The Shack Revisited by Baxter Kruger

I was so excited to find The Shack Revisited: There Is More Going On Here than You Ever Dared to Dream in my Kindle this week. I ordered the pre- release months ago.

I have enjoyed over 100 hours of Baxter Kruger teachings from  Perichoresis Ministries  and I wanted more.

When you combine Baxter’s Bible knowledge,  wonderful Mississippi accent, deliverance from Calvinist upbringing, love of C.S. Lewis, and insights into the Early Church Fathers–one hundred hours is not nearly enough. I am pleased to say  The Shack Revisited  delivers.

Watch this video to find out more about  Baxter’s background and theology.

The Shack by William P. Young (better know as Paul)  has received a lot of controversy (see Is the Shack Heresy?). I received my share of scoldings and  hate mail by recommending The Shack on this blog (and I’m ready for more).

Most of the criticism is from misunderstandings (most arguments are not from the book but  from rumors, twisted book excerpts, or blatant lies from pulpits). I have read the critics, most find fault with the following:

1. The majority of the people who vocalized objections to The Shack are Calvinists teaching salvation is NOT for everyone–they believe God created some to go to hell. Of course they won’t like a book teaching God wants ALL to be saved. (Not all Calvinist believe this but most 5 point TULIP believers do).
2. One of the biggest knee jerk reaction is from the part of the book where God is represented by a loving Black woman. Before you catch yourself with your knee midair, remember Jesus told the parable of a woman losing and finding a coin as a depiction of God lovingly seeking the lost.
3. They say “Young is teaching is Universalism.” This is simply not true. Paul Young is clear about this but consistently called a Universalist based on the misreading of one passage in the book. “Mack then asks the obvious question — do all roads lead to Christ? Jesus responds, ‘Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.’”

The Shack is not perfect- it is not the Bible. But it is an amazing story that shows God’s loving character. Baxter shines light on the theology behind the Shack –loving image of Trinity–that should (I pray) clear up many of the misunderstandings.

The Shack Revisited is much more than an explanation of  The Shack.  While Baxter addresses many of the book’s complex issues he weaves in several of his own stories and insights though years of Bible study, researching Church Father’s theologies, and his growth through Calvinist bondage to discovering and basking in the love of the Trinity.

I hope everyone of you  will read The Shack Revisited. You will be blessed. (See links to several post I wrote about Dr Kruger’s teachings at the bottom of this post.)

Book Description

An excerpt from The Shack Revisited

The Trinitarian Vision

From all eternity, God is not alone and solitary, but lives as Father, Son and Spirit in a rich and glorious and abounding fellowship of utter oneness. There is no emptiness in this circle, no depression or fear or insecurity. The trinitarian life is a great dance of unchained communion and intimacy, fired by passionate, self-giving and other-centered love, and mutual delight. This life is good. It is right, unique, full of music and joy, blessedness and peace. Such love, giving rise to such togetherness and fellowship and oneness, is the womb of the universe and of humanity within it.

The stunning truth is that this Triune God, in amazing and lavish love, determined to open the circle and share the trinitarian life with others. This is the one, eternal and abiding reason for the creation of the world and of human life. There is no other God, no other will of God, no second plan, no hidden agenda for human beings. Before the creation of the world, the Father, Son and Spirit set their love upon us and planned to bring us to share and know and experience the trinitarian life itself. Unto this end the cosmos was called into being, and the human race was fashioned, and Adam and Eve were given a place in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son himself, in and through whom the dream of our adoption would be accomplished.

Before creation, it was decided that the Son would cross every chasm between the Triune God and humanity and establish a real and abiding relationship with us—union. Jesus was predestined to be the mediator, the one in and through whom the very life of the Triune God would enter human existence, and human existence would be lifted up to share in the trinitarian life.

When Adam and Eve rebelled, ushering in chaos and misery into God’s creation, the Father, Son and Spirit never abandoned their dream, but wonderfully incorporated darkness and sin into the tapestry of the coming incarnation. As the Father’s Son became human, and as he submitted himself to bear our anger, and bizarre blindness, and as he gave himself to suffer a murderous death at our hands, he established a real and abiding relationship with fallen humanity at our very worst—and he brought his Father and the Holy Spirit with him. It was in Jesus himself, and in his death at our bitter hands, that the trinitarian life of God pitched its tent in our hell on earth, thereby uniting all that the Father, Son and Spirit share with all that we are in our brokenness, shame and sin—adoption.

In the life and death of Jesus the Holy Spirit made his way into human pain and blindness. Inside our broken inner worlds the Spirit works to reveal Jesus in us so that we can meet Jesus himself in our own sin and shame, and begin to see what Jesus sees, and know his Father with him. The Holy Spirit takes of Jesus and discloses it to us, so that we can know and experience Jesus’ own relationship with his Father, and we can be free to live in the Father’s embrace with Jesus. As the Spirit works we are summoned to take sides with Jesus against our own darkness and prejudice, and take simple steps of trust and change.

As we do Jesus’ own anointing with the Spirit—his own fellowship with his Father, his own unearthly assurance, his own freedom and joy and power in the Spirit—begin to form in us, while not diminishing but augmenting and freeing our own uniqueness as persons. The Spirit’s passion is to bring his anointing of Jesus to full and personal and abiding expression in us as unique persons, and not only in us personally, but in our relationship with the Father in Jesus, and in our relationships with one another, and indeed with all creation, until the whole cosmos is a living sacrament of the great dance of the Triune God.

About the Author

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