Culture Watch

I wonder how it feels to have your protest stolen.

To be honest, I’ve never been a 49er or a Colin Kaepernick fan. When he sat down for the national anthem to draw attention to the inequities that still exists in our culture for people of color, I thought him disrespectful of our country.

But then he, and others, decided to kneel instead, not wanting people to mistake their protest as disrespect for flag, country, or its men and women in uniform. They just wanted our society to confront the fact that racial inequality still exists in our society. It does you know. You’d be a fool to think otherwise.

But most white people it seems would rather ignore that fact, thinking it was fixed fifty years ago when we passed civil rights legislation. While we do have equality under the law, we don’t yet have an equitable society given the great economic disadvantages that hold over from slavery and segregation. The escalating fear between police and the black community has led at times to innocent people being shot, and white America for the most part ignores it. It’s a problem for the ‘hood, or so they want to think.

What these athletes were hoping is that the majority white audience of the NFL would be confronted with a problem that is as yet unresolved in our culture and stand the powerless who live in neighborhoods most people wouldn’t choose to live in, who are incarcerated at disproportionate rates with disproportionate terms, and who lack the opportunities to better their lives that others have.

Why are we in white America so uncomfortable that we don’t want to take a look at the problem? Yes, it’s huge. No we don’t have enough governmental funds to throw at it, but the first step to change isn’t a new program, but compassion for people who weren’t born with the same advantages you were. You don’t have to be a racist to ignore it; you just have to be uncaring for humanity and too content with your own advantage.

To ignore the deeper issue others twisted it to make it about patriotism, the very thing these athletes were bending over backward to make sure we couldn’t do. Even President Trump has decided that to make America great again we have to despise those people who want to confront us with the truth that the ideals of this great nation don’t yet apply to all of us. I’m weary of those who want to defend his denigration of fellow American citizens expressing free speech as “sons of b*****s” and demand they be fired rather than take their concerns seriously. His actions simply underscore what began the protest in the first place and it is disappointing that he doesn’t see it as his responsibility as President to bring us together on these issues, rather than polarize us for the popularity he craves with his base.

Even the NFL teams who are linking arms, or staying in locker rooms are subverting the original issue by making it about free speech or team unity, rather then the inequities of race still inherent in our culture.

I wonder how it feels to have your protest stolen, to watch people care more about a flag than they do the lives of those living under it. Our soldiers fight for freedom overseas, but their work is not done if we’re not willing to fight for it at home—-for every American. Black lives suffering under oppression, fear and poverty do matter and their plight needs to move us all.

We need a better conversation about race in our culture and finding ways to nurture greater opportunities for those who are disadvantaged, not by our intent perhaps but by ignoring a history that didn’t treat us all fairly. We need reasonable men and women to come to the table and take up the task of making our society safer, fairer, and more equitable for all.

Nelson Mandela fought against bitterness for peace in post-apartheid South Africa by believing none of us are free until we all are free.

He was right. It’s not the symbol of liberty that’s at risk here, but liberty itself!

It seems the Pharisees gathered in Nashville last week and carved out a stand on morality, marriage, and sexuality that they say is “essential” to the faith. It’s called The Nashville Statement and is the work of 150 conservative religious leaders convened by The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. As soon as I saw the headlines and those involved, my heart sank.

Why in this day of growing national animosity would so many religious figures publish yet another proclamation against the sins they most detest? There’s nothing new here. Their positions are already well known, but society continues to move away from them. Not surprisingly the list of signatories were mostly white and mostly male representing those groups that tend to focus on morality more than Christ. I can’t imagine anyone could sign this document who understands the heartbeat of our Father for the brokenness of the world. Certainly some had to ignore that inner sense that this was a bad idea. Perhaps they felt pressured to sign or others would accuse them of compromise.

While I agree with much of what it says about morality and seek to live my life accordingly, that is only true because of the grace God has given me. As a whole, this exercise represents the wrong message, time, and means to share God’s light with the world. It may give the home team something to cheer about, but at what cost to the Gospel? Moralists always go large on sex and remain strangely silent about religious arrogance, gossip, the excesses of capitalism, and ignoring the log in your own eye while you try to rip the sawdust out of someone else’s.

This statement re-draws the same lines of exclusion that has plunged evangelicalism into irrelevance over the past half century and does nothing to invite people into God’s reality. This is a statement the Pharisees might have generated when Jesus was spending too much of his time with those they regarded as sinners. It has more in common with their agenda for the culture, than it did for Jesus, who was bent on winning people into Father’s love as the conduit into a transformed life, rather than laying out the rules and compelling people to follow.

Now we have a new statement to wave around as a litmus test of Biblical morality that Christians will have to pledge allegiance to or be judged as soft on sin. Well, as a passionate follower of Jesus Christ and one that embraces the moral safety of Scripture, I reject this Statement on the following grounds:

• It packages God’s desire for humanity as Law to obey instead of a Loving Father to embrace. As such it repudiates the Incarnation of Christ to win by love and affection what law and obedience could never win. Left to itself, this Statement distorts how God rescues people from their own brokenness and restores them through love and transformation.

• As a political statement it confuses the differing role of government and the faith community in matters of marriage and sexuality.

• It smacks of religious arrogance by calling its conclusions “essential” for faith, and attacking those who see it differently as “foolish” and “bent on ruin.” It overstates the conclusion of Scriptures to support their own prejudices and fears and there is no humility that admits even those who believe these things have a difficult time living true to them. Shouldn’t we clean our own house before telling others how to clean theirs?

• It assumes that Christianity has a handle on masculinity and femininity when religious environments are notorious for stereotyping those distinctions to selectively distribute power rather than embracing the revelation of God.

• It offers no compassion, kindness, or hope for people who do not conform to their view of morality. Instead it will embolden those whose animosity and fear seeks to hurt those who disagree with them and it will  add further condemnation and despair to those who do not yet know God’s love for them.

If moral statements such as this one is the best hope Christianity brings to the world, we have missed the most endearing realities of the Gospel. If Jesus had offered a Statement of Morality to the woman who had been caught in adultery, would it have given her any hope that she could approach the Father Jesus wanted her to know?

Religious leaders and secular advocates want to force us into one of two camps: I must force biblical morality on those who do not see it to the despair of those who cannot live it. Or, I can be compassionate by abandoning my convictions about morality. I refuse to accept this false dichotomy. It is possible to hold my moral convictions while at the same time loving and caring deeply for those who don’t. This is better communicated in conversations with people you know and care about, rather than making public proclamations.

We need a different conversation with our culture, one steeped in kindness and respect across our deepest differences. We don’t have to compromise our morality to love others who may not have the same anchor we do. We don’t have to pound them over the head with our moral views when they don’t yet know the God we know. What we can champion together is the freedom of each person’s conscience that allows them to see these things differently without either side employing the power of the state to force their preferences on others. There has never been a time when followers of Christ need to learn how to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” The Nashville Statement does neither.

Perhaps they could learn something from my wife. Our backyard is filled with an English garden that blooms profusely year-round. People come to marvel at what my wife, Sara, has created here and only I know the hours she invests every week to keep it so beautiful. A while ago we got a new puppy and one day when I went into the garden to talk to her, I saw the puppy digging a large hole in one corner of the garden on the opposite side where Sara was working. Seeing the plants strewn about, I assumed the new pup was in big trouble.

“Sara, do you know what’s going on over here behind your back,” I called to her.

“With Zoey?” she replied never turning around. “I do,” and I could hear the smile in her voice.

Uncertain she knew the gravity of the situation I asked her if she know how big it was. ”You could bury a small cadaver in there,” I chuckled as I approached her.

“It doesn’t matter. I just want her to enjoy being in the garden with me every time I’m here and if I’m always yelling at her she won’t. So, she can do whatever she wants this year. Next year we’re going to learn how to be in the garden without destroying it.”

Until people are endeared to God because of how wonderful he is they won’t care about the things he says, especially if they think he hates and rejects them. We would do better investing our time and resources in helping them discover a God worth loving for himself.

I have a quote on my computer I got years ago from an AIDs outreach video. “Sometimes we withhold grace until we are sure people understand their sin. But it is in the giving of grace that we remind people that they need to go to Jesus to find their own. People understand their sin without our help; it’s grace they need help understanding.”

Maybe if we truly understood grace, we would spend less effort crafting moral statements and more loving others like God loves us. That’s how Jesus said he would change the world. Let’s try that!

The above photo was taken by a friend of mine Kent Burgess, during yesterday’s eclipse from somewhere near St. Louis. You can see additional ones on his website and Facebook page from the link above.

As part of bringing my son back to Denver to begin a new job, we took the day to run up to Wyoming where we would be in the path of totality. I’ve seen lots of eclipses in my day, because God’s glory in the heavens always fascinates me whether it’s in the form of meteor showers, the Milky Way, or an eclipse. I’ve always wanted to see a total eclipse, but the time and expense of getting to Wyoming just didn’t seem worth it for a two-minute show. Since, I was already in the area, however to help Andrew and to meet with others on the journey in the Denver area, it didn’t seem like too much to make a three-hour run to Wyoming.  (Though it was a five and a half hour ride back, but that’s another story.  Still worth it!)

But I didn’t know what to expect and was not prepared for what I saw. Most of the time is spent looking at various stages of an eclipse that I’ve seen before.  20%… 35%… 62%… even 85% and I thought going to 100 would be more of the same. I’d seen lots of pictures and videos of total eclipses, including the one from yesterday, but I’m telling you none of them do it justice.  It isn’t just what you’re seeing in the sky, it’s what’s going on all around you and the ambiance of majesty at that moment was palpable. I was not prepared to be as awed by all this as I was. Even though it was a two-minute show, I will never forget it. You just had to be there.

As totality approached the sunlight visibly darkened. Stars and planets began to appear on the blue sky and that was disorienting.. and majestic!  Even at only 1% of the sun shinning and all is getting dark around you, you still can’t bear to look at the son without the eclipse glasses. And then… suddenly, that bright light finishes, and for the text two minutes it’s as if someone set off the most incredible fireworks you’ve ever seen. Totality is not like any version of partiality at all! it’s a whole different “other”. As soon as the sun disappears behind the moon everything changes!

I pulled my glasses off and there is this big black hole in the sky, with the sun’s corona shooting out from behind it in starbursts of energy shooting far from the sun and twisting against the black background of space.  In pictures it looks small, in the moment it dominated the sky with wonder. Though it didn’t get completely dark, stars appeared and the horizon for 360 degrees around was painted in the soft pastels of an almost-completed sunset.

The entire view was awe-inspiring and every glance around me alive with his glory.  My soul quivered, goose bumps shot up my neck, and my eyes moistened. I was moved at the glory of it all even though I was expecting none of that. I never even thought of taking a photo, I just stood in awe of this phenomenon, knowing I only had a few seconds to take it all in. People screamed and applauded on the hillsides around us, but I was so captured by the moment, the noise seemed an intrusion. It is truly the most amazing thing in creation I’ve ever seen and it touched me deeply, though I’m not sure how. I didn’t feel closer to God, but I was more aware of what an incredible universe he made for us. And the immensity of his power within it.

If you ever get the chance to see an eclipse take it.  There’s one coming in 2024 to the U.S. It’s worth the added time and hassle. It’s truly one of the great wonders of the Creation and to think I almost missed it. Since Sara wasn’t well enough to travel I thought I’d pass on it as I have so many others in the past, until my sons invited me to come with him to Denver and see it together. I’m so glad he did and now I want to get Sara to one in the future.

I don’t mean to lord it over those of you that weren’t in the path of totality yesterday, just letting you know that one day you will want to be there. No words or even pictures can do it justice. That’s as true of the eclipse as it is of our relationship to God. Don’t just settle for others describing it to you or reading about it in books. He wants to show each of you how to behold him as he makes his revelation known in your heart. That’s not as easy as running off to an eclipse, but what you get to experience is far better. I know people get frustrated when they feel as if it isn’t happening for them, or at least not as fast as they want, but God knows how best to pour himself into our hearts. All we can give him is a quiet, open heart willing to engage him however he desires best and watch what he does. That’s hard to describe as well.

With a fuller heart, and a quieter spirit myself, I’ll be off to Amarillo on Thursday and the next chapter in my unfolding story….

The letters come in now two or three a month. They’re all similar. In a moment of honesty an adult child has just informed their parents that they are transgendered or gay. Their question is always the same.

“What do we do now?”

Most parents are not prepared for this. Few have even thought about the possibility, especially if they raised their children in a Christian environment. This is something that happens to someone else’s children and now they have no idea how to respond, caught between the contempt they were taught to have for such claims, and the affection they have for the child they’ve loved heart and soul since birth.

It’s not an easy question to answer and I know many people will disagree with what I write here, but here is how I help parents respond to their child. I’ll admit I’m still sorting through all this in my own heart because it seems a tight-wire act to be sure. I assume people write me, however, because I embrace Biblical views of doctrine and morality. I also believe that the only hope of human transformation is through God’s kind of loving. In my view that’s what the Incarnation was all about: God winning by love and affection what fear and obedience could never untangle.

The question for us is whether we can love deeply someone who is embracing an identity or morality with which we don’t agree or approve. I used to think not. Love is the reward for conformity. If you don’t approve of what people are doing, you hold them at arm’s length hoping that shame will inspire them to repent. I never saw that work, however. Instead I kept reading about Jesus who could love people though they had not yet embraced God’s view of things. He saw the loving as opening a door to them, and the Pharisees derided him for it. But love is not about approving or rejecting, it’s about caring for people even at their most broken.

However you think of transgendered or gay issues, I hope we can agree that God’s love is the only thing that can work deeply enough in the human heart to change people. If that’s true, they have to taste of it before transformation is possible and often that love is first reflected in the actions of another who is learning to love as he loves. We all need to learn how love finds its way into relationships that view identity and morality differently than we do?

And to be honest, I’m not sure what the moral issues are with a transgendered person. Scripture doesn’t seem to address it except in one passage from Deuteronomy about clothing, but that really isn’t the same thing.  What is really going on when someone feels their anatomy is at odds with their psychological make-up? Is it a twist of darkness, or something else? Could it result from how the very distorted views we have of masculinity and femininity by the world and by religion?

My heart goes out to anyone caught in this struggle and I prefer to commend them to God to sort it out in the best way he can in each life. Most transgendered people don’t talk about it as a personal preference realizing how much it will impact others around them. For them it is a quest for survival itself. Most have contemplated suicide and too many have followed through with it rather than risk exposing their struggle to others. Is that what we want? I don’t. I have no doubt that God wants to be inside their honesty and struggle inviting them into his life and I want to be there with him.

So however these issues make you uncomfortable, it is worth sorting through them and learn how to support people in this struggle and what their parents are going through, rather than making them feel ashamed. If you don’t love someone who is transgendered, you’ve never dealt with the issue. You may think you have in Facebook postings and comments about your moral claims and the contempt you hold for those who see these things differently. That’s where political battles are fought and where judgment knows no bounds. Many would rather put these issues back in a closet never stopping to realize how oppressive that is for those who don’t fit into their preferred norms.

But when your child or a good friend lets you know that they have never felt comfortable in the body or the role society has put on them, what are you going to do? The parents writing me are often embarrassed that it’s happening to their child, worried about what family and friends might say, and scared of what the future may bring. They are also grieving the loss of long-held dreams and hopes they had for their child, and themselves. As one parent told me after their daughter announced she was transitioning to male, “I know my head was spinning for the first days… just totally spinning and bewildered.” And it’s normal to look for someone to blame for the crisis—their friends, the media, or even past discipline issues.

Fair enough. This is usually a shock to the parents and it’s not uncommon to seek a quick fix they hope will stuff it all back in the bottle. Just remember your son and daughter has been tortured with this struggle for a long time. None of this is easy for them. Before they come out to you, especially because they know how hard it would be for you, they already tried to stop it. They’ve repented and tried to pray the thoughts away, but their feelings haven’t changed.

As your head stops spinning, you’ll have a choice to make. Is your child someone you love deeply? If they are, then nothing has truly changed in your relationship with them. They are the same person they were an hour before they told you, it’s just that now you know more about what is really going on inside them. Can you imagine the courage it took for them to invite you to look deeply into their soul, especially when they know you’re not going to be blessed with the news? If you think this is coming from a broken place in their heart, wouldn’t you want all the more to be inside it with them, rather than abandoning them at so vulnerable a time?

Of course they are looking for your approval. They want nothing more than for you to embrace their newly announced identity and celebrate it with them. They too have tied love to approval. Some will even determine if you love them or not by whether you give them your blessing and may reject you if you don’t.

But most will know that they’ve just dropped a bombshell on the family and will hope that you’ll simply love them enough to work through this newfound information with them, whether you can approve or not. They will know you’ll need time to find a new footing in your relationship with them. Few people know how to love what they don’t approve. But God knows. He does it every day, with every one of us. Maybe it’s time we learn, too.

Let them know this isn’t going to be easy for you, but you want to learn how to respond in ways that are helpful to them. It will take some time for you both to learn. “You can’t expect me not to miss my little girl. I will. But I also realize you are the same person no matter how you present yourself on the outside and I want to love you no matter what, down whatever road you travel and I want to be a champion for you to find real joy and peace as you sort all this out.”

Let them know their decision will not change your love for them and your desire for them to find a life of joy and fulfillment. Even though you know that will only come in a transforming relationship with God’s love, you don’t have to push that on them.

Perhaps this is the hardest part of parenting, even in lesser ways when our children make decisions we don’t agree with in their careers or continuing to date someone we don’t like. Hopefully you’ll choose to discover the deepest realities of love and learn that being alongside your son or daughter even when they are making what you consider to be the wrong choices. Only there will you have the opportunity to share your love and your thoughts with them when they are ready for it.

If you want to be with them, put your love for them above everything else. Their choices are not your responsibility. Love doesn’t demand agreement and it doesn’t force its way on others. It will make them feel secure not threatened. Be with them and offer your thoughts only when they ask. When you learn not to manipulate their choices to do what you think best, they will want your input even if they don’t follow it right away. Remember this is all a journey and neither of you knows where it will lead in the next year, much less the next decade or two.

This is where you’ll learn each day how to listen to God and follow his lead. You cannot do this alone, but with him you’ll learn something about loving at the deepest level, when it sacrifices your hopes and dreams to support another person on their journey. You don’t have to forsake your convictions to do it. All you have to do is love like Father has loved you.

Can you love wholeheartedly in spite of the fact that someone is doing something with which we don’t approve? If so, you’ll offer a great gift to the world that will go well past your child or friend. It will be a lifeline to anyone around you lost in sin, bad theology, or hurtful behavior.

Every time you love like that you put God’s presence in the world, where he is able to do what is best to lead people to the light and to true freedom he has for them.

For over half my life I had an unrelenting desire to stand on a big stage to give voice to my thoughts and ideas. Oh, I thought I wanted to do it for God, since those who seemed to hold the stage spoke so poorly of his truth and rarely demonstrated his character off of it. I thought I would be different in those same circumstances and spent many years in frustration because I couldn’t get the platform I thought I deserved.

Then that kind of thinking didn’t seem near as arrogant at the time as it feels typing it out today. It was for the kingdom after all, or so I thought, even though Jesus never sought the limelight, even though he chose Galilee over Jerusalem. And over the years I’ve watched people who thought they could dwell in the limelight and remain unseduced by its power. Precious few have succeeded.  And I’ve watched dear friends become a shell of their former selves trying to hold the stage and live in that self-serving culture that forms around so-called celebrities. At some point it becomes more about power, money, and acclaim than it does letting Jesus’ light shine into the world.

I’ve been close to this world in the last few years and the amount of dishonesty and corruption that it takes to live there sickens me. Over the years of learning to live loved my desire to be on a stage surreptitiously vanished. I discovered it is not the environment in which God moves best and have enjoyed far more the value of smaller conversations from 2s and 3s to 30 and 40. That’s a far better environment for honesty and help to really happen.  I have relished the last couple of decades and the people I’ve gotten to know and the conversations about life and grace I’ve been a part of.

I just had a conversation this week with someone who used to work for a big-name in Christendom and to hear how much insecurity and how little character existed behind the scenes only affirms to me that we know nothing about someone’s heart or character when we’re just watching their giftedness on a stage.

Earlier this week this quote found it’s way into my inbox, and it helped me recognize the truth behind what God has been doing in my heart for a very long time.

Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, or a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.

Søren Kierkegaard in Provocations

If I could say anything to the Wayne of thirty years ago, or a young person like him today, it would be to forget the limelight. The fame and notoriety are a trap.  It pays well, but at what cost to the soul?  Look for God’s hand in the next person you meet, or the next opportunity he brings your way. Share your gift wherever you can, but don’t think the number of people who enjoy it is any commentary on its value. And if you ever find yourself on a big stage someday at God’s doing, keep it real by being genuine, and look to get off as soon as you can. Don’t believe the lie that you’re being more effective in this kingdom by the amount of attention you command or influence you wield; it’s only in the people you love and how you help them see Jesus.

Unfortunately, I doubt I would have listened.

Who’s Afraid of The Big, Bad Shack?

By Wayne Jacobsen

It turns out quite a few people are.

As the movie adaptation of The Shack is set to release on March 3, I’m hearing increasing rumblings from people who want to denounce the story as dangerous for Christians to see. Mention the movie in your Facebook feed and you’ll hear from at least a few of your friends or family decrying it as heresy and judging those as fools who’ve been touched by its story.

Since I co-wrote the book and helped start the publishing company that distributed it, I often hear from some of these directly. A man wrote me last week concerned that the book distorts the Trinity, teaches that God is a woman, and promotes universalism. His email began like so many others, “I’ll be honest, I’ve never read The Shack, but…,” and then he launched into an all-to-familiar litany of misinformed interpretations of the book. And of course he’s concerned for the danger it represents to “the young in faith and those just growing in their understanding of God.”

It amazes me how people draw such certain conclusions from a book they’ve never bothered to read. I didn’t take the bait. It makes no sense to me to discuss a book with someone who hasn’t read it. We’d only be discussing his ignorance. Surprisingly most of those who have taken up my challenge to read it in a conversation like this have come back surprised that it wasn’t what they thought and tell me how deeply it touched them.

Why are people so afraid of a work of fiction? It’s not going to bite you. It’s not going to convince you something is true if you know already that it isn’t. And your fears just may rob you of an experience that many others have found so valuable in their own relationship with God.

The trouble is most of the accusations launched against The Shack aren’t even true, which makes me wonder what is really going on here. One pastor listed thirteen heresies in The Shack and I would disagree that The Shack promotes twelve of them and the other one isn’t actually a heresy. Like him, many quote a phrase from the book to justify an accusation, but ignore the rest of the story that argues against the very conclusion they want it to make. Amazingly not one of these people ever talked to someone involved with the book to find out if their judgments have merit.

One of the early detractors for The Shack was trying to build a cottage industry out of being the anti-Shack guy. He called me a few months after it was published offering to write a devotional guide to go along with the book. I asked him what he had in mind and he told me he wanted to help people mine the deep truths we’d written about. Having read his previous disdain for the book, I confronted him for his dishonesty. He didn’t want to unpack the story for people, but to attack it. He was surprised I knew and quickly hung up.

Spurious Accusations

Why are people so adamant about distorting the message of the book to scare people from reading it or from seeing the movie?

Some accused us of teaching that God is a woman when none of us who wrote The Shack believe that to be true. One even accused us of indoctrinating people into a black, Madonna, Hindu cult, whatever that is. You just have to make that stuff up.

The characterization in the book doesn’t speak to God’s gender, but through whom he chooses to reveal himself. For Paul Young and his family it was a black woman just like the one described in the book who first demonstrated the love of God to them in a brutal circumstance when few others would dare. In the story, Mack’s image of a father is severely broken by the abuse he suffered, so God comes to him through someone he can relate to. What it seeks to underscore is that God is Spirit and though he doesn’t have a physical body and gender as we do, Genesis assures us that both masculinity and femininity express the nature of God. This is more about Incarnation that God’s gender identity. The point is that he can reveal himself as easily through a black woman as a white male, an Asian senior, or a Latino child. It doesn’t get more Incarnational than that.

Some accused us of modalism, the idea that God is one person who takes on different forms at different times. They base this conclusion on one paragraph showing the wounds of the crucifixion on the Father’s character. They wrongly conclude that we believe the Father was crucified when the point in the book is that God didn’t abandon his Son even on the cross. He was “in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Because Jesus took on our shame as well as our sin, he felt abandoned because he could no longer see the Father who was right there with him.

We were using a literary convention to convey the closeness between them, not as a depiction of modalism. To get to that conclusion you have to ignore the fact that the three persons of the Trinity spend most of the story in the same room interacting, loving and honoring each other. Of the theologians who wrote us in the first couple of years of the book’s release, 80% told us what we expressed about the relationship inside the Trinity was exactly as they see it. Only 20% took exception to it. But who knows for sure? The Trinity is an amazing mystery that defies description in our corporeal world. We could only depict it as loving, mutual relationships inside the one God.

Perhaps the most problematic accusation is that The Shack promotes universalism, the belief that everyone gets salvation in the end. Some who advance this idea quote from Paul Young’s paper for a think tank written before The Shack. Even today he describes himself as a “hopeful universalist”. However, Paul isn’t the only author of this story.

The original manuscript that became The Shack, was a rough cut of an endearing tale about God and suffering that Young had written for his children to explain his views of God. When he first sent me the manuscript, universalism was a significant component in the resolution of that story. When he asked for my help in publishing the book, I told him I wouldn’t work on it if that was his answer to human suffering. I didn’t agree with it and thought it would hamper efforts to reach the audience that would most benefit from the book.

Paul hoped to convince me I was wrong and sent me his paper on universalism. We spent some time discussing it, but in the end I felt it took too much linguistic gymnastics to bend Scripture to that conclusion. As I have friends who believe in universal salvation, it’s not a view I’m afraid of; it’s just one I don’t share. And regardless of what any of us believes, God will resolve this age exactly the way he has planned. I don’t have to figure it all out, but trust it to the God I know.  However, nothing Jesus, Paul, or John said points me to the conclusion that everyone receives salvation. In fact they warn of significant consequences in the age beyond for refusing God’s love in this one. I do believe God’s love is universal and his desire is for everyone to be saved, but that transaction involves a response from us.

At that point the conversations between God and Mack were a set of questions and answers, more like Sunday school lessons, interesting dialog surely but not yet a story of healing. To turn this into a book and later a movie, a friend of mine, Brad Cummings, and I discussed the need for those conversations to be more directed, moving Mack from anger and brokenness into freedom and healing. When we shared it with Paul he loved the idea. I explained to him exactly how to do rewrite it but he was reticent to do it on his own and begged us to rewrite it for him. “I’m done with it,” he told me one day. “If this book goes anywhere it’s because you’ll get involved.”

He agreed to let us take out the universalism theme saying he was less certain about it than when he wrote the first draft. So when people tell me that The Shack promotes universalism, I know it doesn’t because Brad and I don’t embrace it and when we rewrote the story in four different drafts over 16 months, we took it out.

Instead we wrote a story about God’s ability to find Mack in his brokenness and let his love invite him into truth and wholeness. Mack’s responses at every point are critical to the story. These quotes clearly set it apart from universalism:

“All I am telling you is that reconciliation is a two way street, and I have done my part, totally, completely, finally. It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way.”

*     *     *     *

“Does that mean,” asked Mack, “that all roads will lead to you?”

“Not at all,” smiled Jesus as he reached for the door handle to the shop. “Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”

*     *     *     *

Now (evil) touches everyone that I love, those who follow me and those who don’t. If I take away the consequences of people’s choices, I destroy the possibility of love. Love that is forced is no    love at all.”

*     *     *     *

The Real Controversy

One day I got a call from a church bookstore manager angry that we had included curse words in the book. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about and he reminded me that toward the end of the book, Mack calls his daughter’s murderer a son of a bitch as he wrestles with forgiving him. “My pastor won’t let me carry the book because of that.”

“Really?” I inquired further. “If it wasn’t there, everything else with the book is fine?”

He had to admit that it wasn’t. His pastor had other concerns, of course. The one curse word was only an excuse that others couldn’t argue with. It reminded me of Jesus healing people on the Sabbath. While nothing in the law forbid healing, it was something the Pharisees could point out to discredit him with the people. “We’re fine with him healing, he just shouldn’t do it on the Sabbath.” Sure!

I sense that with these many of the other accusations as well. They don’t stand up to the simplest reading of The Shack and seem forced on it by someone who has other issues they are not willing to admit. For some it may have been more about “black” than “woman”, but know that wouldn’t be well received. Or perhaps they didn’t like how gracious and playful Papa was with Mack. The story we wanted to tell was the story of a loving Father finding his way through all the pain, loss, and false accusations to reconnect with one of his children who was lost in his depression.

For the Pharisees Jesus was also too kind and compassionate with sinners, and not enough engaged with the religious elite of his day. He claimed to be a man of God but didn’t fit the mold the teachers of the law had designed for him. They preferred an angrier, more judgmental God. If there’s a controversy behind The Shack I suspect it is this: Who is God really? Is he an angry deity needing to be appeased by the submission of his fearful subjects, or is he a loving Abba winning people into his reality through tenderness and compassion? I grew up with the former, but have been won into the latter. But I can see why people would be threatened with the God of The Shack if he is more gracious to the lost than they are.

This book begs the question how a loving Father finds his way into the hearts of people in a broken world who are prone to blame him for their tragedies. That’s why I was willing to help rewrite this book. It’s one of the first books I knew of that attempted to show God finding his way into the darkness and paralysis of someone’s pain and personally walking them into freedom.

The Shack is a story of redemption, of God’s willingness to go into the worst of the human experience, and to the most broken of lives and love him into a friendship that could reverse the work of evil and restore a lost soul. In doing so it traverses the most difficult topics of God’s reality, suffering, depression, judgment, forgiveness, and love with a simplicity that befits the Gospel message.

Admittedly it is difficult to cover all of those issues without stepping on someone’s theological toes. I’m sure others would want to express these same truths differently and that’s what makes this novel such a catalyst for some fascinating conversations if it moves us to express our differences, and listen to each other rather than make accusations based on how we view the book. Fiction can be interpreted in a variety of ways, not all of them conforming to the intent of the authors. Like any piece of art I don’t expect everyone to appreciate it. But no one needs to fear it either. People throw accusations of heresy around way too easily these days. The idea that this is a dangerous book out to subvert the health of the Body of Christ, or that anyone who finds it meaningful is a theological simpleton is irresponsible at best and dishonest at worst.

The amount of email, and personal conversations I have had with people over the last decade tells me we got enough of this story right to provoke people to think about a loving God. Time and again I hear of people who had all but rejected God in the pain of their own lives, rediscovering how much God loves them by reading of this book. Is the book perfect? Of course not, but it was the best story three passionate men could produce a decade ago and we are grateful it has touched countless lives the world over. Our prayer is that this movie will do the same by helping people take a fresh look at God’s love and by sparking the conversations that will help them discover his reality.

I’ve seen the movie through its various edits and now in its final version. It simplifies these themes even more, and in an engaging way invites people to contemplate the existence of God in the face of human pain, and the lengths he would take to heal and redeem the brokenhearted. It is a visual feast that with simplicity and poignancy can open a wide door for God to make himself known to an audience who might never read the book. If evangelicals let the dialog speak for itself, they will be hard-pressed to find controversy here.

The point of the story is that none of us are so lost in our pain or despair that we are beyond the reach of a gracious Father.

Wouldn’t that be something to celebrate?

___________________________

Wayne Jacobsen is the co-author of The Shack alongside Paul Young and Brad Cummings and has authored numerous other books including He Loves Me, Finding Church, A Man Like No Other, and In Season and hangs his hat at Lifestream.org.

While I’m finishing up the tour in Israel with my podcast partner, Brad and a few of our friends, here is the second podcast I recorded with “A Christian and a Muslim Walk Into a Studio.”  This time we talked about my former work with BridgeBuilders, the state of our cultural dialog in America. This podcast is hosted by a good friend of mine, Bob Prater alongside a Muslim emir who is also becoming a good friend of mine. I think you’ll enjoy the interesting twists this conversation takes.

You can find both interviews here.  Mine are numbers 11 and 12.  You might also want to listen to #13. That’s a good friend of mine that rode up to Bakersfield with me and they ended up recording a podcast with him.  Pretty cool stuff there.

“Do you have any conflict enjoying the money you have in a world with so much need?”

I had been invited by a friend to attend an investment seminar and there were some high rollers in the room. As I looked around, however, I was surprised to see so many facial expressions that seemed confused by the question. Obviously they didn’t. I do. Every day.

When the speaker went on to ask why not, most responded that they had worked hard for what they had and never thought twice about enjoying a disproportionate slice of the world’s pie. The unspoken inference, of course, is that poor people don’t work as hard so they are only getting what they deserve. It’s only one of the lies wealthy people tell themselves so they can ignore the needs of others as they plunge headlong into their own amusements. But you can only believe that if you don’t actually know people who have very little and not a lot of options to help them move beyond it. And I don’t mean know about them, but actually know them individually.

I was raised a law-and-order Republican. I grew up with a high regard for discipline, hard work, and respect for authority. If you live responsibly and work hard you can get ahead in the world. Disobey a policeman and you risk getting shot. Do something illegal and the consequences should be severe.

But that’s before I caught a glimpse of life through the eyes of an African-American mother who not only fears the influences of the neighborhood on her son, but also any interaction he might have with the police and how it might escalate because of misunderstanding and fear. And I’ve become good friends with a family of undocumented immigrants and see first hand not only the hardships they endure, but also how our culture exploits them for its gain without rewarding them for their hard work.

These relationships have caused me to reassess many of my lifelong conclusions and it’s helped me come to grips with the lies affluent people use to justify their own comfort and suppress their generosity for people in need. Almost everyone screams unfair when they perceive circumstances have been rigged against them, but almost no one cries foul when they benefit from that rigging.

These are the lies you have to believe if you want to live callously in the world. To be truthful, I’ve actually benefited from most of them and grabbed for them whenever I needed to suppress my compassion for those in need. They allowed me for many years to live unaffected by the disproportionate distribution of resources in the world. Having them exposed has been a great gift to my humanity and has allowed me to discover the joys of generosity.

Lie #1: We all have the same opportunities; it’s just that some work harder. That’s what lie behind those confused expressions I saw at the investment seminar I mentioned at the beginning of this article. We love the illusion that a child growing up in south central Los Angeles has the same opportunities as those who grow up in the suburbs or small town America. Didn’t we solve inequality during the civil rights movements of the 60s? Can’t every child go to school, apply herself, get a college degree, and find a better life? We do have enough stories of people who have done it to think it’s true, not admitting that these are still the exceptional stories not the routine ones.

Without hope of a better, the tools to get there, a support network to encourage them they will never recognize the opportunities that may be at their disposal or be able to access them. There’s a reason why there are neighborhoods we wouldn’t chose to live in and schools we send our kids to.

Like #2: If you work hard enough you can be anything you want to be. Whenever someone becomes President or wins an award they claim it is proof that in America you can be anything that you want to be if you dream big and just work hard enough.

On the face of it, that conclusion is absurd. Only a miniscule percentage of people can make it to the top of any profession and those usually had some combination of lucky breaks, helpful relationships, or a gift or talent not everyone has. They want to believe they did it on our own so they can reap the rewards guiltlessly. But it creates so many false expectations. Not every child who dreams of being President, best-selling author, star athlete, a doctor or even an astronaut will get to be one. Competition will ensure that only a few will get to live those dream.

While capitalism gives everyone a shot at success, it tends to reward greed, which is why any industry rewards so few people with exorbitant amounts of money while all the average worker make a pittance in comparison. I’ve never understood the CEO who works alongside support staff who make a fraction of his salary, or the star athlete who thinks he deserves so much more than his supporting cast. Capitalism doesn’t reward the hardest workers, but the well-connected and whatever tinkering the government does with it should be to mitigate on behalf of those on the lower ends, not sell out to those on the upper ones.

Lie #3: Every human is equally valued. By God, yes! By human societies, or even among societies, far from it! Even if we may confess that all are created equal, in practical terms a culture weights its priorities to those in power. Some of us grew up with tremendous support systems, parents that championed us, a community that shared a common value of hard work and self-discipline. Others grow up in communities where it takes every ounce of energy just to survive the influences that pull them into a darker world and every day face biases in society that give them a steeper hill to climb. The cry of “Black Lives Matter” was not to say that others didn’t, but to get the culture to recognize that in many places people of color are less valued by those in power and put at greater risk by them.

Lie #4: Inalienable rights apply only to American citizens. Our forbearers fought a revolution on the premise that all of us are created equal and that our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not bestowed by government, but the gift of Providence. When we think American citizens deserve more than others in the world, we undermine our own revolution. When you can hold others in contempt for simply wanting the same things you want, you make the world a poorer place. We would be better served with a more holistic view of the world knowing that none of us are truly free until we all are. Nelson Mandela said it best,  “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Lie #5: Illegal immigrants deserve the hardships they endure for breaking our law. They should just go home and get in line like everyone else.

What if they can’t go home because home has been here for so long there’s nothing to go back to? For decades our society has exploited this group both in hiring them at lower wages and denying them access to the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. I realize this is a failure of government to secure the border, and that appropriate measures must be taken to regulate immigration so it won’t overwhelm the culture. Not every child born her should automatically become a US citizen, especially when the parents are nonresidents. We can argue those issues in other venues, but we let them come here, exploited their labor, and shown no will to make them return for multiple decades. It is unjust to let them live in limbo while both political parties use their plight to garner votes when no one is actually serious about resolving the problem.

And those who are not willing to consider a pathway for legality for those who are living in the shadows of American society can’t possibly know anyone who came here in fear of their lives or simply to try and find a way to feed their children. Let me tell you about the “illegal alien” I know. He came here twenty-five years ago because as young man he faced certain death if he didn’t join the drug cartel. He works far harder than I do, and is constantly exploited by employers that increase his work while decreasing his pay, knowing he can’t complain. He pays taxes and has never sought welfare or free medical care. He keeps the laws more than I do because the consequences of being caught are so devastating.

His two daughters are U.S. citizens. A few years ago He sold everything he had to pay $18,000 to an attorney who promised him a way to get a green card, only to see the lawyer arrested a few years later for selling fraudulent documents. No human being deserves to be treated like this and our society should no longer ignore his presence or how we have exploited him. There is enough in America to absorb these extra people. They are already here. They are already contributing and if they haven’t broken the law in other ways we should fight for their inclusion in our society at some level. Even the Old Testament encourages kindness and compassion for the stranger or alien. Oh, that may mean some of us will have to wait an extra six months before upgrading our iPhone, but is that to high a price to pay?

Lie #6: I did something deserving to be born in a developed country with a comfortable lifestyle. No one actually says this one out loud, but you can tell they believe it by how they look at others “less fortunate” than them. Born part way up the ladder of success, they can’t understand the challenges of those to even find that ladder or even have access to it’s lowest rungs.

If where we were born, and what abilities and talents we have is a gift, wouldn’t we be more mindful of those who have less to start with and greater challenges to overcome to find a stable place in society?

Lie #7: Desperate people have choices. We think people can better themselves by hard work and discipline, and for the most part many can. But what if demands of daily survival are so overwhelming that they don’t have the time or energy to do so? Some people are simply victims of crime, war, famine, natural disaster, medical conditions, or psychological brokenness that they have incredibly few choices. Send an immigrant home or telling a poor youth to get a job may seem easy enough from your station up the ladder, but for people trying to survive the next day, the feat may be unimaginable without some help.

People on the margins need help to find a fruitful life in our society. Many of us got that from our parents or the slice of culture we lived in. Many did not. They need someone to be a champion for them, finding the space in their lives and the opportunities at hand to move away from the inheritance of their past and find a better future.

Lie #8: That government can fix these problems with the right program. If you were afraid my discoveries have made me a Bernie Sanders socialist, they have not. While government programs can help address these issues in a limited way, the effectiveness of mass bureaucracies has a horrible track record. My wealthy liberal friends are so certain government can fix all of this by passing laws and redistributing income, and can’t seem to admit that the worst kind of entitlement does not come from the poor who need help, but politicians and bureaucrats who run the programs for their own gain or convenience. We can’t even get government to provide health care to our veterans without huge delays, or waste and fraud by the bureaucrats themselves. Many are more concerned with their lavish pensions, red tape, and extravagant retreats than the veterans themselves.

I sometimes wonder if those who push government for the poor are their way of spending other people’s money to make them feel like they are doing good, when they are not willing to invite those people into their lives and homes. They can pat themselves on the back for doing good without ever making a personal connection among the poor and marginalized. That’s why many of our programs are not about empowering them to a better way of living, but only making them more dependent on the government and the political party that wants their vote. Socialism rewards laziness and dishonesty precisely because it doesn’t involve people in the solution, only dollars. Our government programs are broken, flush with massive waste and corruption. Washington, DC is the most affluent area of our country and they produce nothing except twisted laws to reward special interests as they line their own pockets. Start a government program and within a few years it will be less about the need it was meant to address as protecting the bureaucracy it spawned. Until government officials can be disciplined for incompetence and fraud, that won’t change.

But that doesn’t mean that individuals can’t respond out of a generosity that is born of proximity. The reason why so much of our nation remains calloused to these problems is because they don’t know anyone actually facing them. Until you know people who deal with violence or hunger or have a relationship with an undocumented worker you can ignore their plight and stick with the political view that serves your own ends. Proximity changes everything. Get outside your culture group and engage firsthand the challenges others face then you’ll know how you might be able to help them.

Until “those people” who crossed the border illegally, or live in dangerous neighborhoods become our friends and neighbors nothing will change. Until we see the world as our neighborhood and put faces and personalities to orphans growing up on the streets, children trafficked for sex, or parents starving in war or drought, those situations remain an abstraction and we can hold our law-and-order principles to the exclusion of love and compassion. Get to know some of them, and your heart will change. Jesus told a story about a Good Samaritan to help us understand we are all part of a bigger family and cannot think only of ourselves.

This is where the lies of affluence come to die and some amazing acts of human compassion can begin. When you find people hurting, help them with whatever you have. If you don’t know any, volunteer at a soup kitchen, or a ministry in the inner city. Don’t just give them money, befriend them and you will no longer be able to hide in those lies. You’ll join them in looking for solutions that will help empower them to better their own lives rather than remain dependent on others. You will be a voice for a more compassionate society. Change happens when the powerful advocate on behalf of the powerless, instead of making them fight for it themselves.

And I’m not talking only to the one-percent-ers here. From a global perspective if you have $3,650 of net worth—including the equity in your home—you are among the top 50% of the worlds wealthiest citizens. If you have than $77,000 you are in the top 10%. And if you have $798,000 you belong to the top 1%. That’s according to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. That’s not a merit badge to wear proudly, but an opportunity to look for ways to share with others in the world where children still go to bed hungry or wake up in fear for their lives.

Generosity emerges when we realize everything we have is a gift, and the more we have the more responsible we need to be in sharing it with others who do not have the same advantages we do. It seeks to help them not only by the charity of things, but also by empowering them with the tools to better their own lives.

I know no system that can change the world. I know the generosity that can change one life or one family, one neighborhood at a time. If enough of us buy into that, then the world will change too.

I spent most of my day in tears yesterday.

I spent the morning watching another rough cut of the movie adaptation of The Shack.  I found myself deeply moved by the retelling of this story. Tears welled up often with a tenderness for the work of God in the midst of human tragedy. I’m not sure when it will be released yet. They are still working on it, and pushed the release back to November 18, 2016.

Last night I was in tears for far different reasons.  When a dinner date we had planned cancelled, we went to see the new film, Spotlight, which tells the story of the Boston Globe reporters uncovering sexual abuse by Catholic priests and how they were enabled by a hierarchy more interested in protecting their reputation than little boys and girls. I mostly see movies for entertainment purposes. I get enough pain in my emails and conversations from the brutality of life.  I’m not going to review the movie here though it has received much acclaim and is incredibly well done. I just want to say everyone needs to see this movie. Admittedly it isn’t easy to watch, but I think everyone would find a depth of their soul enlightened…

• To feel the pain of those who were abused and for so long ignored by the people that who were supposed to have protected them. Many of them committed suicide or overdosed on drugs and alcohol to deal with the undeserved shape and a pain no one would believe.
• To be reminded how the desire to protect a religious system can twist otherwise well-meaning people into co-conspirators of the worst kind of evil, all while they maintain their place and status in the culture. The power of spiritual hierarchies is unfathomable and unrelenting.
• To appreciate the courage of those who pursued the truth even when everyone stood against them and made it nearly impossible to find

And don’t be so naive as to think this is only a Catholic problem. Although it reached systemic proportions that boggle the mind due to the specific nature of that institution, I know many Protestant churches who engineered similar cover-ups, one who refused to expose an elder who was molesting his stepchild and a denominational official who kept moving his son to different congregations even though he was abusing women in every one he’d been to. The hubris of a “church” institution being superior to the state and able to handle it’s own problems, combined with the fear of negative public perception was a powerful brew that led many to the poorest of choices.

What a tender day! One that will shape me in many ways for days and experiences to come. And to all those who have been abused in their youth by someone they trusted, my heart goes out to you as does the heart of God.  You are deeply loved and your brokenness is not to your shame. You are not damaged goods; you are a beloved son or daughter of a Gracious Father. Your abuse is not proof that he does not love you, only that our culture is permeated by those who chose evil over health and healing.

May you find your path to healing and freedom as well and triumph over your tragedy.