THen again, maybe we are just making too big of a deal out of this. It is just a helpful little warning right

Personally, I thought Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell and Miller’s first two books were great. I didn’t agree with everything they said, but I loved the points they made. Discernment used without prompting, thank you very much.

Anyway, this may be splitting hairs but in response to Adam, I don’t remember saying ANYTHING about The Shack other than it is a book, the MAN wrote.

Now, granted, I LOVE the book, but I love the MAN more, especially for having had the privilege to know he and his lovely wife.

So, just for clarification, William P. Young wrote The Shack.

It’s a great book.

He’s a great man.

Peace

Dear LifeWay,

I appreciate the desire and effort to protect the spiritual babes who cannot discern between healthy and dangerous literature. (Why does LifeWay even bother to stock trash/dangerous literature?) Surely one of your “Read With Discernment” employees recognizes the irony in utilizing Wikipedia as a primary source for the Bell and Miller Author Briefings. If anything needs to be read with discernment it’s an online open-source encyclopedia! At the risk that the following information may not be completely accurate (because it is copied directly from Wikipedia), here is a block quote found at “About Wikipedia” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About):
“Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge; this means that people of all ages and cultural and social backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles. Most of the articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link.”

I admit I may be oversimplifying here, but…if LifeWay is concerned that an author may not be qualified to make a meaningful contribution to Christendom (thus the need to be discerning), why then does LifeWay use a resource that does not require its authors to have “specialized qualifications to contribute” – even to the point that their cultural and social background may or may not be Biblical? If I understand correctly that “anyone with access to the Internet” is qualified to comment on Wikipedia (and thus comment on the literary acumen of Bell, Miller, Grudem, Piper, et al) then I suppose the truly discerning reader does not consider Wikipedia to be a legitimate source of information. The education sector does not allow students to cite Wikipedia as a primary source of research. Why should the “Read With Discernment” publishing arm of the SBC be an exception?

Curious,
byron.

btw, i recently read “the shack” and will post a review real soon. unlike david and leanne, i wasn’t too keen on the book for reasons that i’ll write about in the near future.

sigh.

William P. Young is Paul Young, author of The Shack. http://www.windrumors.com/

A better man not easily found, Joe, although his work may not be your cup of tea

We shouldn’t even be in the bookstore business.

Unless I can personally visit each store with big dayglo stickers that say “Beware – Jesus Junk” and put it on all the trinkets, Thomas Kinkaid “art”, and ties with the books of the Bible on them.