Curiously, some people in the more left-leaning side of our dysfunctional Christian family are backing away from the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. Those in the more established liberal churches, along with their emergent offspring, are routinely decrying the concept that Jesus paid the penalty (death) for our sin in our place on the cross. They say it is too gory, too scary, too bloody, too masculine, and too violent. Furthermore, they say that in our tender little world of kindness, such teachings won’t help further the kingdom of meek and mild Jesus.

Meanwhile, non-Christians in the culture seem to have an insatiable appetite for the doctrine. The storyline of masculine sacrifice of one’s life to save others remains one of the most powerfully moving themes in pop culture. It was amazing, for example, to sit in a theater watching The Chronicles of Narnia [LWW] and observe the reaction of a largely non-Christian audience to Aslan. If you remember, Aslan is the Christ figure in the story, or the lion that represents Jesus as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” In the story, Aslan willingly and nobly lays down his life as a substitute for those he loves to save them from the rule of evil. The theater became quiet and still at the sacrifice of Aslan—even non-Christians were moved to deep sorrow and tears. Later in the story, when Aslan returns back to life as a victorious king, a heartfelt joy returned to the crowd, and some people even broke out in applause and cheers.

Why? Because deep down, even though we are sinners, we remain God’s image bearers. Like Solomon said, God has set eternity in our hearts and we cannot shake our yearning to be delivered from evil and death by a conquering hero who loves us enough to give us new life through his death.

col.klink wrote:

I keep hearing Christians and [“Heaven” author] Randy Alcorn complaining about how many people think is a place with lots of clouds were everybody has wings and plays harps. Does anybody actually believe that? Are people really that stupid?

[. . .] I’m disturbed when people say Christians believe that and teach it to children.

I don’t know of anyone who takes that description literally — even “fundamentalist” Christians aren’t nearly that silly. Instead, it’s mostly the idea of being “absorbed into God” or floating around in some kind of super-spiritual, nonmaterial, timeless state of being, that’s often advocated, or at least perceived in the back of Christians’ minds.

Take, for example, the following really-spiritual-sounding-but-un-Biblical statements:

• There will be no time in Heaven.


• In Heaven, everything will be made plain to us and our spiritual eyes will be opened instantly.


• Heaven will be totally unlike anything we’ve ever imagined, but somehow we’ll really like it anyway.

These elements are directly cited in many Christian books about Heaven. Alcorn, for example, cites dozens of excerpts from titles, and then — easily — shows from Scripture how false they are, mostly based on the false presumption that the current Heaven — the place believers go when they die — is the same as the future Heaven; some theologians, trying to be all “spiritual” and not knowing it, just bypass the whole New Earth part.

While fiction is by definition a story that doesn't pretend to be true, it still must adhere to certain basic rules. You can create any universe you like, but once you've created it, you must stick to its internal logic. If zurts are green and fly and jurts are blue and don't fly, you cannot willy-nilly switch these “facts” around, even if they are totally products of your imagination. And if for some reason in your story we see a blue jurt that is flying, you'd better have a good narrative explanation for why or else you've confused the reader.

[. . .]

If you're going to ground your fiction in the real world, then it must conform to the rules of the real world we live in. No unicorns or magic squirrels allowed. Even one of my favorite literary genres, Magical Realism, adheres to certain basic rules.

So if you're going to have God as a character in your real-world fiction, then you must deal with God as he has revealed himself in Scripture. By using the Trinity as characters in this story set in the real world, The Shack author William P. Young is clearly indicating that he's supposedly talking about the God of Christianity. But God has said certain things about himself in Scripture, and much of what Young does in this novel contradicts that. I don't care if he's trying to make God more “accessible.” He's violated the rules of fiction.

[. . .]

To those people who have snapped up copies of The Shack to give to non-Christian friends, you are doing them no favors. You are introducing them to a false god. You are inoculating them against the claims of the True God of Scripture. And more to the point, you're just giving them bad fiction.