Before I heard of "the Shack", I heard the author being interviewed on a religious program. He was explaining why he was entitled to adjust the Bible's teaching on God to accommodate people with father-wounds. Since God is the perfect Father, someone declaring their intent to change him in this book they were talking about was enough for me to know it would be heresy.
Later, when I began
hearing how many church-folk loved the book, I considered how the bait had been
set so people would fall into the trap of changing God in the way of Satan's
first words in the Bible, "Did God actually say...?"
Particularly, what
did the book deal with that would cause so many church folk to abandon clear
Bible teachings about God (believing scripture is breathed-out by God himself),
especially when scripture is full of clear revelations from God himself as “our
Father in heaven”.
The thing that
stood out is that it walked people through issues of trauma and grief in ways
churches (as per my own personal experience) were not doing. By the time I was
becoming aware of this sad story of people being shackled to a false god, I was
already well-aware that churches did not seem to know how to minister the
Fatherhood of God to the father-wounds of his children. So, even though the
pudding was poisoned, it tasted good. It comforted wounds. And the wounds were
so big that the changes to God appeared to be of no consequence.
This impacted me
for the simple reason that I had a lifetime of talking to God about my traumas
and grief. I show people how to listen to God’s word each morning and talk to
him about everything that comes up. We have 150 Psalms showing us how to do
this! God’s word says that he “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their
wounds,” so I have long wanted to help people get to know God like that.
However, “The
Shack” is for the proudhearted (not the brokenhearted). Their wounds are
consoled by having a god in their own image. There is no true healing of the
soul, for the god of the Shack is a false god and the healing just as much so
(because it doesn’t bring people to the true God for true attachment).
On the other hand,
the “brokenhearted” are the “blessed are the poor in spirit” of the Beatitudes.
You know, the ones who mourn what is wrong with them (not God), and who meekly
surrender to Jesus as the only one who can fix what is wrong with them, and so
they hunger and thirst for the righteousness of knowing God as he is, not as he
is fabricated to be by proud people.
While I was sorting
photos for the daycare this afternoon, I saw a video by Todd Friel titled, “The
Author of the WORST ‘Christian’ Book Ever Has Done Something Terrible”
(link in footnote[1]).
As I went through it, I found that the direct quotes from William P. Young
expose that he is every bit the heretic I suspected when I first heard him
talking a couple of decades ago.
This was reinforced
to me a few years back when I was asked to read a book by Brad Jersak who
blatantly claims that God, the Word, and the Way of Scripture are not
Christlike enough. I did a series of a hundred+ journal entries as I went
through Jersak’s book. You can find them on my Blog under the category,
“Countering Counterfeits”. The series is titled, “A Journal Journey with Brad
Jersak’s ‘Different’ Jesus”. In reading the endorsements to his books, it was
no surprise to find that William P. Young was all on board with Brad Jersak’s
false teachings (as was Eugene H. Peterson of the “Message” infamy, but that’s
another story).
Yes, Jesus did warn
that “many false prophets will arise and lead many astray”, so it is not a
surprise to see it happening. But it is still good to “have mercy on those who
doubt” and “save others by snatching them out of the fire”. At the very least, the video by Todd Friel,
and my post on the same topic, are aimed at calling people who have tried the
bait of the Shack and want to know how to experience God in grief and trauma
without changing him from his image into ours.
Now, how do
churches help people address father-wounds, childhood trauma, heart-destroying
grief, and all manner of abuses and addictions, without swinging to any of the
extremes of legalism on one side or cheap grace on the other, or of the
heresies that add to scripture on one side, or take away from scripture on the
other?
Some years ago, I
attempted to summarize what I saw in scripture about how “ministry” happens in
the church. Considering that ministry is a reflection of Christ as the vine
working through his disciples as the branches to bear fruit for our Father’s
glory, our understanding of ministry must include how to connect people to
Christ with our branching out into their lives, so to speak.
In other words, in
the rhyming thought of the body of Christ, Jesus as our head ministers to
people in need through the members of his body who express the spiritual gifts
he gives us by his Spirit. It is never just us helping people. It is us
expressing to people what Christ has done, and is doing, in and through us.
My summary
statement is, “Bringing the Soul Condition of the people to the Soul Provision
of Christ through the Soul Care of the body of Christ.”
Our Soul Condition
is however it is with our souls (our real selves inside our bodies). The Soul
Provision of Christ is his work to bring people to himself so he can give rest
to their souls. The Soul Care is however God gifts each member of the body to
contribute to doing ministry to the Soul needs of his people. There are plenty
of scriptures that show that the needs of our souls are paramount, that the
provision of Christ is everything we need, and that Jesus now does his ministry
through his body, the church.
In practical terms,
this means that helping and teaching people to cry out to God with whatever is
wrong inside them is a necessary part of getting to know God in the ways he
reveals. For me, getting to know Jesus as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief” has been phenomenal in comforting me where my own sorrows and grief have
been very real. It’s the way he is revealed in Scripture, so why wouldn’t I
want to get to know him as he is instead of re”word”ing the Word (Jesus) to
avoid exposing my need of him as he is?
Just think if
William P. Young had shown people the “only true God” and the true Lord Jesus
Christ, and written about how pouring out our hearts to God as the psalmists
did about everything, and humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God so he
could lift us up in due time, and comforting one another with the genuine
comforts we ourselves had already experienced in bringing our traumas and
heartaches and griefs to God, what a genuine “truth in love” experience we
could have had if “the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with
which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow
so that it builds itself up in love”.
I share this
because I hope there are always a few who want to “let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly”, rather than sacrifice God’s word for the man-centered ideas of
false teachers. I get that grief and trauma need addressing. But I also get
that “the whole counsel of God” is the answer.
So, when God says, “But
this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word”, and Jesus speaks of us living “by every word that
comes from the mouth of God”, and Revelation ends by warning people about
adding or taking away from what is written, we must make sure that how we
address whatever inside us is sinful, hurting, wounded, ashamed, afraid, or any
other synonyms of “messed up”, is based on “what accords with sound doctrine.”
William P. Young’s
books do not accord with sound doctrine. But the God of sound doctrine has
sound doctrine ways for us to pour out our hearts to him and get to know him as
the God who heals the brokenhearted and binds up our wounds.
© 2026
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1] https://youtu.be/UahtUSEsE_k?si=_Q8acfBoUQWVttzA Note: While I agreed with almost all that was shared in the video, the reference to "eternal conscious torment" rightly exposed that "universalism" is unbiblical. However, recent discussions on the nature of God's judgment on sinners has shown that many non-heretical teachers believe that the Bible teaches the final destruction of the wicked in the judgment, not their eternal conscious torment. It is not heresy to consider either possibility as what is meant by the Bible's teachings on hell and the judgment. However, believing everyone ends up in heaven in the end is false teaching since it clearly contradicts the whole gospel.
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