Regarding your links to the Shack book, I’d encourage you to know more about it than what you read about it on these posts. Have you read the book? Lots of folks haven’t and have such strong opinions about it…. Perhaps you have, and perhaps you know all I’m about to share, but if not, it’s very relevant.

My husband (a very doctrinally conservative reformed kind of guy who is also an abstract thinker who likes things that make him think about his faith which sometimes includes things outside the “box” like the Shack) was among the first to read a copy of this book, before it was popular, and before it was torn to shreds by those who in many cases haven’t even read it. I think it’s important to know about the author and sometimes the publisher as well before making a strong critique. (Challies probably has – good for him tho’ we disagree – but not all his readers are up to speed). We all make up stories and examples to explain things to our kids, and this story was a dad’s way of explaining some things to his own kids. And then it got noticed by a couple other guys who helped him get it printed and then folks read it, and honestly, it wasn’t written by or for theologians as some kind of theological treatise that is supposed to do justice to any doctrine really. That wasn’t the audience (nor were you and I) and it was part of an ongoing conversation with his kids, not a stand-alone doctrinal statement. If most of the “christian fiction” in CBD’s catalog was put under this kind of scrutiny, it’d be boycotted and blogged to death too.

If you’d like to read more intelligent conversation on the shack, may I encourage you to read what the internet monk has to say (directly in response to Challies as well as several other posts), as well as the author and the publishers, both of whom have background information on it that many folks aren’t taking the time to read. What the Shack IS doing that many Christians don’t is getting the topic out on the table in the broader culture with those who feel disenfrachised by the entire culture of Christian religiondom, both evangelical and beyond. For me, it was interesting to consider God’s relational aspects, and how much we assume about a God who quite honestly doesn’t fit in our boxes of who we think he is.

Here would be some links to that and thanks for taking the time to read this comment.
First about the author Paul Young:
http://www.windrumors.com/bio/
then the internet monk reviews, starting w/the one in contrast w/challies:
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/recommendation-and-review-the-shack-by-william-p-young
and
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/shack-attack
and finally comments by the guys who encouraged paul to publish it. All well worth reading, and none to convince you or any one else to change their mind, but all to make one’s opinions better informed.
http://www.windblownmedia.com/shackresponse.html
Of course, my underlying recommendation is to read the book for yourself as what it is and take away what you like, and leave what you don’t. It’s not the bible, it’s not at all authoritative (it’s a fictitious story!) and whether you like it or not, may it draw you closer to the Father, period. That is after all what IS important.

Thank you for your thoughts. I think that when we are talking about God and the Trinity we must be very careful even if it’s not supposed to be a theological treatise.