This past Friday night, author and researcher Ray Yungen attended a lecture at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon to hear
"He is the God who exacts the last drop of blood from His Son, so that His just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased. This God whose moods alternate between graciousness and fierce anger - a God who is still all too familiar to many Christians - is a caricature of the true God. This God does not exist." (Shannon, Silence on Fire, p. 110, also see Manning who stated the very same thing in Above All, pp. 58-59 )
Young told the audience that his book has now sold 14 million copies. He says that he believes his book has been a "god thing" to heal people's souls because so many people have been tainted by this evangelical God. Young also said that his book is so effective because when you put something in a story form it gets past mental defenses.
Young's obvious disdain for Christianity (in a derogatory manner, he said there are "1.4 million" rules in the evangelical church) is shown in his book as well when The Shack 's "Jesus" states:
"I have no desire to make them [people from all religious and political backgrounds] Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa" (p. 184).
During the lecture, Young posed a rhetorical question addressed to "evangelicals:" "Do you want to hold onto your darkness?" (meaning, the "narrowness" and "intolerance" associated with evangelicalism). He then answered for them: "No, you want to get rid of it."
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