SOUTHERN BAPTIST PASTOR WADE BURLESON ENDORSES HERETICAL THEOLOGY OF THE “SHACK”, COMPARES IT TO CALVINISM
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
The SBC pastor closes his blog entry endorsement with this statement:
“Both Al Mohler and Paul Young believe the same thing
about God’s unconditional love and Christ’s effectual death. They just
disagree for whom it was intended. So go and enjoy the Shack. It is not
heresy.”
Consider now a distinctly different comment from another pastor.
“If the leadership of your church does not vocally,
openly, and staunchly oppose the theology presented by “The Shack,” you
need to find a new church. It is really that simple. If they cannot spot
the heresy in this book, they are not qualified to protect the flock
from false doctrine – not in the least. They are not shepherds; they are
hirelings who are more than willing to open the gate and let the wolves
come in and ravage the flock. Don’t walk, RUN from that place!”
In light of these two opposing pastoral recommendations, if you were
to find yourself standing at the proverbial fork in the road of faith,
with each pastor standing on his own path, beckoning you to follow,
which would you choose? If you are a Bible-centered, Bible-informed,
genuinely regenerate believer, to err on the side of orthodox caution
and Berean discernment seems not only the proper thing to do, but also
the one most likely to keep you on the tough-to-trod, narrow path. To
take the more heavily trod path – in this case, meaning to follow the
multitudes who extol the power, grandeur, and emotions-evoking power of The Shack
– would necessarily imply taking the wider, easier path, skipping
gleefully along with the glowing, celebrity-laden endorsements that make
it just sooo appealing. (Deception, mind you, just like sin, is always appealing.)
The opening, encouraging quote comes from Wade Burleson, lead pastor of Emmanuel Enid, a Southern Baptist church located in Enid, Oklahoma. Burleson, a former IMB trustee (he
resigned in 2009 over Board charges that he violated non-disclosure,
code of conduct protocols by publishing on his blog some details of the
non-transparent proceedings of the Board, according to Baptist Press), penned his endorsement of The Shack (multiple entries, actually, laud the work of author William Paul Young) on Istoria Ministries Blog. (Burleson’s endorsement of
(Burleson’s endorsement of The Shack should, perhaps, be considered in light of his Feb. 16, 2017 entry in which he also promotes a Jesus Culture video. Jesus Culture is the flagship music group from the thoroughly heretical Bethel Church, FYI. This speaks volumes, of course, to this pastor’s woeful capacity for exercising Biblical discernment.)
In a 2009 blog post defending the book The Shack,
Burleson made jest of LifeWay’s then response to concerns about the
book by marking it with a “Read With Discernment” label. He emphasized
that “the book is a work of fiction.” (Emphasis
original) What may have been the case in 2009 would be today, after the
release of the movie, a difficult claim to defend. The Shack Small
Group Study Kit and Study Guide are being marketed by one of the movies
“partners,” Outreach, Inc.
Why, one wonders, would a work of “fiction” need a church or small
group study guide if it were being proffered for merely allegorical,
entertainment purposes?
Burleson’s blog entry from February 2, 2017, serves up a response of sorts to Albert Mohler’s article that soundly denounced the theology of The Shack
as “sub-biblical and dangerous” and called the evangelical embrace of
it a “tragedy.” Mohler emphasized that “evangelicals have lost the art
of biblical discernment,” a lamentable reality that “must be traced to a
disastrous loss of biblical knowledge.”
But Burleson’s response, in his blog entry entitled “The Shack and Universal Reconciliation: Answers to The Charge of Heresy By Evangelical Christians,”
does not address the continuing downgrade of biblical knowledge within
the evangelical church, nor the glaring absence of any attempt at
discernment which Mohler rightfully bemoaned. Burleson’s response was
an attempt to favorably close the gap between Young’s theology in The Shack
and Mohler’s as a “five-point Calvinist.” Burleson points out that “I
understand Dr. Mohler’s theology and happen to agree with it, though I
prefer to call it ‘the doctrines of grace’ because I see these doctrines
taught in Scripture.”
So Burleson, a confessed Calvinist, attempts to reconcile the glaring universalism of Young in The Shack
with his own and Mohler’s theology. His intent is to dispute the charge
of heresy brought against the fictitious work and paint it in an
evangelically-favorable light. It is worth noting that to buttress his
defense of Young’s theology, Burleson turns to the likes of C.S. Lewis,
George Macdonald, G.K. Chesterton, and the “Christian” Mark Twain.
(Lewis, you might note, drew the criticism of Reformed stalwart
Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said, “C.S. Lewis had a defective view of
salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of
the atonement.” For more on Lewis, go HERE.
So “C.S.” obviously doesn’t stand for “Credible Source” drawn from
the mainstream of orthodoxy. As to Chesterton, his pithy witticisms do
not negate his praise for Catholicism, writing that “The difficulty of
explaining “why I am a Catholic” is that there are ten thousand reasons
all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.” Another
non-credible witness for Burleson’s defense of Young’s heresy.
MacDonald, a prolific author and poet, influenced Lewis, Chesterton,
and Twain. But MacDonald was, as Burleson notes, an avowed
universalist. As for Twain, who some would like to tout as a Christian –
though he has long been a poster-boy for atheism – two quips of his
seem to make him an equally undesirable defendant in Burleson’s
apologetic for The Shack. See below.)
“If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian.” Mark Twain
“I believe that the Old and New Testaments were imagined and written
by man, and that no line in them was authorized by God, much less
inspired by Him.” Mark Twain
Effectively dismissing Young’s universalism as seriously problematic,
Burleson’s argument is to minimize the charge of heresy down to the
single issue of the extent of the atonement. “For whom did Christ die?”
But the reduction of the theological problems with The Shack to this single point is deceptive. There is more to The Shack‘s problems than Burleson addresses. (A resource from Justin Peters is provided below that addresses many of these issues.) But, you can read his argument and determine for yourself whether Burleson’s attempt to evangelically anoint The Shack
with the mantle of authentic, Biblical Christianity is valid. Perhaps,
though, you’ll find his argument (not to mention his cadre of unorthodox
co-defendants) not merely ineffective in achieving this purpose, but
serving as further evidence that validates Mohler’s claim of an
increasingly discernment-free church suffering from a severe dearth of
Biblical apprehension.
Burleson seems far more interested in extending an olive branch of
culturally-approved tolerance to a work that is decidedly heretical-
though heavily Christianized and emotions-generating – than he is to
defending Christ’s sheep from Word-twisting wolves, regardless of how
impressively, sheepishly dressed those wolves appear. And make no
mistake, Young is a wolf. And The Shack is not Christian.
The fundamental measure of whether something is authentically
Christian is not the frequency of Bible verses that it cites. It is not
the prevalence of Christian words and phrases that might permeate it.
Neither is sincerity of message a measure of Biblical authenticity, just
as the exhibition of powerful emotions is no evidence for the activity
of the Holy Spirit. False teaching – heresy – does not come with a
demonic warning label announcing itself. Rather, it comes elegantly
attired as Christian, incorporating selectively chosen tidbits of truth
and the vernacular of faith that are woven together into its overall
deception. A measure of truth always accompanies the error, a condition
which is fatal to truth itself. As Christ warned, “beware the leaven.”
A thing – like The Shack
-may look Christian, sound Christian, and smell Christian, but a
Christianized facade, even one that powerfully evokes emotive responses,
does not make something Christian. The fundamental measure by which
something is rightfully gauged “Christian” – be it a book, a movie, and
perhaps especially, a church – is the crucial element that has
become increasingly absent in the evangelical church – the authentic,
Biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Shack is devoid of the Gospel. It is not Christian.
But not only is The Shack
not Christian, it is not helpful to the Christian faith. We can be
reminded by what may seem a silly point, but John, the apostle and
gospel writer and Revelation writer, wrote these inspired Words as the
opening to his Gospel, “In the beginning was the word.” He did not
write, “in the beginning was the movie, or the shack, or the whatever.”
The Word is what was in the beginning, and it is the Word which He has
progressively, and specially, revealed to humanity. That Word, of
course, is Jesus, the Christ of the Gospel. And that Gospel is the
power of God to save (Romans 1:16) because that Gospel is the zenith of his redemptive revelation.
For a thing to be Christian and to start at some point other than the
Gospel, to only continually avoid that Gospel, means that thing is not
authentically Christian, nor is that thing capable of bringing
Spirit-regeneration to a dead soul. It is completely incapable of
edifying Christ’s sheep in whom the Holy Spirit resides. Error does not
come with God’s “look the other way” endorsement just because it
contains a modicum of truth. And, be sure of this …. God does not need a
work of heresy, regardless of how seemingly “God-friendly” it may be,
to generate conversational buzz about Him. He will do his redemptive
work as He always has, through the Gospel.
No doubt to capitalize on the current Shack craze, Young has recently released his newest work, Lies We Believe About God.
(A review of this book is forthcoming.) The 28 chapters presume to
refute erroneous evangelical beliefs about God, as well as to defend the
theology he presented in The Shack. But at the close of Lies, Young offers “A Catena” (“Catena”
is Latin for “chain.”) intended to substantiate his unorthodox and,
according to Mohler (and multitudes of others), heretical universalistic
view:
“A catena,
in this case, a chain of Scriptures (various translations based on the
Greek New Testament) strung together as commentary on the theme of God’s
saving work for all – the grand arc of God’s drama of redemption. When
read aloud with a touch of gravitas, the momentum is powerful:” (Source:
Lies We Believe About God, pg. 241)
A “touch of gravitas” or not (that suggestion alone expressly
indicates that the evocation of positive emotional responses is more
desirable than the apprehension of inherent truth), the 34
bullet-pointed Scriptural “commentary” references that Young weaves
together represents the classic example of Scripturally caustic
hermeneutics. No contextual consideration is given, but great emphasis
is impressed upon the reader by each selection in which Young’s notion
of universalism seems Scripturally supported. His citations italicize
words such as any, all, every, and world
to imply that the verses demand, defend, and substantiate God’s
salvation of every sinner. He weaves these 34 plucked verses to produce
a narrative that is pure universalism.
A few examples of Young’s italicized, non-contextual “thread” …
But the error of The Shack
does not come only with an endorsement from SBC pastor Burleson. Other
SBC’ers endorsed it, too. Their comments, coming from a pre-screening of
the fictitious flick, are being used as endorsements on TheShackResources.com.
We reported that 1000 Faith Leaders Endorsed The Shack.
One of the many SBC churches and agencies represented was The Greater
Orlando Baptist Association. A representative of this Florida Baptist
group of over 250 SBC churches is named among the 1000 “faith leaders”
who lauded the film.
According to the association’s website, Mark Weible is its Church Planting Director. While The Shack
clearly promotes universalism, this endorser seems particularly
impressed by a presentation of what amounts to little more than a
“therapeutic gospel,” not altogether unlike the word-faith, prosperity
gospel. Want to get rid of pain? Get God. It’s an equally invalid, unscriptural, and heretical presentation of God.
Another such endorsement comes from a Texas Southern Baptist.
Smith happens to be the Executive Director of the Austin Baptist Association.
His comment – again, used as an endorsement – doesn’t denote the error
with the film’s blasphemous depiction of the Trinity; he merely lauds it
as “very creative.” Creativity, however, is neither a spiritual gift,
nor a fruit of the Spirit, leaving his endorsing comment suggestive of
the importance of something that is fundamentally unimportant when
compared, say, to the “very” glaring lack of the Gospel in the film.
It is unclear whether Weible or Smith offered their laudatory
comments with the approval of their respective organizations. Burleson
clearly promoted his on a website independent of his church’s site. But
what motivates Burleson that doesn’t apparently motivate the other two
SBC’ers is his close friendship with Young. In fact, back in 2009, so enthralled was Burleson with the book The Shack,
it having been recommended to him by his mother, his sister, and his
wife, that he invited Young to preach at his church, a move that
evidently did not sit well with some (as it rightly should not have).
Burleson’s love of sinners argument is intoxicatingly unscriptural,
though, when it comes to opening up the pulpit of Christ’s church to a
pagan. While we all are born depraved sinners, the church is not a
showcase for pagan philosophy, trotted out though Young’s is as
Christian theology. Though tares exist among the wheat, the pastor is,
first and foremost, to feed the sheep, a task that cannot be done by
fertilizing them with error.
Which takes us to the second quote at the beginning of this article,
the one which warns authentic sheep to flee from any “church” and any
“shepherd” that does not vigorously, “staunchly oppose the theology of The Shack.” That comes from pastor and author Jim Osman. He and Justin Peters viewed the movie and came away aghast that such a thing could remotely be considered Christian.
(Peters and Osman have produced 5 radio episodes about their visit to The Shack, exposing its heresies, for The Justin Peters Program.
I heartily encourage you to tune in. If you are inclined, by the
endorsements of pastors like Burleson or others, to see no problems with
The Shack, please, “examine yourself to see if you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5) because the Holy Spirit always, always, ALWAYS leads TO the TRUTH (John 16:13) and AWAY from error.)
The beginning of the Christian life for every believer necessarily
begins with the Gospel. Nowhere else. Despite the multitude of Jesuses
proclaimed by the evangelical church today and portrayed in culture by
some Hollywood flick or a publisher’s paperback novel, unless He is the
Jesus of the Gospel of Scripture, it is the wrong – and unsaving –
Jesus. The universalism of The Shack intentionally demeans the real atoning work of the real Jesus on the Cross.
Know, embrace, and follow the genuine Jesus of the Biblical Gospel. “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
But just know this … given the rapidly quickening pace of its
downgrade, to find that saving Gospel and that Biblical Jesus, you might
just need to start somewhere other than a Southern Baptist church …
Because, sadly enough, it’s remotely plausible to say that “you can’t get there from here.”