Church Hype

Church Burnout

I was at Anne Jackson's session at MinistryCom a couple of hours ago. She's got a new book coming out in January-ish called Mad Church Disease.

Her topic was on church burnout...I totally identified with it. I'm not burned out currently, but I have been a couple of times in the past.

A couple of things that I identified with:

• After church heartache and depression, she didn't want to go back to church. After one church I left, I felt the same way. In fact I told all of my minister friends that I would never work at a church again. EVER!
• Her father's burnout also caused burnout on the family. After seeing him so stressed and depressed, his family felt the same pain he did. During one stint as a church planter, I became so stressed and depressed, I was no longer the husband my wife married.

So much more to share, but you'll have to wait. Her book can be preordered here.

Answer To My Question

So, come to find out, Mark Driscoll did comment about The Shack. Thanks to The Watcher for the heads up.

The Shack - Heretical Fiction?

I bought The Shack, by William P. Young a couple of weeks ago. I've been hearing a lot of buzz about it. That it was a modern day "Pilgrim's Progress".

So, I started reading and was absolutely heartbroken with the first couple of chapters, in which the main character lost his daughter to a serial killer. Shattered and broken, he tries to carry on with his life like normal, until one day he receive a letter in the mail from God. The letter was asking him to meet him at the shack. The shack is a place where his daughter was presumably killed.

This is where it gets weird. He shows up and meets God. She's a black woman. Then he meets the Holy Spirit. She's a mystic, Asian woman. Then Jesus, an Arabic carpenter. I was okay with this, trying to wait it out and see an explanation to why God chose to appear in these forms.

Then comes questionable theology.

First, God goes into a monologue about the pain the character is feeling. God basically says that it's a part of life and if there was nothing she could do about it. Really? Are God's hands tied? Can't the Creator do anything He wills?

The next issue was the way the character would have separate dialogues with each part of the Godhead. 2 persons of God would excuse themselves to another chore while he conversed with the 3rd. The explanation of the trinity would modalism. That is, God chooses to reveal himself in three different modes. So, God can't be all three at the same time.

Also, Jesus was not God at all while on earth (a form of Arianism). He was simply a man who had more faith than any other person ever had, or ever will have. He was just an extraordinary man. I'm confused. John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Jesus is the Word. He is the Truth.

Finally, there was an explanation by God as to why she appeared to the character as a woman. She says that God is not a person. He is referred to in a masculine form because we chose to think of Him as a male. But the Bible consistently refers to God as Him, He, Father. Even Jesus called Him Father. Would Jesus not know that God didn't have masculine characteristics. Not one time do the writers of scripture refer to Him as it, or she.

To be fair, I stopped reading at that point. So, if the explanation of the person of God, Jesus, and the trinity changes later in the book, I apologize.

This is not the first piece of Christian fiction to have unsound theology. What troubles me is that so many Christian leaders are raving over this book. I mean major voices. Leaders who blog and have thousands of readers. Even pastors of large churches are recommending this book. Makes me start to question these guys'  doctrinal literacy of God. And, its Amazon ranking is #4. Kinda freaks me out.

I shouldn't freak out over this kind of stuff. Books like this come and go. The sweeping sensations of Christian writings. The Prayer of Jabez was a big hit at one time. The little book about the obscure person named Jabez who prayed a particular prayer and was blessed with what he asked for. The book suggested if you ask the same way Jabez did, you would be blessed too.

I'd be curious to know if Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and Justin Taylor have anything to say about this book.