

1. Jesus is not a rabbi as Bell indicates. Bell seems to read the Talmud and Mishnah back into Jesus' times, when in fact these books describe Judaism after the two Jewish wars when Judaism was whittled down to Pharisaism and was much more focused on the Torah. You'll notice in the Bible that Jesus never has encounters with Rabbi's... Pharisee's, Sadducee's, Scribe's, and priests, but no rabbi's. The reason for this is that there were no rabbi's hanging out around synagogues in Jesus' day. In fact there is no archaeological evidence that there were any schools anywhere in Galilee. There were some schools in Jerusalem, but this was far from Galilee. There simply were no ordained rabbi's in Jesus day like the one's that Bell describes. These ordained rabbis did not become prevalent until much later. This mistake of using a later rabbinic grid to interpret Jesus leads to a number of errors. One of the most prevalent errors is Bell's usage of Jesus' binding and loosing (Mt 16:19; 18:18). When Jesus speaks of 'binding' and 'loosing,' he's not talking about forbidding and allowing certain interpretations of the Old Testament texts. To 'bind' means to make a ruling that is binding, not to forbid something. To 'loose' means to free someone from the obligation or debt that was once bound upon them. Binding and loosing are mentioned only two times in the New Testament (Matt 16:19; Matt 18:18; see also John 20:23). In Matthew 16, Peter has just made a confession that Jesus is the Christ, and in response Jesus gave him the keys of the kingdom and told him, "whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The point here is that Peter (and all disciples of Jesus) have the authority to admit and exclude people to the Kingdom of God. They do this by the proclamation of the gospel (this is why this follows Peter's confession of Jesus' identity). Similarly, in Matthew 18, the context deals with church discipline, and the point is that the church has the authority to admit/exclude people from God's Kingdom by declaring the terms under which sins are forgiven or retained. So contrary to what Bell contends, the Jerusalem council in Acts is not an example of 'binding' and 'loosing.'

2. Bell's Greek/Hebrew and history need some work. First, he seems to treat the biblical languages like they are a magic key that makes the text mean something different than it says in English. Whenever a teacher does this, you can assume (1) they're interpretation is probably wrong, and (2) they probably don't know Greek or Hebrew very well. In Bell's case, both are true. There's numerous examples, but one example is Bell's reference to the word 'virgin' in Matthew (26). He states that the word Matthew uses for virgin actually comes from Isaiah, and that the Hebrew word for virgin means several things. He says this to suggest that the virgin birth may not be a doctrine found in the Bible. In reality, the Hebrew word used in Isaiah 7:14 is almah, which means 'young woman.' In an honor/shame culture, this word surely included virginity, but would not focus exclusively on that trait. However, Matthew is not quoting the Hebrew, but the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament (the Septuagint), where the word parthenos is used. Parthenos is equivalent to our English word virgin. Further, Bell suggests that the reason that Matthew includes a reference to a virgin birth is that it appealed to the members of the cults of Mithras and Dionysius. The Mithras cult did not exist until well after the writing of Matthew, and the cults of Mithras, Attis, and Dionysius did not focus on real historical persons. The worshipers knew that the gods they worshiped were not historical individuals. They therefore did not talk about actual virgin births. Finally it is simply not true that Julius Caesar or the other Emperors were said to be born of virgin births. Bell is right about the word euangelion (good news) being used by the Emperor cult, and that it was adopted by Christians to make their own claims about Jesus. As N.T. Wright says, "Jesus is the reality of which Caesar was only the parody." In short, it seems that Bell knows just enough Greek, Hebrew, and history to sound knowledgeable and therefore be dangerous.

3. There are numerous other questionable exegetical issues, but it would take too long to examine each of them. Some of the more flagrant one's are as follows:
- When Peter was walking on water, Peter lost faith in himself so it follows that I need to understand that Jesus believes in me, rather than focusing on believing in Jesus.
- The Bible states that all things are reconciled to God. So all people are forgiven--even those in hell.
- Hell is full of forgiven people who simply have chosen to live in their own version of their story, rather than in God's version of it (146).

In conclusion, Bell seems to write from a very relativistic perspective. The book has serious philosophical and exegetical problems. Looking over Bell's sources, it seems that he reads a lot of authors who hold esoteric and minority positions. Finally, Bell seems to lack a focus on the glory of God. In my opinion, Rob Bell should refrain from writing more books until he learns to control his creativity, and learns to answer more questions than he asks. I'm concerned that readers of Bell's book will finish it with a greater sense of relativism, less confidence in their knowledge of the truth, and a cynicism towards contemporary Christianity.

"The Shack" by William P. Young: The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly

The Shack, by William P. Young, is a book that has created a flurry of activity--both praising it's merits and denigrating it as heresy. After questions by numerous friends, I decided to read it and write a small review.

The Good

To begin with, the story is emotionally gripping. The Shack tells the story of Mac--a father whose daughter is abducted by a child molester, and murdered in a shack. Following this ordeal, Mac receives a note from God inviting him to meet God ("Papa," as He is affectionately referred to throughout the book) at the shack where his daughter was murdered. Mac decides to go to the shack, not fully knowing what to expect, and ends up meeting with God. In the pages that follow, Mac works through the loss of his daughter with God and ultimately learns to forgive his daughter's killer.

A second positive feature of the book is that it emphasizes relationship with God. The bulk of the book concentrates on a series of conversations Mac has with different persons of the Trinity. In these conversations, there is an emphasis on relationship with God as opposed to following a list of rules or religious expectations. In general, this is a good thing (but see my criticisms below for more on this point).

Finally, the book does a good job attempting to answer the emotional problem of evil. In his conversations with God, the deep grief that Mac is experiencing is met with the simple truths of the Bible. Mac therefore learns to accept the simple truths of Christianity in the midst of his suffering. These truths include simple realities such as:

God loves you,
you can trust God,
God has a purpose you cannot see,
and God is with you when you don't sense Him.

Most of the theological truths in the book are not anything especially deep or new, but rather standard truths of orthodox Christianity. One thing that I appreciated about the book is that it does not attempt to answer the "Why?" question with a specific answer. Instead, the book offers general truths regarding God's nature and care, and Mac learns to stand in the reality of these truths. This is how the emotional problem of evil (in distinction to the intellectual problem of evil) ought to be dealt with.

The Bad

While there are good things about The Shack, there is also a number of negative things present in the book. To begin with, relationship with God is emphasized to the neglect of other truths about God such as His majesty, holiness, wrath, and justice. When Mac goes to the shack, the three persons of the Trinity appear to Mac: the Father in the form of an African-American woman, the Holy Spirit in the form of an Asian woman, and Jesus in the form of a Middle-Eastern Jewish man. God the Father is known throughout the book as "Papa," and it seems that Papa is always in the kitchen baking some delicious food for Mac and is always available to have conversations around the kitchen table or on the front porch. This portrayal of God emphasizes God as being our friend, but greatly neglects God as King and Lord of the universe. In our culture where the gravity of God's holiness is rarely felt, this does not help produce respect for the Almighty God. Part of the way that this low view of God is conveyed is by how Mack approaches God's presence. He does so without any sense of unworthiness and without a reverent fear of God. Because this is more of an attitude than a propositional truth in the book, it is easily transferred to readers without their conscious knowledge. This makes it especially dangerous.

Much has been made of God's depiction as a female. It should be said that the book explicitly points out that God does not have a gender, and that both genders are derived from the nature of God, and that God can reveal himself in many ways. The book explains that the reason God chose to reveal himself as masculine in the Bible is that God knew that sin would result in a lack of good fathers. This reasoning is a conjecture without any biblical support that probably is more telling about American culture and the author's personal experience than it is about God's purposes in the Bible. While it is beyond the scope of this critique to argue for this point, I believe that God's depiction of Himself in the masculine throughout Scripture goes to the very nature of masculinity and the nature God Himself. It is therefore problematic to portray God as the opposite of how He has repeatedly chosen to reveal Himself. Instead, we ought to respect God's self-revelation in the Bible.

There are things mentioned in the book that run completely contrary to orthodoxy. Probably the most flagrant of these is religious pluralism that borders on universalism. In the book, the idea is expressed that people of all religions are believers in Jesus (perhaps by other names). Additionally, non-Christians are referred to as God's children throughout the book. At one point, it is expressed that sin is it's own punisher, and God does not need to actively punish sin. This is in line with the general theme that God is our friend, as opposed to our King. The book's depiction of God makes it almost unthinkable that God would exhibit wrath towards sinners. These types of errors are found subtly throughout the book.

Finally, there is a general attitude that pervades the book that portrays the institution of the church as dry, empty and without substance. Orthodoxy is seen as missing the "deep truths" about God's love, friendship, relationship, and grace and is instead seen to be focused on rules, expectations, and law. And likewise seminary is seen as being a place of cold useless knowledge. This general attitude pervades much of the current emergent literature, and is the result of a post-modern tendency to see authority with disdain. In reality, the main theological insights that the book offers are simply restatements of orthodox Chrisitianity, although they are portrayed as "deep truths" only accessible through this special encounter with God at the shack. At one point, Sunday School and even the Bible itself are portrayed with this negative attitude! It is simply unacceptable that the book portrays the Bible with disdain instead of the prominent position that the Bible demands as God's unique form of revelation to us. Because this is an attitude that pervades the book, it is especially easy to see how readers could unintentionally adopt the same general attitude, which is dangerous.

One thing that makes The Shack dangerous is that the misinformation above is presented as the thoughts of a man coping with the tragic loss of his daughter. It therefore makes one prone not to question these issues, but instead let them slide by with the grace that we normally would give to someone grieving a tremendous loss. However, because this is a fictional book depicting God Himself, we ought to be careful that we do not inadvertently gain false views about God by accepting these thoughts of a grieving fictional character. It would be easy to allow the emotional impact of the book bypass our discernment so that we don't consider which statements about God are true and false.

The Ugly

One of the most popular critiques of The Shack is a sermon by Seattle pastor, Mark Driscoll. After listening to Driscoll's take on The Shack, I'd have to say I think he blows some of the statements in the book out of proportion. (His view on The Shack can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK65Jfny70Y ). He has four charges against The Shack:

1. The depiction of the Father and the Holy Spirit as humans violates the command to not make a graven image unto yourself.

In context, this 2nd commandment is dealing with the way in which God is worshiped. We are commanded not to make an image for the purpose of worship or veneration. The full verse states,
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." Exodus 20:4-6
God commanded images to be made of serpents and cherubim, so this must be specifically forbidding the creation of images for the purpose of worship--not the creation of images in general. It is a stretch to say that this precludes us from using any metaphor or symbol to understand God--otherwise it would be wrong to represent Jesus as a lion in the Chronicles of Narnia, not to mention the numerous biblical metaphors used for God (i.e. fortress, rock, shepherd, father, etc.). Additionally, God has chosen to reveal Himself in numerous forms: a burning bush, a pillar of fire, a cloud, etc. However, I will say that the particular metaphors/forms that Young uses do not promote a high view of God, and in some ways run contrary to the biblical view of God. To the extent that they create a false conception of God in our minds and therefore our worship, they are sinful.

2. The depiction of the Father as an African-American female and the Holy Spirit as an an Asian female is goddess worship.

Simply because the author describes God as revealing Himself as a female does not mean that the book advocates goddess worship anymore than metaphors in the Bible about God being like an eagle, lion, or lamb means that we are engaged in animal worship. Later in the book God the Father reveals himself as a Gandolf-looking grandfather figure. I suspect that this is a resistance to the particular metaphor of a woman representing God. I am sympathetic to this as my above criticisms indicate, but I think that saying this is goddess worship is going a bit far. Indeed, within the pages of Scripture the metaphor of a mother is used of Paul and even God (1 Thes 2:7; Psalm 131).

3. The book advocates modalism.

This is Driscoll's weakest point, and this point makes me question whether he even read the book. Modalism is the heretical view that God is one Person who reveals Himself in 3 different forms or modes of being. This is contrary to the biblical doctrine of the Trinity in which there is one God who eternally exists as 3 Persons. Driscoll cites a passage in which Papa states, "I am truly human in Jesus," claiming that this is modalism. In this passage the author is emphasizing the same point that Jesus makes in John 14 saying, "Whoever has seen the me has seen the Father." In other words, Jesus is an exact example of the character of God--Jesus is God in the flesh. This is not modalism. At worst, this is just imprecise theological wording--which might be excusable given the genre of the book. The book is a fictional story, and therefore we should not apply the same rules of interpretation to it as we would apply to a systematic theology. If the book does lean towards a trinitarian heresy, it would not be modalism, but instead tri-theism (there are 3 gods) because we see constant interactions between the Persons of the Trinity, without seeing how these Persons are unified as One Being.

4. The book indicates that there is no hierarchy in the Trinity, but instead only a circle of relationship because heirarchy only makes sense among sinners.

I think this is Driscoll's best point. The book indeed indicates that there is no heirarchy in the Trinity, but instead emphasizes God's unity. In one sense, the book is correct. The book emphasizes that when making decisions, the Godhead is unified in their decisions and there is no conflict in which one Person of the Trinity overrules another Person of the Trinity using their power/authority. Rather there is a relationship of complete trust/unity between the Persons of the Trinity. So when Jesus prays in Gethsemene saying, "Take this cup from me, yet not what I will but what you will," He is in an attitude of absolute trust towards His Father. Having said that, the book does error in advancing the view that there is absolutely no heirarchy in the Trinity. This is a result of the common post-modern assumption that all heirarchy results from power plays and manipulation of others. In contrast biblical heirarchy involves a mutual understanding of roles and humble submission and trust. Just as there are roles within the husband/wife relationship, although husbands and wives are equal in their being and worth, so within the Trinity there are roles which create a heirarchy, but there is no heirarchy when it comes to the being or worth of the members of the Trinity.

Conclusion

While some of the criticisms of The Shack are unwarranted and overblown, there are reasons to be cautious of this popular book. After reading it, I would not recommend it to a friend. The errors in it are subtle and therefore dangerous. Additionally there are a number of excellent (better written!) books available on dealing with loss and grief, and each of these would address the same issues as The Shack without the negative baggage. In contrast to The Shack, I would not hesitate in recommending the following books on loss and grief (in this order):

Job
Baffled to Fight Better by Oswald Chambers
A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Van Hauken
A Grace Disguised by Gerald Sittser
The New Freedom of Forgiveness by David Augsburger

In any case, the author of The Shack has made it clear that they intend on producing a film based on the book, and therefore Christians ought to be informed on the good and bad found in this story so that they can serve as a guide to others. It's very easy to unconsciously adopt the attitudes in this book, and therefore Christians must exercise extreme discernment in confronting subversive attitudes and statements found within it. Below are a couple of other reviews for people interested in further reading.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001788.cfm
http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/the-shack-by-william-p-young.php