b. best not to start worshipping and bowing down to older black women or elderly white men in mining clothes! The making of the Christ is a worse idol that the shacks papa. At least none of us is stupid enough to picture God who is a consuming fire as an old black woman or elderly white miner; not that God could not appear as that if he chose….

c. If you have seen me, you have seen the father…

I too enjoyed the book and felt there were some great things in it. I guess I just have to ask myself that because people have found God in it does that allow me to endorse every error in it. There are people who have found God speak to them though the book of Mormon and become a Christian … would I recommend people read the book of Mormon … No clearly I would not.

As a church leader I must carefully consider what I endorse and what I do not. I understand your points about how God is portrayed as PAPA but the bible does not allow us that liberty. I agree that an character of “an old man in swaying white robes that speaks good words” as you put it would be equally wrong because God is Spirit and we are not depict him in “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” (Exodus 20:4-5)

I think we need to be very careful in promoting “Flaky Theology” just to challenge our views on what we believe. By all means challenge Theology it is very important to do so, but we do this by reading the bible and letting that challenge what we believe. Of course I am not saying we should not read other books to help us do that, but to write a book with deliberately bad theology just so we can challenge our beliefs is dangerous.

One could argue that what about all those people who did not have a belief to challenge and now believe all this dodgy theology is now in the bible! It is for these reasons that I will not recommend the book as a leader in a church I am then the one who has to unpick all poor understanding of the trinity at a later date.

Many Christians say “its the best book I have read” and one I find a little disappointing to be honest. As a Christian the bible is Gods word to us and there should be no other book above this for bringing us closer to him or giving us a better understanding of him. People even say “its better than the bible” and this is where I must contend that we are in danger of moving into creating God in our own image, in creating him to be what we want him to be. Just like The Shack does when Papa appears as a man because that is what Mack needed at that point.

I don’t doubt that like you there are many people who, because of his grace, God has spoken to through the shack. God is his grace may well use the imperfect to redeem those he loves, but this does not give us license to continue in error. David sinned with Bathsheba, committed adultery and then murder but God in his amazing grace went on to bless David and Jesus was a subsequent descendant of Solomon, David & Bathsheba’s next son. We cannot use Gods grace to justify error. We cannot use Gods grace to justify the error of adultery nor can we justify teaching or endorsing known error in books such as “The Shack”.

I am sorry if you thought my writings on the Shack were “putting it down” I am simply highlighting the clearly wrong theological basis the author has adopted.

Having said all that Andrew, what excites me most is that in all of this you have found that you can have a personal relationship with God yourself and that is really exciting!

Indeed, the theology behind the book isn’t entirely correct, but that’s what was intended. A way of challenging our views on what we believe.

Personally, as a Christian this has been the best book I’ve read, and it led to a whole chain of events that led to me getting even closer with God, after I realised that you can have a relationship with him!

It’s saddening to read a report that puts the book down, but we’re all entitled to our own views!