By Mike Oppenheimer
(From his new book The Trinity: The Triune Nature of God)
Today, the word Trinity, or Trinitarian theology, is taking on a whole new meaning, one of which most Christians are unaware but one that is working its way into the church through the highly popular book, The Shack. Let me explain. Many people have defended their admiration for The Shack, saying it is “just a novel.” But Shack author William Paul Young admits that The Shack is more than a novel; he considers it a theological book:
Please don’t misunderstand me; The Shack is theology. But it is theology wrapped in story.1
Young said these words in a book written by C. Baxter Kruger titled The Shack Revisited where Young wrote the foreword. He also stated in the foreword:
If you want to understand better the perspectives and theology that frame The Shack, this book [Kruger’s] is for you. Baxter has taken on the incredible task of exploring the nature and character of the God who met me in my own shack.2
Reading through The Shack Revisited, it becomes clear that Baxter’s main theme is what he calls “the trinitarian life.”
[Jesus] became what we are, entered into our world of confusion. . . . He found his way into our darkness, into the scary places inside our souls. And there he pitched his tent forever—and he brought his Papa [the Father] and the Holy Spirit with him. . . . inside of us all, because of Jesus, is nothing short of the very trinitarian life of God. . . . “I am good” because Jesus and his Father and the Holy Spirit have found me and live in me.3
Contrary to what I have described about the Trinity in my book, Baxter’s (and Young’s) view of the Trinity is not just about the shared deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Rather it encompasses all of humanity and all of creation:
From all eternity, God is not alone and solitary, but lives as Father, Son, and Spirit in a rich and glorious fellowship of utter oneness. . . . The trinitarian life is a great dance of unchained communion and intimacy . . . This life is unique, and it is good and right. . . . And this love, giving rise to such togetherness and fellowship and oneness, is the womb of the universe and of humanity within it.4
In presenting this view of the Trinity that there is “oneness” and “togetherness” throughout the universe and all humanity, Kruger introduces the idea that there is no separation between God and His creation:
The New Testament’s witness to Jesus leads to a revolution in human understanding of God as the blessed Trinity. It also leads to a revolution in our understanding of creation and of human existence as not separated from the triune God, but together with God in relationship forever. . . .
The triune God, the human race, and all creation are not separated but together in relationship. Jesus is the relationship. In his own being, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and all creation are together.5
This is classic New Age panentheistic thought that teaches that God is in all things and all people, that everything is sacred (filled with divinity), and that there is no gap between God and man and God and creation. While we would expect this kind of belief in the New Age, it is absolutely contradictory to biblical Christianity. Yet, the author of one of the most popular Christian books today has come right out and stated that Kruger’s book is the framework of The Shack. Kruger further explains this trinitarian “theology”:
This means that the mutual indwelling of the blessed Trinity now includes us! In Jesus, the human race has been gathered into the Holy Spirit’s world. . . . the staggering oneness of the blessed Trinity, have found us in our shacks—us: you, me, all of us—forever.6
The very identity of Jesus Christ as the One in whom the Father, the Holy Spirit, and all creation are bound together carries profound geopolitical, racial, social, environmental, economic, and educational implications . . . As the Creator incarnate, Jesus, in his relationship with his Father in the Spirit, is integral to every sphere and area of human life and of the life of our planet. Nothing was left behind when he ascended.7 (emphasis added)
Kruger states that “heaven and earth are united”8 and that “the life and oneness of the blessed Trinity have crossed the infinite divide and embraced us forever.”9 This is reminiscent of the New Age idiom “as above, so below” meaning that there is no gap between God in Heaven and His creation on earth. If this were true, then Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross would have been unnecessary. Kruger continues:
Jesus has included us in his relationship with his Father, and in his relationship with the Holy Spirit, and in his relationship with every person, and in his relationship with all creation. Jesus is the center of it all. . . .
We are not separated from the blessed Trinity, but included in the trinitarian life. This is our identity, the truth of our being, and our destiny of joy.10
William Paul Young not only admitted in the foreword of Kruger’s book that The Shack is based on Kruger’s panentheistic ideas on the Trinity, Young also presented the idea of what he calls “the lie of separation” on a television series on TBN in 2017 when he stated:
[I]t is a “lie” to believe that God is “separate” from His creation.11
Former New Age follower, Warren B. Smith, explains this “lie of separation”:
In the New Age, we didn’t believe in a real Satan. The only thing “satanic” was to not believe in the divine “Oneness” of all creation. The only “Satan” were those who were under “the illusion of separation”—those who did not believe that God was “in” everyone and everything.12
Read a few quotes by one who is accepted as the New Age “Christ” who reveals himself in various channeled writings:
The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself. There is no separation of God and His creation.13—A Course in Miracles
The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power.14—A Course in Miracles
Let Me take you with Me, My friends, back to your Source, back to the cradle of your Being, and release in you your Godhead.15—Maitreya
I shall drive from this Earth forever the curse of hatred, the sin of separation.16—Maitreya
The only solution is the Ultimate Truth: nothing exists in the universe that is separate from anything else—The “God” who spoke to Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God.17
This is your assignment. This is your work. You are to destroy the illusion of separation.18—Neale Donald Walsch’s “God”
As we are witnessing a growing apostasy in the church, which the Bible says will happen in the days before Christ’s return, a New Age spirit and false “Christ” who proclaims that God is in everything and everyone and there is no separation between God and man will continue to make himself known to the world. Paul warned about those who worship “the creature more than the Creator” (see Romans 1:23-25) in not recognizing that God and creation are truly separate and always will be. Unfortunately, many who proclaim to be Christians will fall for this lie. God, indeed, is separate from His creation. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is not humanity, and He is not creation.
(from Mike Oppenheimer’s new book The Trinity: The Triune Nature of God)
Endnotes:
1. William Paul Young in the foreword to C. Baxter Kruger’s book, The Shack Revisited (New York, NY: Faith Words, Hachette Book Group, 2012), p. xi.
2. Ibid., p. ix.
3. Ibid., p. 49.
4. Ibid., p. 62.
5. ibid., pp. 140-141.
6. Ibid., p. 141.
7. Ibid., p. 218.
8. Ibid., p. 219.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 22.
11. Restoring the Shack television series, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), 20 episodes that were originally broadcast from to July 9, 2017. Restoring the Shack online at: https://www.tbn.org/programs/restoring-shack).
12. Warren Smith, “Wm. Paul Young Teaches New Age Lie About Separation on TBN” (Lighthouse Trails Research blog, September 23, 2017, http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=23824).
13. A Course in Miracles, Combined Volume [Text, Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers] (Glen Ellen, CA: Foundation for Inner Peace, 1992), p. 147 (Text).
14. Ibid.
15. Message No. 51, November 23, 1978.
16. Ibid., p. 104.
17. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: Book 2 (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), p. 173.
18. Neale Donald Walsch, Friendship with God: An Uncommon Dialogue (New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999), p. 21.
I had to re-read this article in order to refresh my mind as to why The Shack is not of the Lord. A lady in a Bible study was praising the book. In private I told her the author’s salvation was questionable since his beliefs are not biblical. She argued that people can still be saved reading it even if the author is not. I had previously warned her about Jesus Calling.
I am so thankful for the articles here which reveal the sad truth about books like The Shack. For some time after that book was published, Wm. Paul Young would not give a straight answer about what he believed about salvation (universal salvation, or not). But a year or so ago he finally came out with the truth. He does believe in and seek to spread the lie of universal salvation. Eugene Peterson, who wrote the paraphrase (not a translation) The Message “bible” has been complicit in this. God help churches and Christians and unbelievers today! The vast spread of delusion from many quarters is keeping people from entering the Kingdom of God, and deceiving many others into believing in “another jesus” (not the true Christ Jesus the Lord), “another gospel” (not the Biblical Gospel) and “another spirit” (not the Holy Spirit of God).
Thank you Torunn. And I agree Ron, I have seen so many ironies in this whole thing that it must be celestial humor behind it, and in the end the joke is on the ones persecuting us. One of many: The fact that they ‘scoff’ about the return of Christ, just like the Bible says, (fulfilling prophecy) and claim that they must ‘bring in the kingdom,’ which they can’t, but that gets the ball rolling to the apostasy, and so on, and at the end of the dominoes after judgment is the true kingdom arriving, but it had nothing to do with them besides their unbelief! A rather humbling irony! ( ;
AMEN! Well written, Lydia!!
It makes me wonder where we are as a church. It’s certainly not a good place. The hardcore new agers say that there must be a cleansing of the earth, and yet many of them will end up in the lake of fire. That’s the irony they don’t get.
Right, this is one of the biggest deceptions of the new age creeping into the church, or should I say ‘storming’ in… The lie of ‘oneness’ is the lie, separation is the truth. We see this over and over in the Bible. 1. In the Garden of Eden, sin, sickness, and death entered in. Man became fallen with the sin nature and not only that, but a curse was placed on the earth and all of creation. We see this today, sickness, death, sin, the results of sin, and the fall in the animal kingdom as well. The lion and the lamb have not rested together yet, predatory practices are at work all over the creation, and so on! 2. The Bible states that God created all things, creation; the earth, the universe, man, etc. but He is NOT these things, God did not create Himself, He is eternal. He is all-present but not abiding within His creation, that is pantheism, panentheism, spiritism, nature worship, etc. God is separate from His creation. The earth is not ‘god,’ man is not ‘god,’ etc. 3. God cannot be united with a fallen and cursed creation. He is holy and separate from sin. 4. The only way for there to be any reconciliation is through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, as the Mediator and High Priest who ‘goes between’ in the holy of holies, making intercession for a fallen man, and yes, taking our sin as He represents God to man and man to God, the only one worthy to do so due to sinlessness. This was the only way for reconciliation to be available. 5. Once this was done, we have access to salvation, we can be reconciled to God through the holy blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. Only then can we enjoy fellowship with the Creator, but we must come to receive and apply it to ourselves, it is not ‘automatic.’ 6. Then, and only then, we receive the Holy Spirit and thus a relationship with God, He does indwell our hearts through His Spirit, but He is God, and we are NOT. 7. Jesus, when He returns, and only He, can restore all things to paradise and the pre-curse, pre-fall state when He brings in HIS kingdom, something we cannot do, again, because we are NOT God. Then it will be ‘heaven on earth,’ but not before that. First comes the judgment and wrath upon the earth, all those end of days events, the ‘day of atonement,’ and so on and then the Kingdom of heaven and a truly ‘new era’ will begin, but through the power of God, not the devil and deceived man’s abominable ‘new age’ that denies Christ. 8. We are called to ‘come out and be ye separate,’ and that from a sinful world inside and outside of the church, and that is a mandate to God’s people! 9. This whole idea of ‘the kingdom of God’ or of heaven gets confusing for some and they fall into dominionism. But this is NOT the kingdom of God, that would be a very poor substitute with the state of the world today. As the church, the ‘kingdom’ is in our hearts and among us as Jesus said, because we do have the Holy Spirit. But the true ‘kingdom’ will not cover the earth until Jesus returns to set it up, only He can establish it, we don’t ‘bring the kingdom.’ We share the gospel so that people can get saved and ‘enter the kingdom’ in the sense of being reconciled to God, which can only be done by the work of Christ on the cross, all the rest are still outside of it in that sense. The other form won’t be established until the return of Christ. He does not need us for that, but rather we need HIM! So they have totally repackaged the new age lie of oneness to sell it to the church, (the world of course also) who bites the apple of the devil’s deception and falls into apostasy via books like the shack, etc., as was prophesied long ago in the Bible. Thank you for posting this vital warning! Blessings