I received this book as a Christmas gift on the weekend before Christmas. The family who gave it to me are dear friends. But before I even got home with it my husband informed me that it was controversial. He wasn't sure why.
It didn't take me long to read it. It's hard to describe the effect it had on me on so many levels. It was very good.
Mack is a man who has experienced a great tragedy in his life. I found myself asking, along with Mack, the questions he asked; feeling the feelings he felt; making the judgments he made; and ultimately, experiencing the healing, humility, trust and love that he was finally able to experience. I would not hesitate to recommend it. I even plan to buy some copies when I can to give to friends. My husband enjoyed it also. ('Mack' is a character in the book)
Maybe I've watched too much Fox News and thought I should be fair and balanced; or maybe because some who opposed the book so strongly were friends...At any rate I listened to and read quotes by a man who thinks his fellow believers lack discernment in the matter. This man said the book was "...teaching modalism and goddess worship and graven image-ism and even denies any sort of deference within the ontological Trinity..."
I reread the book, but could not find anything in it to uphold that view. I wasn't sure what modalism was. I asked my cousin who has been educated in such matters and he said it was a belief that each member of the Trinity was for a certain period of time: The Father in the Old Testament; the Son in the Gospels; and the Holy Spirit in the Church Age. I'm not entirely sure that this is what he was saying; but it's my best interpretation of it.
I don't understand at all how ANYONE could read this book and think that it was teaching goddess worship and graven image-ism. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Please understand that I am NOT bashing the man whom I quoted or the people who agree with him. They are fellow believers and we all have our blind spots, and those beliefs that are buried so deeply within us that we are no longer even consciously aware of them. One of mine was that God no longer inhabits a building made with hands, but each believer who is a living stone. Oh yes, I said and thought I believed it, but still perceived a mere brick building as the "House of God". I would get frustrated when I would be concerned about another group using the building and a friend would say "This isn't God's temple, we are." But I've finally been able to grasp this truth.
I'm not sure what "ontological Trinity" means either. I looked up the word, ontological, and found "ontological argument- an a priori argument for the existence of God, asserting that as existence is a perfection, and as God is conceived of as the most perfect being, it follows that God must exist." This was from a Webster's dictionary. I probably should've asked my cousin.
But in the book, the members of the Trinity most certainly showed deference towards one another. I really don't think the author intended this story as a theological study.
I attended some classes at a church one time, where the pastors/teachers quite often referred to being a "Calvininst" or an "Arminian". At first, I felt somewhat like an outsider attending a meeting of an elite club. But some words of Paul came to me, and I don't think I could say it any better than he did in 1 Corinthians, chapters 1-4.
There is quote by J. B. Phillips in a book entitled "Ring Of Truth": "Apart from sheer neglect, the other way in which human beings can protect themselves from the rather frightening vitality of the New Testament is by carefully dismembering it. It is obviously right that we should have New Testament scholars-indeed I owe much to them-but it is horribly possible so to dissect your subject that you remove its life. By the time each source and component has been tagged and labelled this vibrant and compelling body of writing is no more than a cadaver on the theological operating table."
kdr
