The Shack and Lawsuits Among Believers
Jul 19
I just received an email for Jon Zens about the turmoil with the Shack publishing group. Here is a direct link
Zens asked what can we do to help? So I ask what would you do to help, what would you do if you felt you were defrauded out of millions of dollars. Now needless to say, these three men were friends. I followed their radio program for quite some time over at God Journey as, they were instrumental in my escape from religious traditionalism.
Paul says over in 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 :
6:1 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!
Now this verse sounds lovely when it is $10,000 or $5,000 but if you look at this suit we are talking millions of dollars. I told Jon that this not only changes your immediate circumstances but the lives of your children’s children. This is a boat load of money which effects your quality of living for years to come. Maybe I was cheated out of a few grand for a car or maybe a shady buisness deal but 5-10 million dollars is a lot of money and the book will not slow down.
So again I ask what would you do? Answer it from both sides. Also would you just say forget and leave the money on the table so that you can faithfully apply this particular section of scripture? Man this is a tough one. But that goes on to add, what about Christian’s who get divorced? Isn’t that a lawsuit, or does that not qualify? Anyway, I look forward to the interaction if any 
10 million dollars!!!! Give me my bread…. I’ll ask for forgiveness as soon as we are done…lol
Thanks, interesting read.
LOL@ Jeff, pagan!
It is amazing how our interpretation of scripture changes when it direct us in a tangible way…i would want the bread as well as Jeff has said…
BF,
Thats a lot of freaking bread dude! That’s Wonderbread LOL
Lol @Wonderbread
I should like to think that were I in this situation I would appeal to the Christian sensibilities of my “brothers-in-Christ” and implore them to settle this matter out of court, per the scripture you’ve quoted above. However, having proven themselves duplicitous in previous dealings, could I trust that they would agree to seek religious mediation? Moreover, whom would we seek out as mediators? Elders from their congregation or mine (assuming we’re worshipping in separate congregations)? Frankly, with such a large sum of money at issue, perhaps the parties to this lawsuit lack faith in the ability of Christian mediators to properly adjudicate these proceedings. A fair concern, I think. Is anyone trained in mediation, entertainment law, etc.? Given the moral debauchery and outright greed of no small number of professing “Christians,” I, too, would be reticent to trust so great a sum of capitol to a possibly unqualified and selfish assembly of persons prone to such moral hazard.
no doubt….
Even I have to LOL @ my silly husband. Yall pray for me…
I would have to first decide if the principle is worth more than the money/lawsuit. I’ve been at a place in my life where large sums of money don’t move me. I am a huge believer in having enough to survive, not necessarily being rich. Maybe that comes from being American poor all my life *shrug*. I have a pretty unAmerican view of dollars so I’m tinking I would lean toward the principle.
Go to a christian arbitrator?
Show me the money!!!
Stephen,
That sounds like a great option, maybe there is even a business for such arbitration if it doesn’t already exist.
LOL!! yall crack me up. Wow,this is so sad. I have heard so much negativity about this book but have never read it, never really wanted to.Then to hear this ,is even sadder. I just read of a situation where there was a lawsuit between a Christian at John MacArthurs church and a Christian in another congregation were in a dispute and they arbitrated it by taking elders from their congregation, elders from his. They met together in private, prayed over it, sought the mind of the Holy Spirit, and decided on it; and it never got out of the community of believers, and that’s exactly what the Bible says to do. Now thats hott!! WE all need to learn how to obey the scripture like this. I believe doing it differntly will lead to bitterness, guilt,depression and frustration with lawyers and pagan court system, consequences of sin.
My prayer is that I would follow the principal of scripture and take the blow. The scripture is clear, not for you to go to the pagan court on such matters. Dang man, I agree that this will affect many generations down the line, but I am also thinking about Jesus and how He was tempted in the wilderness with Satan..(I look at this money as the same temptation)
Satan offered Jesus all beauty and all the Kingdoms of the world through a path of non-suffering, and Jesus resisted this temptation. It wasn’t the path. The church today wants all the Kingdom without the suffering. If you do it right, you will suffer! There is also suffering from not entering into the mission of God…the deprivation of blessing! Matthew 4, Matthew 16:23. The same temptation that Jesus faced was the same that I and the church face today.
So, I say all that to say, God will provide. For me, for my child, and def. for my chilren, chilrens..LOL!. Again, this sounds good, and simple, but I know it wont be. This again is just the perspective my husband and I have been asking the LORD to help us to have. Redemptive Suffering is a BEAST!!!!
Phil. 3; 1Pet. 4:1; Acts 5:40-42
Nicole,
I pray that if I were faced with this, I would do the same as those brothers over at Grace. Man that is an amazing testimony of God’s grace. MacArthur and I don’t agree on much anymore but I am with them 100% on this and very proud of them. This saddens me because these dudes were best friends. It isn’t just a business thing but a real deal friendship that has been dissolved. I think both parties can come to an agreement with such arbitration. Wow those elders impress me.
I wonder if the elders received a fee (love offering) for their arbitration services. LOL
Lionel,
It reminds me of the story told about some Christians who were in prison. Offered the opportunity to escape death by denying Christ in exchange for their freedom, they both chose death.
What one is entitled to by law is not the issue. A credible witness is.
Funny how you can post Jon Paden’s not so slight ribbing of “traditional church” (love offering), but you can’t post mine.
hahaaa LOL@Jon..A hott mess!!
@Lionel, I feel ya on Johnny Mac…had to give the church props on that on tho
great convo bruthas!
Hadn’t seen this, so maybe it isn’t as funny as you think.
Hadn’t seen this reply it got mixed up I guess.
Money can fund a lot of good Christian works. Should loads of cash be in the hands of pseudo-Christians, or in the hands of real Christians who are going to use that money to spread good in the world? You have to ask yourself what, IN TOTAL, are you fighting for, when you fight for money-because money is a form of energy. We also have to fight for what’s right. While “lawsuits” between Christians might make Christians look bad, doesn’t it also make Christians look bad if they allow other “Christians” to get away with wrong behavior? Aren’t we supposed to try to stop wrong and evil in the world?
Sorry I missed this comment Hap,
To answer your question, my answer is no. You don’t allow them to get away. You can publicly scold them after attempting to reconcile the issue amongst believers. Unless you believe Paul’s and Jesus’ instructions are irrelevant to the discussion. Sometimes obedience in certain areas makes us look like fools, but being a fool for Jesus is infinitely better than being a pawn for Satan.
I just found this blog while looking for some info on the Shack lawsuit. Looks like you have a lot of good links here, things I’ll want to look up and read later.
This is a hard one to figure out, it will be interesting to see the results. What would I do? I can’t imagine being in either position. Although I just recently read The Shack, I’m familiar with the players involved, having listened to quite a few episodes of The God Journey from the very beginning, before Wayne and Brad were at all involved with the development of the novel. One can see that Wayne and Brad (Windblown Media) and Paul Young had become close friends, and that Young considered them to have a huge share in the responsibility for getting the book to its final state and then published. Money didn’t seem to ever be an issue in the beginning. Eventually they went from selling them out of a garage to getting a big distribution deal.
Young has a lot of money from this book already, as presumably Windblown must have. I guess the question is, what led Young to figure he was owed a lot more, that Windblown was ripping him off? And at what point did he decide that a lawsuit was the only way to deal with it?
If I was being sued for a huge amount that I didn’t have, and didn’t believe I was liable for, maybe I would counter-sue, as a strategic move.
I’m saddened by this, as I believe they really were friends before. I don’t a lot about Young, except for some background info via the Shack promo material, and an interview on The God Journey. Having read stuff by Wayne Jacobsen, and listened to quite a few of his podcasts and some teaching material, I don’t believe he is a crook. I pray this all gets sorted out…
I hope so too. I don’t know if it ever got resolved as of yet.
In the last paragraph, that’s supposed to say “I don’t know a lot about Young”…
I just listen to an old CD Paul Young talked about how he and his brothers rewrote the book but he had nothing to do with it really it was a God thing all the Glory goes to God so maybe the money needs to as well Purpose Driven Life author gives his money to God and if it started out like Paul Young said a love letter to his children and he had not wanted to be a writer then he received much more then he needs and he can thank God and share with others sounds like his Ego and Greed seem to get in his way maybe there can be a Shack two where they go to court .
Sad indeed. I need to follow up on this.
I’m sure that Paul really meant to put some limit or threshold amount on this scripture so that it doesn’t apply to large dollar amounts. Or, maybe if one finally lets go of the institutional church and starts to read scripture without all the institutional trappings that chain the reader to the evils of a religiosity then it will become clear why this scripture just doesn’t apply to Jacobsen, Cummings or Young.
I do realize that this kind of dough affects the futures of these individuals and their families. While the paltry 5 or 6 thousand that we might be cheated out of, and therefore unable to subsidies our own retirements or our children’s education is a drop in the bucket these three men might actually have to split the 10 million three ways leaving each family a meager 3 million and change that they will have to stretch to make ends meet.
On a final note I can only say that for all the stone casting these guys have done at the institutional church through their books and podcasts and blogs, they don’t seem to be able to hold out a testimony all that much improved.
It would seem to me that greed outside the institutional church is doing just fine…….