BEFORE WATCHING THE “SHACK” MOVIE, READ THIS-THE “INSPIRATION” BEHIND THE MOVIE & EUGENE PETERSON’S CONNECTION

BEFORE WATCHING THE “SHACK” MOVIE, READ THIS-THE “INSPIRATION” BEHIND THE MOVIE & EUGENE PETERSON’S CONNECTION
BY LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 

By Warren B. Smith


[The Shack Movie (Coming to Theaters in March 2017)]

I was drawn into the New Age Movement years ago by books and lectures containing parabolic stories that were not unlike The Shack.
They felt spiritually uplifting as they tackled tough issues and
talked about God’s love and forgiveness. They seemed to provide me
with what I spiritually needed as they gave me much needed hope and
promise. Building on the credibility they achieved through their
inspirational and emotive writings, my New Age authors and teachers
would then go on to tell me that “God” is “in” everyone and
everything.

I discovered that author William P. Young does exactly the same thing in The Shack.
He moves through his very engaging and emotional story to eventually
present this same New Age teaching that God is “in” everything.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me first
provide some background material concerning this key New Age doctrine
that “God is in everything.” A good place to start is with Eugene
Peterson, the author of the controversial Bible paraphrase The Message. After all, Peterson’s enthusiastic endorsement of The Shack is featured right under the author’s name on the front cover.

Ironically, it was Peterson’s endorsement that caused me to be immediately suspicious of The Shack.
Through his questionable paraphrasing of the Bible, Peterson had
already aligned himself in a number of areas with New Age/New
Spirituality teachings. One obvious example is where he translated a key
verse in the Lord’s Prayer to read “as above, so below” rather than
“in earth, as it is in heaven.” “As above, so below” is a term that I
was very familiar with from my previous involvement in the New Age
movement. This esoteric saying has been an occult centerpiece for
nearly five thousand years. It is alleged by New Age metaphysicians to
be the key to all magic and all mysteries. It means that God is not
only transcendent—“out there”— but He is also immanent—“in” everyone
and everything.

But, as I found out just before abandoning the
deceptive teachings of the New Age for the Truth of biblical
Christianity, God is not “in” everyone and everything. The Bible makes
it clear that man is not divine and that man is not God (Ezekiel
28:2, Hosea 11:9, John 2:24-25, etc.) In my book Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose Driven Church, I quoted the editors of New Age Journal as they defined “as above, so below” in their book, As Above, So Below:

“As above, so below, as below, so above.” This
maxim implies that the transcendent God beyond the physical universe
and the immanent God within ourselves are one.2

My concern about Peterson’s undiscerning use of
“as above, so below” in the Lord’s Prayer was underscored when the
2006 bestseller, The Secret,
showcased this same occult/New Age phrase. In fact, it was the
introductory quote at the very beginning of the book. By immediately
featuring “as above, so below” the author Rhonda Byrne was telling her
readers in definite New Age language that “God is in everyone and
everything.” Towards the end of the book, The Secret puts into
more practical words what the author initially meant by introducing
the immanent concept of “as above, so below.” On page 164, The Secret tells its readers—“You are God in a physical body.”

Most significantly, in his book The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom,
New Age leader Benjamin Crème reveals that a New World Religion will
be based on this foundational “as above, so below” teaching of
immanence—this idea that God is “in” everyone and everything:

But eventually a new world religion will be
inaugurated which will be a fusion and synthesis of the approach of
the East and the approach of the West. The Christ will bring together,
not simply Christianity and Buddhism, but the concept of God
transcendent—outside of His creation—and also the concept of God
immanent in all creation—in man and all creation.3

New Age matriarch Alice Bailey, in her book The Reappearance of the Christ, wrote:

. . . a fresh orientation to divinity and to
the acceptance of the fact of God Transcendent and God Immanent within
every form of life. “These are foundational truths upon which the
world religion of the future will rest.4

In a November 9, 2003 Hour of Power sermon—just
two months before he was a featured speaker at the annual meeting of
the National Association of Evangelicals—Crystal Cathedral minister
Robert Schuller unabashedly aligned himself with this same New Age/New
World Religion teaching. The man who claims to have mentored
thousands of pastors, including Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, stated:

You know in theology—pardon me for using a
couple of big words—but in theology the God we believe in, this God of
Abraham, is a transcendent God. But He is also an immanent God.
Transcendent means up there, out there, above us all. But God is also
an immanent God—immanence of God and the transcendence of God—but then
you have a balanced perspective of God. The immanence of God means
here, in me, around me, in society, in the world, this God here, in
the humanities, in the science, in the arts, sociology, in
politics—the immanence of God. . . . Yes, God is alive and He is in
every single human being!5

But God is not in every single human being. God is not in everything. One of the many reasons I wrote Deceived on Purpose was because Rick Warren presented his readers with this same “God in everything” teaching. Quoting an obviously flawed New Century Bible
translation of Ephesians 4:6, Rick Warren—whether he meant to or
not—was teaching his millions of readers the foundational doctrine of
the New World Religion. Describing God in his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, he wrote:

He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.6

Compounding the matter further, “immanence” has
been taught as part of the Foundations class at Rick Warren’s
Saddleback Church. An ill-defined reference to immanence in the
Saddleback Foundations Participants Guide plays right into the hands
of the New Spirituality/New World Religion by stating:

The fact that God stands above and beyond his
creation does not mean he stands outside his creation. He is both
transcendent (above and beyond his creation) and immanent (within and
throughout his creation).7

All of this discussion I am giving about “God in everything” immanence is to explain why The Shack
is such a deceptive book. It teaches this same heresy. This book
ostensibly attempts to deal with the deeply sensitive issues surrounding
the murder of a young child. Because of the author’s intensely
personal story line, most readers become engaged with the book on a
deep emotional level. However, the author’s use of poetic license to
convey his highly subjective, and often unbiblical, spiritual views
becomes increasingly problematic as the story line develops. This is
most apparent when he uses the person of “Jesus” to suddenly introduce
the foundational teaching of the New Spirituality/New World
Religion—God is “in” everything. Using the New Age term “ground of
being” to describe “God,” the “Jesus” of The Shack states:

God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things.8

This false teaching about a “God” who “dwells
in, around, and through all things” is the kind of New Age leaven that
left unchallenged could leaven the church into the New Age/New
Spirituality of the proposed New World Religion. And while many people
have expressed a great deal of emotional attachment to The Shack and its characters—this leaven alone contaminates the whole book.

Clearly, the “Jesus” of The Shack is
not Jesus Christ of the Bible. The apostle Paul chided the Corinthians
and warned them that they were vulnerable and extremely susceptible
to “another Jesus” and “another gospel” and “another spirit” that were
not from God (2 Corinthians 11:4). In the Bible, the real Jesus
Christ warned that spiritual deception would be a sign before His
return. He further warned that there would be those who would even
come in His name, pretending to be Him (Matthew 24:3-5, 24).

Without ascribing any ill motive to William Young and his book The Shack,
the author’s use of spiritual creativity seems to give a “Christian”
assent to the New Age/New Spirituality of the proposed New World
Religion. His mixing of truth and error can become very confusing to
readers, and God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).

Dr. Harry Ironside, pastor of Chicago’s Moody
Memorial Church from 1930-1948, emphasizes the fact that truth mixed
with error results in “all error”—a direct refutation of the Emergent
Church teaching to find “truth” wherever it may be found—including
books like The Shack. Ironside wrote:

Error is like leaven, of which we read, “A
little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Truth mixed with error is
equivalent to all error, except that it is more innocent looking and,
therefore, more dangerous. God hates such a mixture! Any error, or any
truth-and-error mixture, calls for definite exposure and repudiation.
To condone such is to be unfaithful to God and His Word and
treacherous to imperiled souls for whom Christ died.9

The Shack has touched the hearts and
emotions of many people. While there are many other examples of the
author’s unbiblical liberality, introducing the heretical New Age
teaching that “God dwells in, and around, and through all things” is
in and by itself enough to completely undermine any value the book
might otherwise have for faithful believers. To allow yourself to get
carried away by this story, while disregarding the book’s New Age/New
Spirituality leaven, is to fall prey to the “truth-and-error” mixture
that pervades The Shack. And as Dr. Ironside warned—“God hates such a mixture!”

Before Christians buy one more copy of this
book, they need to come to terms with what this author is ultimately
teaching and what it is they are passing along to their friends and
fellow believers.

And they shall turn away their ears from the
truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:4) For footnotes
or to read this entire article about The Shack, click here.