Nice to be talking with you again. It has been awhile.
My reason for speaking up and posting yesterday was not to debate the doctrinal value of “The Shack”. It is a novel.
What concerns me is the judgmental tone here on 4TG of those who want to disparage someone’s personal spiritual journey. Isn’t that exactly what the 4TG concern is regarding FAF (judging and disparaging current SDAs)? Is it fair to then turn around and judge from your point of view that someone needs “to remove the log from their eyes”? Is it “right” to take a short post that quoted a few lines from a book you have not read and assume you understand the meaning of the book and the doctrinal motives and spiritual journey of the person(s) writing the post? I have a hard time understanding how those kind of judgmental tones are “for the Gospel”.
Greg, I have been open with you in the past regarding my personal journey. You know some of what I have walked through but there is much you don’t know as I have not shared. Just as I don’t know the paths you have walked to arrive to today or the paths of others that post here at 4TG. No one is in a possession to know where the journeys of another have taken them which is the make-up of who they are today. It is through our own personal paths that we find the Truth. It is our very own spiritual journeys that bring us to this place. God brings us to Himself and it blows my mind how I can’t even begin to fathom the endlessness of His leadings. Through pain, suffering, broken relationships, fear, the need to control....to a place of healing, peace and joy - God is far more personal than any of us give Him credit.
If I read “The Shack” purely for theological meaning, I would not agree with everything. Are there things I disagree with? Yes. It is not my source of Truth. It is merely a relection of human struggle. I did not read it with any theological thoughts at all. The value I find in the book is healing of my own personal wounds and issues which is something I believe with all my heart that Jesus died for. Doctrines do not heal. God in a box does not deal with deep, unresolved issues and wounds (at least the one I have had Him in). These are the areas in my life that I have avoided through keeping Him in His nice tidy box of doctrines.
This book (a novel) is beautifully written to show God as The Source of rescuing us from self-pity, anger, resentment, suffering, deeply wounded human needs - darkness of our past - and experiencing healing through the freedom found in surrender to Him. It is a book I feel anyone who is hanging onto hurt in their past should read. Through Jesus we can all live in the reality of His love today, experiencing the blessings we have now because of yesterday’s sorrows.
Internal healing occurs in surrendering my past to Him.
Thanks for your continued dialogue on this book and for sharing your valuable perspective. Certainly we all come from different backgrounds with different challenges, hurts, wounds, and therefore different spiritual needs. I will never dispute this with you and if you have found comfort and encouragement in The Shack, I am thankful for it.
I want to address what you said about being judgmental, which I think is a fair criticism. What I responded to above was the constant need of “some” former Adventists to bring everything back to the evils of Adventism. Looking for problems with the Adventist understanding of the Trinity is just one example and we’ve talked about this on other threads (e.g. this one). It is hypocritical for people to endorse a book like The Shack with its confusing ideas about the Trinity while at the same time writing articles about how Adventists worship a “different Jesus” because Adventists exhibit some of the same confused thinking. Yes, this is a judgmental statement. I stand by it, however, because I see deep problems in the “us vs. them” complex that some former Adventists have when it comes to dealing with their Adventist upbringing. Denise, I share your desire for former Adventists to see themselves as entering the newness of life in Christ rather than simply reacting to the unbiblical teachings of Adventism which they resurrect and simultaneously destroy on a daily basis. If the Christianity of a former Adventist is centered primarily on being a “former” who delights in shooting holes in the unbiblical Adventist doctrines and in finding new Ellen White heresies, I fear they are still dependent upon the Adventist church—now no longer as a guiding religious force but as an enemy to wage war against.
Lastly, I still think we can look for solutions to life’s problems in the doctrines of Scripture. For example, Jesus’ death on the cross provides a comforting look at the sufferings our Creator endured to save us. When we experience trials in our own life, we can cling to him because he understands our pain and in fact, he suffered far worse. As another example, James tells us to “count it all joy” when we experience life’s trials, “because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:2-3). These verses help us understand the biblical doctrine of sanctification—that God continues to allow trials to occur in our lives so that our faith and dependence upon him will be strengthened. Yet another example are the doctrines of God’s omniscience and providence. We serve a God who doesn’t leave things up to chance, but sees the beginning from the end and who knows our needs before we even ask, even to the point of helping us to pray when we don’t know how to express our needs adequately (Romans 8: 26). All of these doctrines are tremendously important because they show us what kind of God we serve—he is not a far-off, cold, disinterested deity, but a God who knows us better than we know ourselves, even to the point of knitting us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13)! These Bible doctrines have tremendous practical application to our mundane and often pain-filled lives, because they give us a picture of the Almighty and help us to realize that he is not far off, but is very near to each one of us (Acts 17:27).
Denise, thanks again for sharing your perspective and I pray these words don’t seem cold, lifeless and uncaring. I share your concerns for current and former Adventists alike. We may not agree on every point, and we shouldn’t expect to see eye to eye on everything because we have traveled on different roads to get here. But in Christ, we walk the same road where forgiveness of sins is proclaimed and what lies ahead far outweighs whatever is behind us.
Thank you my friend, and may God’s name be praised,
I thank you for your continued discussion. The main point that brought me out of lurk mode and what is at the very heart of what I am trying to convey is caution to 4TG members to avoid the “us” vs “them” in your thinking towards formers just as I would love for formers to avoid regarding Adventists. Life is a process and we all have left Adventism with our own baggage. I caution myself as well from judging those who seem to, in my own limited eye sight, hang onto hurt and bitterness over their experience of living in and leaving Adventism as well as those of you here on 4TG who have been hurt on FAF.
Your third paragraph is beautifully written and right on in my book. Every single one of your points is what William P Young has so artfully used as the basic theme of his novel.
It is an amazing message that only our Great Father, Redeemer and Friend could have authored before time ever began. It is a message no mere mortal could have begun to dream as a possiblity. I am so glad His thoughts are His and His ways are His.
I saw an interview with Mr. Young where he stated it is his hope that readers of his book understand and pursue a thriving awareness that God heals and redeems all our journeys. That is my prayer for all of us as we continue to grow in Him.
I am very, very disappointed that I am finding the same tone here at 4TG. I am not disappointed that you disagree with me. That is fine. What is a shame is the judgmental tone. Have any of you actually read the book? Did you see it is A NOVEL? Did anyone say it was sacred and to be heeded?
Denise,
I perfectly agree that it is a novel. Also “The Da Vinci Code” is a novel. If both books will be considered as nothing else than novels, fictitious books, having no relationship with the real world, that will be fine. But when these novels impact the real life of the Christian, when a lot of people are influenced by the ideas contained in the book, when these novel books make a revolution in the thinking of people, they are setting themselves up for criticism. Christians cannot remain silent regarding “The Da Vinci Code” because a lot of people are challenging Christians on the basis of this novel.
The situation of “The Shack” is similar, the ideas of the novel making a huge impact in the lives of many, and people are transformed in their relationship with God because of reading the ideas presented in the book. Instead of saying “It is a novel, it does not have connection with reality”, people embrace the theological ideas presented in the book. As in the case of “The Da Vince Code”, when the novel presents a theology which goes against the Bible, and people are embracing the ideas presented in the novel, the Christians who are concerned can not remain silent.
And if the problems which the book presents are serious threats to the Christian faith, as I think they are and my concerns are stated in the previous posts, my plea against the book cannot be without some emotional involvement, due to the danger it presents. Warning a guy who’s on the bridge of falling in a trap using a whispering voice, or unconcerned voice, will carry the message that it is not really important. Perhaps this is why in my messages a lot of emotional tones were involved. Maybe some readers will thank God some day that they had not embraced the grave errors found in “The Shack”.
I want to be clear about something you wrote yesterday, which you copied from your FAF post. You said: “Religion and doctrines have been the devil’s best tools from the beginning of time!” Based on what you wrote in response to me above, I’m guessing you mean “false religion and false doctrines” here, but you didn’t qualify your comments. There was a time when I thought all doctrine was bad, but I realized that it isn’t doctrine that’s bad, it’s false doctrine. Paul counseled Timothy to “guard the deposit” of truth he’d been given, calling everything else “babbling” instead of true knowledge (1 Timothy 6:20-21). We need to be careful when we say that doctrine isn’t important, because it goes against the grain of what Jesus and the apostles taught
Also, you said we (or me, perhaps) had been hurt by our experiences on FAF. I disagree with that. I think the words “disappointed”, “saddened” and “dismayed” are more accurate. With the benefit of more time away from that forum, I see a greater need to speak up about the conflicting and sometimes harmful teachings that find a home there. If we cannot bring ourselves to tolerate the errors of Adventism, we need to be careful what we allow to grow and flourish in its place. Said another way, the bounds of orthodoxy do not end at the edges of the Adventist church, yet this seems to be the prevailing message of many former Adventists. “As long as it isn’t Adventist, it’s OK” is neither a safe nor a particularly helpful message.
First of all I want to thank you for coming on here and stating your convictions.
You are absolutely right about the fact that we have all taken different paths to get where we are now. As you stated above, you have been through very extra0rdinary circumstances, and I praise God if you have found comfort in the book we are discussing.. And if you can separate the questionable theology from a message of healing and forgiveness through Christ, then it is likely that the book will not do significant harm on an individual basis.
What was missed by those on FAF who were angered by Tim Challies review, was the fact that Tim did say that there were lots of good things in the book, and if those good things helped you and Randy, then I think this is OK.
However, I have a serious concern about some formers who because of the abuses in the SDA church, and their perversion of the use of the Law, now want to throw the baby out with the bath water and regard all systematic theology with suspicion.
You seemed to refer to the adherence of doctrinal purity and a strict view of scripture and the rules contained in scripture as putting God in a box. You at least seemed to indicate that it is only Jesus that matters, and not strong teaching on doctrine. Please correct me if I am wrong. However it is impossible to divorce the true Jesus of scripture from the very deep teachings that he taught. Please read the book of John and especially chapters 3,5,6,8, and 10 to find a systematic Reformed doctrine taught by Jesus Himself,--teachings that many on FAF and mainstream Christianity regard as “Calvinism” and they reject it out of hand. Theologians like RC Sproul and John MacArthur are respected less and less now on FAF.
I have seen a pattern by the moderator of FAF to start to wander away from her previous adherence to pure Biblical doctrine as being important. There is an increasing interest in Charismatic teachings which in the past she would have regarded with suspicion. She used to be very strong on systematic theology when I used to go to the Bible studies she taught, but on FAF, I seem to see someone different. This is what bothered me while I was posting on FAF. But to echo Greg, I wasn’t one bit hurt by my banning from FAF. As it turned out, it was the right timing for me to move on. Colleen’s opinions on the book in question seemed to try to have it both ways, in one sentence saying she shared Challies concerns, but then seeming to say something else, so as to try to please both sides.
Denise, I have also been very open publiclly on this forum, detailing the experiences I have had in the past year with my beloved wife who has suffered so much due to her multiple strokes to the point where she is only a shadow of her former self, but she now has a beautiful child-like love for the Lord, and this experience has strengthened our faith in the Lord. But through this experience, I have been heartened to know that we serve a God who has revealed Himself so marvelously through His Word, and I have found great comfort reading through the Psalms, and the gospels. Immersing oneself in the Word of God is the best treatment ever for any malady. God will bring healing and forgiveness by meditating on His Word.
As SDAs have depended on Ellen White instead of scripture, many former SDAs are turning to books outside of scripture. One case in point has been “Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren, which many churches use as a study guide instead of scripture itself.
My faith has been sustained by knowing that the Bible asserts that God is absolutely sovereign over ALL events in our lives--good and bad. The Bible is a marvelous book, and regarding it as the only sole and sufficient revealer of truth no way puts God in a box. The Jesus of the Bible affirmed the importance of the written Word, and to follow Christ means that we submit ourselves to the scriptures and be open to let the Holy Spirit teach us from the pages of scripture, and not extra-Biblical revelations or writings..
Thanks again Denise for coming on here and I will continue to pray for you and yours.
Reading Stan’s and Greg’s post I became increasingly aware of the false impression that my criticism of “The Shack” can give . I fully agree with Stan that it is possible to receive a blessing from the book, and I don’t want my criticism of the bad parts to overturn the good parts. My intention was to counteract the acceptance of the bad part based on the good part, without discrimination. I know from my experience how much I suffered because I accepted Ellen White’s bad teaching because of the good things she wrote. And I face almost every week the apology that says “How can you criticize Ellen White when she wrote so beautiful things, how can she be a false prophet when she helped the SDA church move toward Trinitarianism?” and so on. I cringe when people stick to dangerous doctrines on the basis of the good they found in the respective writing.
May God bless anybody with a clear understanding of his truths, and may he protect us from error.
Reading Stan’s and Greg’s post I became increasingly aware of the false impression that my criticism of “The Shack” can give . I fully agree with Stan that it is possible to receive a blessing from the book, and I don’t want my criticism of the bad parts to overturn the good parts. My intention was to counteract the acceptance of the bad part based on the good part, without discrimination. I know from my experience how much I suffered because I accepted Ellen White’s bad teaching because of the good things she wrote. And I face almost every week the apology that says “How can you criticize Ellen White when she wrote so beautiful things, how can she be a false prophet when she helped the SDA church move toward Trinitarianism?” and so on. I cringe when people stick to dangerous doctrines on the basis of the good they found in the respective writing.
May God bless anybody with a clear understanding of his truths, and may he protect us from error.
Gabriel
Right! How can you reject our “food” just because it has 1% strychnine in it?
It is clear we agree on many things doctrinal. I can’t argue any of your theology. I think the area we disagree most is methodology. I do not believe I have any power to “convert” and I leave that to The Great Power of the universe. Oh, trust me, I hope and pray God uses my life and my love for Him to glorify Himself to anyone I may come in contact with. The greatest thing I can “do” for Him is know Him personally. It is not my preaching of doctrines or my ability to quote Scripture that draws peoples attention to God - if it worked that way it would give me too much power - I can do nothing of myself accept know Him more.
So, yes Greg, I do feel doctrines - both false and true - can be putting God in a box. Whenever we put ourselves in a position of feeling we can do something to change someone’s heart by knowing and spouting off all the right doctrines, I believe we are saying we have the “power” to be God. The famous verse we all know and learned as children (or from watching football!) tells us...."whosoever believes [in Jesus] has eternal life”. It does not say, “in the right religion, theology, in life after death, the Trinity....” it is about Jesus.
I believe even if my doctrine is right on and Biblically sound - yet it is absolute - I fear I can “kill” Jesus with doctrine . There are too many false doctrines out there and they all sound dogmatic, belittling, harsh and ugly. So even if the doctrines are Biblically sound, and if they are shared even with the greatest of kindness and respect, they may come off sounding exactly like all the other false doctrines. Maybe I am more sensitive right now to this because of having teenagers, but it seems if all we are concerned with is being right and everyone else knowing that we are right, we are probably going to make a mess of what God can do better.
PLEASE do not think I am saying you are “killing” Jesus. For me, I am uncomfortable telling people in my judgment they are wrong and I am right. (If they ask me, trust me, I can give them an ear full!) I KNOW your hearts and I fully trust your love and relationship without any judgement. The great commission instructs us to spread the gospel and good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself spread the good news through His life and His relationship with His Father. I pray my relationship will be used in God’s glory and timing in the same way and He will do the “pushing” of people in an understanding of His doctrines. I trust Him enough to know He knows their journey and the best timing for them to learn and grow in Him. Then all the glory is His and not mine.
I am sure what I am saying to you right now will be disagreed with - that is okay. This is where my journey has taken me. It is where I believe Jesus at this point in my life is calling me to be - tomorrow will be a different day and I pray I will be tuned in to Him when He changes course for me. I want Him to be the center and not my theology. I will leave it up to Him to direct those around me - my foremost need is to know Him and pray He can use something from all my brokenness because of the power of His love and relationship in my life.
Adam and Eve had a relationship and walk with Jesus. They were given one doctrine, eat of this tree and you will die. They chose not to believe and obey God’s revealed will and they fell into sin.
God has since revealed His plan of salvation through His written word. The devil is still there to tempt us to think that it can’t be so, but if we follow our convictions based on His word, we will be safe. Jesus Himself is the Word. Can I have a relationship with Jesus and not love the Word?
It seems to me that the book “The Shack” promotes a ‘feeling’ relationship with Jesus and not an intellectual one. I apologize for not having read it or planning on reading it. I’m not surprised that Denise is more attracted to the feeling orientation while Stan, Greg, Gabriel and Larry are more comfortable with the intellectual (as I am). I do not want to rely on my feelings or impressions when it comes to God’s will for me or what is the truth. Except for the occasional EGW or Adventist poke, I more or less agree.
As for Mormons, Buddhists and Muslims (Hindus and others) being saved, I must be careful. God knows their hearts and judges rightly. It seems simple to me… will anyone be in heaven that doesn’t love Jesus? If someone hates Jesus what joy will they have in a place where Jesus is everywhere exalted? I believe there will be people saved that did not know the name of Jesus but loved and followed the light that God revealed to them to the best of their abilities. In heaven they will love Jesus because they loved His character as was revealed to them here on earth. I also believe there will be people lost who took the name of Jesus but did not develop a relationship with Him.
I want Jesus to be my center AND my theology. Lets try to keep things in balance and not swing to extremes by centering on one without the other.
...I believe there will be people saved that did not know the name of Jesus but loved and followed the light that God revealed to them to the best of their abilities.
Please consider what our Lord says in John 14:6:
6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
[quote author="Bill, you continued:"] In heaven they will love Jesus because they loved His character as was revealed to them here on earth.
If a person does not know Christ by faith while living, he will have no claim in heaven!
Matthew 7:21 21"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Also, the previous verse validates your next statement:
[quote author="Bill, you also stated:"] I also believe there will be people lost who took the name of Jesus but did not develop a relationship with Him.
And finally, you said…
[quote author="Bill"] I want Jesus to be my center AND my theology. Lets try to keep things in balance and not swing to extremes by centering on one without the other.
The Truth has no extremes! Truth has no need for balance nor a center. The Truth is the Gospel, which is the Word of our Lord and Savior. Nothing can be added or taken away from the Word/Truth/Gospel without its diminishment.
As it is written (these verses are entitled “No Other Gospel"):
Galatians 1:6-10 (NIV) 6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
10Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Please be careful dear brother. We, as sinners, naturally abhor the truth of the Gospel.
Dan,
If a person does not know Christ by faith while living, he will have no claim in heaven!
Easy my friend! Then you may not believe that Joshua or Moses were saved? I’m sure you don’t believe that, but the OT gives us many examples of people who were saved because they responded to God’s call and didn’t necessarily know the name of Jesus. I believe that God reveals right and wrong to every person and that person has a chance to respond.
Matthew 25:37-40, “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
Who am I to say who God can save and who He can’t. Why can’t God save someone lost in the jungles who believed in his heart it wasn’t right to eat his fellow men for dinner and believed in a God that must have created nature and loved and respected the God of nature and his fellow creatures. I don’t think that’s far fetched! Here’s some heresy… God might actually save a few SDA’s!
Just having some fun…
Lastly, you say there is no extreme when it comes to truth. Denise commented that she wanted Jesus to be the center and not her theology. My comment was that I want Jesus to be my center and my theology. I’m not sure I understand what your issue or concern with this is… You’ll need to help me out more. I don’t want to be extremely centered on my feelings to the expense of my theology. There is another issue that makes a man relationship with Jesus different than a womans (more intellectually based), but I don’t want to spend alot of time on it… Ex: The picture of Jesus as a mans husband goes against many mens views of relationships… much easier analogy for a woman to accept!
To revisit the original posting of concern regarding the book “The Shack”, here is a followup review more in depth by Tim Challies which can be found linked off of Justin Taylor’s blog:
I want to commend our friend Jeremy for being consistent. He exposes the heretical anti-trinitarian themes in the book. Also Sheryl Barker aka “Raven” makes excellent points about how “Adventist” the book really is. As expected, the majority of posters on that thread praise the book, or try to defend it by saying that “the book isn’t about theology or their view of God”. If this book had been published by an SDA publishing house, there would have been howls of protest by everyone, but if a non SDA espouses the same kind of heresy, then somehow it gets missed by all except the most discerning. I am a little suprised that the moderatoress of the FAF forum decided to be conspicuous by her absence of comment so far on this thread. She would have been all over this if it were an Adventist book. Heresy is heresy no matter where it is found.
One of the most troubling aspects of ministering to former Adventists, is to see the great tendency to leave one aberrant group, only to embrace other groups which are very problematic. Illustrations of this are evident in the embracing of the World Wide Church of God, despite their equally problematic heretical views, but all that mattered to some was the fact that they gave up the Sabbath. But in so doing, the WWCG embraced a very shallow view of the Law of God, and a false view of grace which included the second chance for salvation after death. They also became more charismatic. We now see the FAF leaders becoming more sympathetic to the charismatic movement, which only opens the door to more deception.
Here are two excellent posts on this topic. from the thread referenced above:
The first one is from Raven quoting from chapter 6 of the book:
“Mackenzie, I can fly, but humans can’t. Jesus is fully human. Although he is also fully God, he has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of his relationship with me, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being. He is just the first to do it to the uttermost—the first to absolutely trust my life within him, the first to believe in my love and my goodness without regard for appearance or consequence.
So, when he healed the blind?
He did so as a dependent, limited human being trusting in my life and power to be at work within him and through him. Jesus, as a human being, had no power within himself to heal anyone.
That came as a shock to Mack’s religious system.
Only as he rested in his relationship with me, and in our communion—our co-union—could he express my heart and will into any given circumstance. So, when you look at Jesus and it appears that he’s flying, he really is . . . flying. But what you are actually seeing is me; my life in him. That’s how he lives and acts as a true human, how every human is designed to live—out of my life.
It reminds me of EGW’s words that Jesus had no advantage over us, giving the impression if Christians would just stay connected with God they could do anything Jesus did and be as perfect.
I think the underlined sentences are disturbing. If you believed exactly what it’s saying, if someone can’t heal others, walk on water, turn water into wine, etc., it’s because they are not fully trusting in or fully connected with God. Never mind the fact that the only reason any human has ever performed a divine miracle was because God specifically permitted and caused that to happen. And it’s fairly obvious to me that God doesn’t choose for that to be commonplace occurrences—just like He doesn’t always heal every believer completely, physically or spiritually, this side of heaven.
This book doesn’t change my theology, and I’m not afraid it will corrupt me--although I think it could negatively influence plenty of people. If someone gets a blessing out of it without being deceived, that’s fine. I also started to read it for a blessing (not to look for problems) and thought I could overlook any theological liberties taken for the sake of the story. But it just bothered me too much to continue reading these kinds of heresies that exist because the author believes them, not because it’s necessary to the story. While I was prepared for errors over tri-theism and/or modality because of the difficulty many have accurately describing the triune nature, I was actually surprised to find this sort of error, because it sounds more like an SDA error than one that could be easily found in mainstream Christianity.
I’m willing to bet that if an SDA wrote a wonderfully heart-warming story that had pieces of the Great Controversy theme sprinkled in it (i.e. God needing to be vindicated), and came from the perspective of the “Adventist Jesus” which is supposed to be a dangerously different Jesus, and the book became a best-seller among Christians in general, almost everyone here would be very concerned for the deception. It would be a hotly-discussed problem. So I’m not sure why it’s considered closed-minded and looking for fault to see something so similar.”
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The views expressed by this author sound like classical new age mysticism. Thanks Raven for really hitting the nail on the head. I am sure this won’t make you very popular on FAF, but you said the right thing.
Now here is Jeremy’s reply to Raven’s post above:
Exactly, Raven.
Those quotes you posted are...heresy! There’s no other way to put it.
If Jesus “has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything” (what blasphemy!)--then who has done all of the “divine” things in the Universe for the last 2,000 years? Some other “Divine Nature”? The author is clearly saying there is more than one divine “nature"/god, and has stripped Jesus of His divinity!
And the following sentence is just Gnosticism, and sounds just like EGW:
“He has only lived out of his relationship with me, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being.”
In other words, we are supposed to be just as “divine” as Jesus is! Jesus is only a man with a (different) god indwelling and empowering him--just as we’re supposed to be, according to the author. That is dangerous Gnosticism.
It’s not called closed-mindedness or different perspectives. It’s called discernment and objective, absolute truth vs. false doctrine.
Jeremy
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Now, why is there no comment to the last two posts above by the moderator? Where is the outrage? It is probably easier to be politically correct and try to not offend anyone. Maybe it would be considered divisive to agree with the posts above. Well, at least the posts were not deleted.
