Coming to Oklahoma: The Shack’s Author

William P. Young, author of the runaway best-selling fiction book, The Shack, is coming to Oklahoma next month. Read more about it here, and pay special notice to the backlash.

This quote from Wade Burleson, a controversial figure himself, epitomizes my issue with a lot of contemporary Christian thought:

Burleson said he doesn’t see the book as Scripture. “It’s not Scripture. It’s not doctrine. It’s not theology. It’s an allegory,” he said.

That is to say, “There may be some very serious errors in this book, but, hey! It’s just a book, not the Bible. There’s no reason to get all wrapped around the axles over some silly little heretical dogma in the text. Just enjoy the book!”

The problem with that is that the book is meant to be theology. It is my understanding that the book was written to explain the theological concept of the trinity (among other things) to the author’s children. The book, then, is a theological piece, wrapped in fiction, to ease the consumption of the topic. And it’s bad theology at that. The fact that we have Christian pastors feeding these error to their flocks is extremely disconcerting.