C. Baxter Kruger, C.S.Lewis and the Shack revisted

A good friend in Australia sent me a gift by email that has enriched our last weekend for a while in New Zealand immeasurably.   We are off on a jaunt shortly that will take us to numerous places and connections with many great friends in the Fatherheart Family around the world.  You can see where we are in our comings and goings on the side of this blog if you are interested. 

Anyway back to the gift. It is a yet to be published, latest offering, from C Baxter Kruger.  If you have read any of my previous blogs you will know that I am more than a little impressed with this writer.  He is a theologian....stay with me it's worth it....his writings make my heart sing and shout for joy. They are the best. So now he is writing again and this time he is exploring William P Young's theology in his world best seller "The Shack".

Those of you who loved The Shack will stay with me, I'll come to it on a moment, but I know there are those who have had their reservations about this book. Some seem to overlook it is a novel, rather in the genre of "Pilgrim's Progress", than a theological treatise. It is not a book on theology but like anything we say about God, it speaks in theological terms and expresses individual views about God. In Young's case this was also born out of a long journey seeking to find answers to some of life's biggest questions.  Kruger explores this in the early part of the book and gives insight into the story behind the book and inside The Shack.

Some of the things that have been said about the book seems to suggest that its most vehement critics may not have read the book. One high profile critic posted a video on You Tube that challenged the approach of describing the Trinity taken by Young that uses metaphor, story and picture language. It amused and saddened me that the image on the wall behind the critic was an interlinking of three circles that has been used innumerable times to pictorially represent the Trinity. Seemed he may have missed the point somewhat.

However I digress.  Baxter is offering here so much more than a critique of The Shack. He explores in his usual breathtaking, heart stopping way the richness of classic Christian Trinitarian doctrine.  He draws deeply from the early church Fathers and especially Athenasius.  He brings the greatest Christian writer of the 20th Century, (sorry about the hyperbole, but it's my blog) C.S.Lewis, into the discussion and melds thought and imagery, concept and truth together in such a rich way.

I'm deeply challenged in my ministry to be as theologically accurate and true to the biblical revelation as possible. At the same time I recognise we live in a post Christian world of the 21st Century that needs desperately to discover God as Father, Son and Spirit in a way that conceptually engages with our world. Nothing has changed in that regard since before the dawn of time when God the Father conceived in his heart and to have a relationship with us as his sons and daughters.  It was not plan B or an afterthought that sent his Son into the world, full of his Holy Spirit, to bring us home. It has always been his plan and intention, Father, Son and Spirit, eternally relating, in what Kruger describes as a great dance, so that those who believe through faith in his Son can be united with them for all eternity.

C Baxter Kruger, C.S.Lewis, William P Young, I have so enjoyed your company this weekend. If anyone wants a copy let me know.

And Jim in Oz, you are a star. Thanks mate!