A new controversy has blown up recently that is as old as Christianity itself. William P Young, the author of the 20 million-selling book The Shack, has written about the cross of Jesus in another book, Lies we Believe about God. It seems to have been published to coincide with The Shack movie releasing in cinemas around the world.
His chapter on the cross has provoked a lot of comment online. There are some worrying ideas in what Young writes but there are some gems too – for instance he is unequivocal that the death and resurrection of Jesus is 'the single, most profound and far-reaching event in the history of humanity'. It's when he asks the question, 'Who originated the cross?' that things get a little tricky.
'Who originated the cross? If God did, then we worship a cosmic abuser, who in Divine Wisdom created a means to torture human beings in the most painful and abhorrent manner. Frankly, it is often this very cruel and monstrous god that the atheist refuses to acknowledge or grant credibility in any sense. And rightly so. Better no god at all, than this one.'
That cosmic child abuser language might sound familiar. More on that later. But for now we need to focus on the central premise of Young's challenge to our understanding of the cross. Young says that if God originated the cross then it is divine child abuse, while if human beings originated the idea of the cross and God submits to it then it isn't abuse but grace. If the cross originated with human beings, 'This deviant device is the iconic manifestation of our blind commitment to darkness. It is our ultimate desecration of the goodness and loving intent of God to create, an intent that is focused on the human creation. It is the ultimate fist raised against God. And how did God respond to this profound brokenness?
'God submitted to it. God climbed willingly onto our torture device and met us at the deepest and darkest place of our diabolical imprisonment to our own lies, and by submitting once and for all, God destroyed its power. Jesus is God's best, given willingly and in opposition to our worst, the Cross.'
Before we critique Young's premise, we do need to pause to recognise important elements of truth in what he writes here. The cross is the place where human rebellion against God is most clearly in focus. It is an expression of Jesus' ultimate act of submission both to the will of God the father but also to the cruelty of humanity (Philippians 2:8). But to what extent can we separate out God's will and human behaviour? When a human being acts, because God is sovereign does this mean that God is permitting this action and therefore does God's permission count as divine countenance? Not necessarily, as humans sin and obviously God does not sin, nor does he condone sin. So we can refute the idea that by allowing something to happen God is approving of that thing happening.
It's a difficult theological point. God certainly planned for the cross. The book of Revelation describes God's intention that Jesus would be the Lamb who was slain before the creation of the world (Revelation 13:8). So God does seem to predict the cross as the means by which sin will be dealt with once and for all. Young highlights this: 'God knew going into the activity of creation what the cost would be. That God's own children, this highest order of creation, would one day make the final attempt to kill Life.'
I have read quite a few articles that have been very critical of Young's approach to the cross and especially his insistence that God did not originate the cross. Most seem to be reacting to his deliberate use of the trigger phrase 'divine child abuse' which raises old controversies about penal substitution. But in this instance we must tread carefully, as the Bible does affirm a paradox here. The Bible both asserts that God planned the cross and that Jesus willingly submitted to it. Steve Holmes, senior lecturer in systematic theology at St Andrews University, points us to Acts 2:23 as a key text by which to understand this paradox. The apostle Peter, preaching about the significance of the crucifixion, states: 'This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.' New Testament scholar Howard Marshall comments: 'Here we have the paradox of divine predestination and human freewill in its strongest form.' The Bible also asserts that it was utterly sinful for humanity to kill the author of life, Jesus Christ (Acts 3:15) and yet we can never attribute that sinful action to God.
I am not on the same page as Paul Young on quite a lot of his theology. I don't think his categorical distinction between God originating the cross versus the cross being a human idea is one that can be easily argued from the Bible, which seems to be more integrated in its teaching than Young is comfortable with.
Would Young's views put me off seeing The Shack movie? Personally, no. So many people I know, who are not Christians, have read the book and I want to see the film with them. In Hollywood movies there seems be a growing openness to the exploration of theological ideas and I want to be part of that conversation. Going to a movie does not imply the endorsing of all the views contained in the film, let alone all the views of the author of the book the film is based on. The Shack will provide many opportunities to talk about the gospel so for that I am very grateful to William Paul Young.
Dr Krish Kandiah is the author of' Paradoxology: why Christianity was never meant to be simple' (IVP 2017), in which he explores the paradox of the cross and 12 other mindbending biblical paradoxes.
