So I was listening to Mark Driscoll talking about the Trinity today, and he was talking about the Shack. which our church has recommended people read. I don’t usually post my disagreements with other church leaders on here, but I just had to. And normally I think Driscoll is encouraging and challenging in a good way, I totally dig on his teaching. But I couldn’t let this one go, because he’s painting everyone who reads this book as a Heretic, and that’s just wrong and it’s not his job.
I think that the biggest struggle that Driscoll is having with the book is Metaphor. William Young is not saying that God is a woman, or that the Holy Spirit is an asian chick. The whole thing is a metaphor trying to get across one of the most complex issues in our doctrine in an accessible way.
Driscoll argues that the book proposes modalism, which is a weak arguement because throughout the story you see that the Trinity is independent and yet unified. They are all working together, in Community and Love.
Pilgrim’s Progress, Hind’s Feet on High Places, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and the Shack are all efforts to teach people the love and grace and mercy of God in a way that is accessible. Are they going to get it 100% accurate to the nth degree? Are they going to throw footnotes in all over the place? No. It’s a story, it’s a metaphor. If it helps people get a grasp on the love of God, and if it sets them in the right direction to ask more questions and to continue to pursue Jesus then it has worked.
Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a woman who lost a coin and went looking for it. In all this kingdom of God, are we really just under the bed of this woman who is doing her spring cleaning? No, it’s a metaphor. So is the Shack.
The struggle that I am having with these hip, cool, new reformed Pastors is that they are uncomfortable with metaphor, and questions. And the danger is that they are going to get into a place where they are looked at like just the Reincarnate Jerry Falwell (but they vote democrat instead of republican).
Dude, It’s a Metaphor! You can’t read it like a treatise. Relax, breathe, take you meds and lay off the red bull.
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