James B. De Young - EXPOSING Lies We Believe About God: How the Author of The Shack Is Deceiving Millions of Christians Again

Exposing
Lies We Believe About God

How the Author of The Shack Is Deceiving Millions of Christians Again

James B. De Young, Th.D.

PREFACE

The Scriptures (both the prophets and the apostles) clearly warn about false teaching.

Jeremiah 23:26-28, 32: How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal? Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD.

Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD.

1 Timothy 4:16: Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

1 Timothy 6:3-5: If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

1 Timothy 6:20: O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.

2 Timothy 1:13-14: Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

2 Timothy 3:13-17: Evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 4:1-4: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

Titus 3:10: As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

Jude 24-25: Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

INTRODUCTION

The Author of The Shack Writes a New Book Filled with Universalism/Heresy

Unless otherwise stated, all page numbers at the end of sentences are from Lies We Believe about God, referenced below. Likewise, the first reference to The Shack will be footnoted, and after that only the title with page number will follow the sentence.

What would you think of a book written by someone who claims to be a Christian (57) and...

• Who believes that all people are fundamentally good and not sinners (35)?
• Who does not believe that God is in control of everything (42)?
• Who believes that God submits as much to our plans as we do to his (43)?
• Who redefines Gods nature as a sexual being (93)?
• Who claims that the feminine/masculine nature of God is a circle of relationship in which all humans participate (73)?
• Who believes that the God of Christian faith is a torture-devising God (149)?
• Who claims that neither hell nor sin brings separation from God (134; 231)?
• Who claims that the cross the death of Christ was not in Gods plan, but was mans idea (149)?
• Who claims that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was cosmic abuse of a child (149)?

• Who believes that unsaved people can still choose to turn to God after they die (185-186)?
• Who thinks that the institutions of the church, the government, and marriage are man-created and even demonic (103, 111-113; The Shack , 122-124, 179)?
• Who thinks that bearing a weapon and killing in war is murder (104-105)?
• Who claims that every human being is a child of God, already saved and reconciled to God (120)?
• Who claims that the evangelical Christian view of the Trinity embraces a distant deity who originated evil and whose plan included the torture of a child (238)?
• Who claims that the early church father Athanasius and the Nicene Creed support his beliefs (see appendices)?

You may ask, Who would ever write such things? You would guess that this is some obscure author who has virtually no impact on the Christian world. You would be wrong. The author is Wm. Paul Young, the most successful author of the last decade! His novel The Shack , along with his other novels, have sold over twenty million copies. The Shack has also been made into a Hollywood film.

Yes, in his new book, Paul Young has made not only the preceding assertions but many more. His newest book is Lies We Believe about God (to be referred to as simply Lies from here on), released in early March 2017. Lies is about doctrine. It is not a fictional novel.

In this book, Young has twenty-eight brief chapters, with each chapter title being a lie that he believes is an erroneous belief of Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. Then he seeks to demolish each lie and show that each one is false. For support, Young sometimes appeals to the Bible, but more often he appeals to personal experiences.

Other Radical Theology from Lies We Believe about God

As if it werent enough that Paul Young has provocative titles for his twenty-eight chapters, even more radical ideas are scattered within these chapters. Here is a sampling, seventeen in number. In many instances, Young first raises a question, and then answers it for us.

All people are fundamentally good because they were created in Christ (35).

The Golden Rule is... the way God is. God treats me exactly the way God wants to be treated (46).

What is the incarnation God becoming fully human if not complete and utter submission to us? What about the cross, in which God submits to our anger, rage, and wrath? (48).

The image of God in us ( imago dei ) is not less feminine than masculine. The feminine/masculine nature of God is a circle of relationship, a spectrum, not a polarity (73).

Where do you think sexuality originates? It originates in the very being of God (93).

When the New Testament tells us that the divine nature of God has been placed within us, the Greek word used is sperma (95).

The Good News is not that Jesus has opened up the possibility of salvation and you have been invited to receive Jesus into your life. The Gospel is that Jesus has already included you into His life, into His relationship with God the Father, and into His anointing in the Holy Spirit. The Good News is that Jesus did this without your vote, and whether you believe it or not wont make it any less or more true (117-118).