The “god” of “The Shack” is a false god giving false hope to millions.

If you have watched the movie, and you liked it, I don’t condemn you. I read the book and I liked it too, but I hope that you will reconsider your opinion of the book and movie after you read this article.

Several years ago, I read the book and I thought it was a good story.

Over the past weekend, we had the joy of being with some dear friends. They had picked a movie and it happened to be “The Shack”. I watched the movie and tried to listen closely to the things the actors said. I was soon shocked at the blasphemous lies the author conveys convincingly to an unaware audience.

The movie is about a man who lost his daughter to a serial killer and rapist. The story is of the man meeting with “Papa”, the author’s version of The Father, who is an African American woman who likes rap music, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, who is another woman, while being “healed” of his pain.

When I read the book, I understood “imagery” as the author describes it, and I understood that the author was probably not saying that the Father is a woman, so I could get over that but watching the movie, I was dismayed at the portrayal of the Almighty God, whom no man can see and live, and even more dismayed by the lies the author tells of the gospel message.

There is a moment at the start of the story where Mack, the father, has a moment with his daughter before she was abducted. In a tent on a camping trip, she calls the Father evil for forsaking Jesus. Mack didn’t have an answer for her, and she was later abducted, and Mack carries anger towards God for the question that his daughter had asked him before she was murdered.

Later, as Mack is confronting “Papa,” over breakfast at the cabin, where Mack went to meet with God, Mack asked her about her wrath towards sin, Papa said that Mack “misunderstood mystery”, a way of saying she is not really that angry with sinners. And says, “I am not who you think I am Mackenzie. I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring from the inside. It is not my purpose to punish; it is my joy to cure it.”

Although there are things about God that are a mystery, one of them is not about his wrath towards sin and his will to punish it. He hates and will punish the evildoer (all of us) for our sin and he hates the sin that we do for the pain it causes throughout the world.

Romans 2:5, Romans 9:22, Colossians 3:6, Romans 12:19 and more.

When Mack is taken to meet with a woman, called “Wisdom” she asks him to decide which of Mack’s two children would go to heaven or hell. She explained both had sinned, but still one of them would go to heaven, insinuating that the sacrifice of Jesus was pointless and meaningless, as if God can forgive sinners without punishing sin or a perfect sacrifice- The one we have in Jesus.

In fact, when Mack was talking with “Jesus”, he said “those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims…. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters.” Stating plain and clear that the author believes believing in Jesus is not necessary to receive forgiveness and remission of sins.

Hebrews 10:14

Acts 10:43, John 12:44, Acts 16:31, John 6:29 Romans 10:9, John 6:35.

Another time, “Papa” denies forsaking Jesus on the cross, making Jesus a liar when he says in Psalms “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and on the cross shouts of the forsakeness he experienced. Psalms 22:1, Mat 27:46

In this story, Jesus is necessary only to be relatable to us.

“Jesus” says that he was the “best way for you to relate to Papa”.

In this story, man is god. The Trinity is a weak family of humans that are needy for a relationship and willing to say anything to try to convince us that they are worth believing in.

At one moment, the family takes Mack up to a hill and shows him a bunch of lights in the distance, which are people. They say what Mack sees as human, they see as “color and light”, making man the worshiped, and God the worshiper.

We know that one day it will not be man that God worships, but man will worship God in all the splendor and majesty that he is.

Revelation 5:9, Psalms 96:9, Psalms 99:5, Psalms 132:7, John 4:23, Exodus 34:14

When I look back on the time when I read “The Shack”, I remember that close to that time I began struggling with depression and condemnation for my sin. The book did nothing to take away the despair, but simply avoided the question of my guilt before a Holy God. The condemnation I felt was just and demanded a payment in full, yet the book came up with empty answers in an effort to encourage me and pull me out of depression.

Around the age of 20, I finally experienced the Grace of God in its purity and beauty. A friend of mine and I had a summer-long in-depth study of the book of Romans, I was listening to Christ-centered preaching in church, and later that winter I was working on memorizing the 8th chapter of Romans. When I got to the part of the chapter where the writer asks who is to condemn us, he answers “Christ Jesus, who is the one who died, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, interceding for us.” In one version it states that Jesus is “pleading for us”.

The Gospel is a million times better.

From that moment I understood that the condemnation I felt was indeed just, but instead of punishing myself, I needed to trust in the blood of Jesus, the perfect Sacrifice, who was punished on our behalf, making us right with the Father, and interceding for us every day, NOT condemning us.

Since that cold January morning, God has given me victory when the moments of temptation cometo remain in condemnation when I fail. When nothing else and false hopes could not do, he came in and showed me the beauty of the real Gospel message, which is Christ in you, the Hope of Glory.

Because of Jesus’ blood and sacrifice we have forgiveness and remission of sins. He was bruised for “our iniquities” and forsaken by the Father so that we do not have to be and received the wrath of God that we deserve. Isaiah 53.

Trust in the true Christ today. Don’t put your hope in a false god that can give no peace. Go to Christ and give him your life. You won’t regret it.