Postmodernity in many ways arose out of the ashes of the World Wars, which drew to an end much of the optimism and self-belief that characterised Modernism. It is our capacity for destruction and cruelty that is the ultimate enemy of postmodernism. Therefore, its big project has been disarmament. Ideologies and power systems are at the heart of all our conflicts, and so if we can do away with arrogance and power, perhaps we can do away with war.
In my last post, I discussed the attitude in postmodern Christianity, in evidence in The Shack, towards hierarchy and church structures. Now, I turn my attention towards the issues that are most important, and most troubling, in The Shack, that is, teaching about God’s wrath and salvation.
The fact that these issues touch most deeply upon the heart of the Christian gospel means that one must also be the most careful, both to avoid over-reaching (and thus wrongly condemning a fellow Christian), or to avoid tolerating teaching that is potentially most destructive. And this is just the problem in analysing The Shack. As a work of fiction, teaching is unfolded in an unstructured, unsupported way, and one is left to guess whether the words of a confused character such as Mack represent the author’s belief, or Mack’s mistake.
Furthermore, postmodernism highly prizes ‘reader response’ , which is the belief that the reader is ‘an active agent who imparts “real existence” to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation’ (cf. Wikipedia). In other words, the reader is the one who finally decides what the text means, or even creates its meaning. Ambiguity is thus not an enemy, but rather an opportunity for the reader to decide for himself what the truth is. The Shack is so difficult to analyse, and it has been so well received by all kinds of people, precisely because at the point where the gospel is likely to offend, ambiguity and confusion reign.
I was correctly criticised for labelling William P Young as a universalist in a previous chapter. He has directly claimed in interviews that he is not. He claims only to be restating scriptures from Paul (which universalists also do, mind you). But it is ambiguity and inadequate discussion of teaching on this matter that makes the actual view of salvation in The Shack so elusive.
GOD’S WRATH & JUDGEMENT
As we have seen, the flaw in the postmodern view of hierarchy is that it assumes that hierarchy always violates genuine relationship, an assumption that is not shared by scripture:
“Submit to one another [that is, those various people to whom submission is due] out of reverence for Christ… Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (Ep. 5:21, 24).
Our submission is a sign of reverence for Christ and reflects our attitude towards his rule. Yet this submission comes within the most intimate description of his loving relationship with us.
Similarly, The Shack makes a mistaken assumption that a God of love and a God of wrath are incompatible.
In the book, God’s relationship with people is likened to the relationship of a good parent to his child. ‘Papa’ is therefore ‘especially fond’ of every one of us. On pages 118-120, a key discussion about sin takes place:
Mack: “Are there any [people] you’re not especially fond of?”
Papa: “Nope, I haven’t been able to find any. I guess that’s jes’ the way I is.”
M: “Do you ever get mad at any of them?”
P: “Sho ’nuff! What parent doesn’t? … but that anger, especially for me, is an expression of love all the same. I love the ones I’m angry with just as much as those I’m not.”
So far so good. God does tell us that He loves all people, and if it were clear that the last line expresses that God can exercise wrath as well as love, Young and I would be walking the same path. However, in the story, Mack struggles to reconcile this assertion with the Biblical accounts of wrath and punishment of sin. Instead of clearing up this obvious objection, Young opts for evasion and ambiguity:
Papa: “I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.”
The genius of this line is that Papa never says that she doesn’t punish sin, and it comes in the context of the accusation that God enjoys punishing sin (which is an unhelpful exaggeration of the problem—it ought to be a discussion of whether God punishes sin). So, if you’re an evangelical in a generous mood, one might harmonise this with the numerous scriptures that directly teach that God does punish sin, though without enjoyment. However, given that it follows Mack’s anger at Biblical testimony of God’s wrath, the most natural way to understand Papa’s words is denial. Without attempting to find a place for God’s wrath in evidence in scripture, Young seems to be saying that God is not at all in the business of punishing people for their sins, but only in curing them.
A quick look at Hebrews 10:29-31 is enough to show the danger is Young’s teaching here:
“How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
This passage is one of many that shows the reality of God’s wrath and punishment of sin. The theme of God as avenger (hinted at here) also shows us that God does need to punish sin, because justice is not done in this life. Finally, it also reveals most starkly that sin is not in fact its own punishment. It may indeed be punishment in itself, but the damage that it does to us is entirely beside the point. The horror of sin is that is it rebellion: spitting in the face of God—more than that—in the face of God who gave Himself for us in ultimate self-sacrifice as a demonstration of His love and as the price of a New Covenant for us. Spitting in that face is the one thing that is worthy of punishment. The answer to our anger at God’s acts of judgement in scripture is not to pretend that they are not there, or that they’re not acts of God. The answer is to correct our convictions about the seriousness of sin.
In the chapter titled ‘Here come da judge’, discussion of sin and judgment is renewed. Young again equates God’s love for all people with a human father’s love for each of his children. One doesn’t have more or less love for any one of your children, you love them equally, despite their differences and failings. When you think of each individually, you’re ‘especially fond of each’. Their ‘sins’ don’t change your love for them. This analogy is compellingly developed in order to correct the view of God that sees Him delighting to send people to hell. Sophia, a figure representing Wisdom commands Mack:
“You must choose two of your children to spend eternity in God’s new heavens and new earth, but only two… and you must choose three of your children to spend eternity in hell.”
At this, Mack understandably expresses disbelief and panic.
Sophia: “I am only asking you to do something that you believe God does.”
This triggers in Mack an internal dialogue in which he realises that, while he always assumed God would be able to send people to hell, he finds it impossible to conceive of sending someone there who he cares about. Surely this is impossible for God, the book seems to suggest, whose love for everyone is deeper and more intimate than ours even for our own children?
Sophia: “So you suppose that God does this easily, but you cannot?”
Sophia insists that he choose which of his children to condemn. Mack thinks:
“How could God ask him to choose among his own children? There was no way he could sentence [one of his own] children to hell just because she sinned against him. Even if [they] committed some heinous crime, he still wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t! For him, it wasn’t about their performance; it was about his love for them.”
The breakthrough comes when Mack offers to go to hell in their place, and Sophia congratulates him for finally understanding judgment. Right judgment is judging everybody
“worthy of love, even if it costs you everything. That is how Jesus loves” (pages 162-163).
This chapter is moving and convincing, and as a father, it’s hard to argue with the idea that condemning a beloved child to hell would be impossible. However, as a parable to explain God’s judgment, it is seriously mistaken. The analogy between human fathers and God the Father fails for a few reasons.
Firstly, it ignores the reasons behind God’s insistence that He is the one who must avenge, and not us. God is able to judge impartially and justly, whereas we are biased and tend towards revenge rather than justice. Of any relationship, the human parent-child relationship is perhaps the most biased, a bias that is good for the survival of the child, but not good for justice. How many parents believe that their child is a genius, or will believe their child’s innocence even over the witness of a teacher? Furthermore, human judgment is severely limited by our inability to see the total consequences of our behaviour, and especially the true nature of sin. The fact that we are sinful as judges, and the fact that we are unable to perceive the true extent of our sins against our perfect creator, means that we tend to imagine our sins to be minor blemishes of no real significance. Every indication in scripture is to the opposite. When Isaiah is shown God’s holiness, he passes his own death sentence for his sinful lips (Is. 6:5). Later in his prophecy, God reveals that even the good works of rebellious people are as offensive as (literally) used menstrual cloths (Is. 64:6).
This diminished view of sin is the second problem evident in Young’s analogy. Mack cannot conceive of punishing his daughter “just because she sinned against him”. Even heinous sins are apparently not worthy of punishment. I find this hard to believe. If we imagine that the child in question had repeatedly raped and tortured another of your sweet young children, eventually killing her, could you really be a loving father if you decided to ignore the crime? You may indeed even continue loving the murderous child (as God surely does), but would you consider just punishment out of order for this child, and opposed to that love? How much more then, must hell (whatever the nature of the place ends up being) be both a place of God’s just punishment of deserving sinners, and yet also in keeping with his love?
The third problem with the scenario is that God’s love isn’t based upon our performance, but judgment is(e.g. Pr. 24:12; Ro. 2:6). Young sneakily forces us to choose whether we believe that God is characterised by love or by judgment by jamming the two ideas together. Yet, there is no reason to set love over and against punishment. A father disciplines those he loves.
Finally, Mack is considered to have understood Jesus’ love when he offers to go in the place of his children, because Jesus-like love “costs you everything”. Again, this is true, but not in the way that Young applies it. Jesus-like love does cost everything, but Jesus’ self-sacrifice does not exempt people from judgment by showing us all worthy of love. Jesus goes to the cross so that He can go under the penalty of God’s judgment and God’s outpoured wrath that we deserve. A just God cannot leave sin unpunished and choose simply to ‘love’ instead. Only by punishing sins in Christ can God be both just (satisfying His wrath) and also the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26). Judgment is much, much more than ‘judging someone worthy of love’.
IS SALVATION UNIVERSAL?
Young claims in interviews that he is not a universalist, but that he’s only restating what is clear from scripture about our salvation. There are indeed a number of statements in the book that do not fit well with most kinds of universalism, as Young is clear that salvation is only possible through Christ. Precisely what he means to teach on this matter is not clear, as the passages about salvation suffer from ambiguity more than most. It seems to me that The Shack is opposed to the idea that God will condemn anyone, which is the overwhelming message in the ‘Here Comes Da Judge’ chapter, and Young clearly states that Christ’s death has fully reconciled the world to God. As we shall see, it is impossible to know exactly what he means us to understand here, but it’s hard to see how one can hold to categories such as ‘saved’ and ‘unsaved’ under Young’s teaching.
Universalism & Religion
One of the key passages in matters of salvation comes on page 182:
Jesus: “Who said anything about being a Christian? I’m not a Christian… Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists, Muslims… I do not desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved.”
Mack: “Does that mean that all roads will lead to you?
Jesus: “Not at all. Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”
The idea that Jesus was not a Christian is a well-worn favourite of postmoderns who despise systems and ‘outgrouping’. It’s supposed to be an enlightening line (judging by Mack’s response in the book, which is not quoted above), but what precisely does it enlighten? Is it supposed to indicate that Jesus doesn’t approve of any of church history up ’til now? That we got it all wrong having elders and preachers and formal meetings, despite the fact that all of these were clearly part of the Apostolic conception of ‘church’?
What does Young mean that Jesus doesn’t desire that people of other faiths become Christian? He says they ‘were’ Buddhists etc., but what are they now? ‘Brothers and sisters’ is no answer at all, because that is clearly true of teaching about the church (i.e. the gathering of brothers and sisters) in scripture, and giving a group a new name doesn’t change the group itself.
What does it mean that Jesus joins us in our transformation? What does it mean actually when a road leads ‘nowhere’? Or that Jesus will ‘travel any road to find us’? Mack poses the direct question about universalism (all roads leading to Christ), and even though the answer is ‘no’, Young still hasn’t given a clear answer. All roads don’t lead to Christ, but Christ nevertheless finds us on every road and doesn’t care too much whether we join ‘Christianity’. Is this really any different to universalism?
I can’t help but feel that Young is deliberately avoiding clarity here, in true postmodern fashion, so that the reader can have the room to respond in whatever manner comforts him.
Universalism & the Cross
A second important issue is raised on page 192:
Papa: “Honey, you asked me what Jesus accomplished on the cross; so now listen to me carefully; through his death and resurrection, I am now fully reconciled to the world.”
Mack: “The whole world? You mean those who believe in you, right?”
Papa: “The whole world, Mack. All I’m telling you is that reconciliation is a two-way street, and I have done my part, totally, completely, finally. It’s not the nature of love to force a relationship, but it is the nature of love to open the way.”
Here is another instance of sublime reader-response material. It is impossible to know from this exchange exactly what Young means. Look at how the material fails to clearly answer its own question:
Papa’s first statement is supposed to be the ‘big reveal’, explaining the extent of Christ’s work. Bear in mind that ‘reconciliation’ is relationship language. In other words, when Papa says that He is fully reconciled to the world, in English it means that the relationship between God and man was perfectly restored by the cross. If one were to say, “At last! I have been reconciled to my estranged son!” it would be a lie if your son wasn’t aware of it. As it stands, Papa’s is a universalistic statement. He is, of course, probably trying to restate Romans 5, which is a favourite of universalists too, but Romans 5 is only claiming that the cross surpasses Adam’s sin in power, and in principle has the power to extend to all men and over all sin. The fact that not all people are automatically so covered is well attested to throughout scripture, such as Romans 3:26.
Mack’s response asks for clarification. He wants to know whether Papa really means the whole world, or whether reconciliation belongs only to those of faith. In other words, aren’t the benefits of the gospel only extended to those who believe? Isn’t relationship only restored once we have trusted in Jesus? If Young were really not a universalist, the answer would have to follow the likes of Romans 3:26 in saying that justification (and the reconciliation that follows this) is dependent upon faith. A universalist believes by contrast that Christ’s death has reconciled the world totally and in spite of itself.
Mack effectively asks for Papa to be clear whether salvation is universal or not, and Papa’s answer is that reconciliation has been effected for the whole world already. This would be universalism if it stopped there, but the rest of the statement shows that Papa probably doesn’t know what reconciliation means. It is indeed a ‘two-way street’, which is exactly why it is impossible to conceive of one-sided reconciliation. Yet this is what Papa then says, “I have done my part, totally, completely, finally”. You can’t consider yourself reconciled to someone who hates you. It’s nonsense.
So, between some universalistic statements, Young leaves a hint that people still have to do their part. The fact that hell and judgment seem to have no place in Young’s theology makes his claim not to be a universalist seem somewhat hollow. Whatever he believes is not too important (except for him). The most important thing is that the reader is given half-formed ideas that promise clarity (Mack asks for it on both occasions) and instead supply confusion. Perhaps the gospel isn’t meant to be hammered into postmodern moulds.
Universalism & the law
Young makes an extremely patchy analysis of the role of the law in the Christian life. Again, the ambiguity in the discussion makes it open to broad and easy misunderstanding, and in the final analysis, Young’s cynicism towards expectation and judgment leads to an inevitable conclusion that God has no requirements of us.
Sarayu: Jesus laid the demand of the Law to rest; it no longer has any power to accuse or command. Jesus is both its promise and its fulfilment.”
Mack: “Are you saying I don’t have to follow the rules?”
Sarayu: “Yes. In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful… Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control… [law-keeping mentality] grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them… Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainty out of uncertainty…”
Mack: “Whoa! … Are you telling me that responsibility and expectation are just another form of rules that we are no longer under? Did I hear you right?”
Papa: “Yup.” (Pg 203)
As a postmodernist first-and-foremost, Young is unsurprisingly ill disposed to ideas of law, because law also means the possibility of transgression and therefore punishment. All of this smacks of systems, organisation and power plays: postmodern swearwords.
Immediately prior to this quote, Young does a first-rate job of explaining that the law functions like a mirror to reveal our sinfulness, that we are unable to keep it, and that the Spirit indwells the believer in order to fulfil the law in us. He also makes it clear that this promise of law-laid-aside is void if we attempt to live life independently of Jesus. This certainly is an idea that is seemingly opposed to universalism, although it is never developed, and he never explains the implications of a life in rebellion against Christ. Having already said that sin is its own punishment, are we to assume that this is the end of it? On page 227, Papa says of Missy’s murderer, “my love will burn from his life every vestige of corruption… you [Mack] may well know this man in a different context one day”. Masterfully vague again, if this refers to an afterlife event at all, ‘hell’ is much the same as the usual concept of purgatory. Mack ‘may well’ meet the man (presumably) in heaven, but it is unclear what precisely this means or what the alternative is.
Young would no doubt claim that his discussion of the law is merely a paraphrase of scripture (e.g. ‘You are no longer under law, but under grace’), and the first line of the dialogue does so passably well, as long as the Torah (Jewish national law) is in view. Jesus is indeed its promise and fulfilment, and through the death of Christ, the death penalty has been paid on our behalf, freeing believers from any further legal condemnation.
Unfortunately, Mack’s clarification question forces the discussion into the domain of rules of any kind. The Spirit responds that Christians are free from any laws, rules, responsibilities and expectations. For a Christian, this is half true. It is true that none of these hold us in slavery and under death any longer. However, it is not at all true that we are no longer bound to any laws and responsibilities. Consider what scripture says:
“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practises and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:18-20).
In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does not downgrade the law in the slightest. In fact, he intensifies it so that it is understood to rule the heart, not just the behaviour. Of course, we cannot interpret this passage in opposition to what Paul says about the law, and all the Apostles were adamant that the law did not apply in the same way to us that it did to national Israel. Nevertheless, this passage makes it clear that there is an expectation upon us to keep the spirit of God’s law from the heart. This is because the law does more than reveal our sin. It also reveals God’s character. “Be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:44-45 etc.).
“…Command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work — which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly” (1Ti. 1:3-8).
Paul is the one who most readily claims that the law has been set aside, and the line ‘all things are lawful’ is his (although possibly taken from Corinthian theology, and quoted to indicate his disagreement with the sentiment). However, in this quote, God warns us to be cautious in the way that we deal with the law, because if we don’t know what we’re talking about, we’re in danger of becoming false teachers. He also affirms that the law is good if used properly, which he’ll later explain in broader, more positive terms than conviction of sin (2Ti. 3:15f).
In Young’s discussion, Sarayu (the Spirit character) also protests that law keeping ‘grants you the power to judge others’. I agree that legalism is an attempt at controlling what belongs to God, but law keeping is not wrong for the postmodern reason given here. In fact, in complete contrast to Young’s opinions, God commends and commands judgment of sin in the church in 1Co. 5:1-13:
“Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? … And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present… But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked man from among you.'”
Enforcing rules is not ‘a vain attempt at creating certainty’. It is a clear Biblical command in order to preserve the holiness of God’s community.
Young goes on to say:
Sarayu: “Let’s use your two words: responsibility and expectation. Before your words became nouns, they were first my words, nouns with movement and experience buried inside of them; the ability to respond and expectancy. My words are alive and dynamic – full of life and possibility; yours are dead, full of fear and judgement. That is why you won’t find the word responsibility in the scriptures… Religion must use law to empower itself and control the people who they need in order to survive… If I simply gave you a responsibility, I would not have to be with you at all. It would now be a task to perform, an obligation to be met, something to fail.” (Pg. 204)
Papa: “Honey, I’ve never placed an expectation on you or anyone else… Why would I have an expectation other than what I already know? That would be foolish. And beyond that, because I have no expectations, you never disappoint me.” (Pg. 206)
Young once again confuses issues in these quotes, thereby giving the impression that God does not have requirements or expectations of us.
In the first quote, he makes out as though law is an invention of ‘religion’ so that it can gain power to control and exploit people. No doubt, religions (in so far as they are false) do this. However, it ignores the fact that God is the lawgiver, not some impersonal machine called religion. The law in both Old Testament and New is summarised by love for God and love for neighbour, and Jeremiah 31:31f says that the law is written on our hearts, but not that it was a mistake.
Young confuses the issue by saying, ‘If I simply gave you a responsibility, I would not have to be with you at all.’ Having polarised the discussion into radical extremes (either God or responsibility), the choice of God-with-us is the only real option. However, there is no reason to suppose that these are alternatives. We have many responsibilities in scripture (not least to repel false teaching), and God promises to be with us until the end of the age too. Why should these be mutually exclusive?
In the second quote, Young tries to dismiss the idea that God has expectations of us by setting expectation at odds with God’s omniscience (His ability to see our hearts and the future). Unfortunately, Young is mixing up two uses of the word expectation. ‘Expectation’ can mean ‘something looked forward to, whether feared or hoped for’ (Collins). God’s omniscience means that He never lives in this state, because He knows and determines the future. He will not be surprised or let down. However, when we say that God has expectations of His people, we do not mean this kind of expectation. We mean that God has decided ‘that something is requisite, necessary or required’ (Collins). This kind of expectation is not affected by God’s omniscience, because although He knows our weakness and propensity to disobedience, He still commands us, both in the OT and NT. So He does indeed have these expectations, and we certainly do disappoint God when we disobey.
So, Young again introduces confusion at a place where clarity is desperately needed. The result is a concept of a God who makes no demands, has no expectations and is never disappointed in anybody. Young may not call himself a universalist, and what he is exactly is never made clear. But his teaching about judgment and salvation is so vague and affirming that it is closer to universalism than it is to Biblical faith. At the very least, Young has happily stripped the gospel of the kind of radical call that saw Jesus refusing to accept a promising disciple who was only willing to share Christ with his love for his money (Mark 10; cf. Luke 14:26, 28, 34).
CONCLUSION
The Shack has impressed many Christians, and not without reason. The church is always prone to becoming cold and formal, devoid of life. In the place of dead orthodoxy, The Shack provides a vision of a God who is real, personal, loving and involved, infinitely patient and caring; a vision that has fanned into flame dormant embers of devotion in the lives of many.
However, for all its strengths, The Shack exhibits some serious weaknesses that make it dangerous at best, and deadly at worst.
Particularly troubling is Young’s tendency to tear down the God-given safe-guards of scriptural authority and church order, which are both set in place to train us in the knowledge of God and to protect us from destructive false teaching, and to nearly erase clear Biblical teaching about sin, judgment, hell and redemption by means of repentance, faith and obedience. It seems as though Young has a greater commitment to orthodox postmodernism than to orthodox Christianity.
Young makes a comment that is well worth hearing, but perhaps for him as much as anyone else:
“Mackenzie, I am what some would say ‘holy, and wholly other than you’. The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn’t much, and calling that God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I’m not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think” (pg. 98).
I wonder whether The Shack’s concept of God is derived from much the same practice that Young condemns. He might value different attributes of God, such as His kindness and motherliness and passion, but God is more than ever cast into the 21st Century human image; one that has been trimmed of all of God’s actual revelation of Himself that has proven culturally embarrassing, such as wrath, judgement, transcendence, hierarchy, Lordship, fear, and piercing purity. This is not the God from whom the Seraphim hide their faces and their feet. This is not the God so holy that to see Him means death.
Whether Young’s teaching about salvation should be labelled universalist or not is irrelevant. Even in its vague and ambiguous form, it represents a deep erosion of the doctrines that most directly have eternal destinies in the balance. Paul’s words to those who meddled with these matters in Galatia are chilling (Gal. 1), but should not for that reason be softened or dismissed. It is not a trifling thing when gospels other than that of the Apostles are preached, and it is not intolerant or nasty to point these things out. Paul warns of eternal condemnation for those who mislead. If I have erred or been too harsh or failed to understand Young at certain points, I apologise for my ignorance. If his teaching is true and mine false, I look forward to being shown from scripture where my error lies. Given what’s at stake, correcting false teaching, whether it be Young’s or mine or anyone else’s, is the most loving thing that we can do.
LongWind 