'The Shack' Offers Real Universal Truths and Healing

February 17, 2017

WRITER

Last week, Glenn and his staff had the opportunity to see The Shack, a movie about a grieving man who receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called "The Shack." Brad Cummings, co-author of the book on which the movie is based, joined The Glenn Beck Program on Friday to talk about the movie that is capturing people's hearts.

"The movie is funny. It will make you cry. It's not very religious, but it has a lot of deep, spiritual truth in it," Cummings said.

The Shack shows the care and concern God has for us by appearing to the main character in a form he will understand. In his case, it turns out to be a black woman.

"I watched The Shack with my wife, and you were there. I loved it, and I felt uplifted. I felt closer to God. I felt like I wanted to have a deeper relationship with God in my way, not with a black woman and an Asian Holy Spirit, you know?" Glenn said.

Glenn urged everyone to see the movie, believing it has the capacity to bring people to God with its subtle and reverent message.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: So glad you're here. I think it was last week I had the opportunity to see the movie The Shack, and this is one of the best Christian films I've seen in a very long time. I really truly believe this that if C.S. Lewis with "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", Tolkien, The Ring, and The Shack was included in that in which one would bring more people to the lord, I think The Shack could do it because it's not -- it doesn't appear to be attempting to do that. It's just telling a story just like C.S. Lewis and The Hobbit. And they take liberty with not -- I don't think the essence of truth. It's allegory for what's happening. I don't even know if it's true or not. Brad Cummings is the cowriter of The Shack and was instrumental in getting -- and he's gone. Was instrumental on getting this to Hollywood.

Brad, are you there?

BRAD: I'm here.

GLENN: First of all, is this a true story?

BRAD: It's not a true story. It's fiction but there's a lot of truth in it.

GLENN: I have to tell from religious friends who are crazy beside themselves this is heretical, you can't go and see it, they didn't come with me to the screening. I thought it was fantastic. What are people complaining about?

BRAD: The story meets people in the midst of their pain. I'm not sure what people are all that up in arms about. I know it's a little bit challenging to see poppa, father god as a black woman. But there's a context for that. The terrible upbringing with the really harsh father, and I think it communicates God's love in a way that he tries to reach us in a way that we'll understand and will be able to receive.

GLENN: Right. And it is explained immediately when he says something along the lines of God's a black woman? And she says, again, basically, no, but this is a form you will understand.

BRAD: Yeah, I don't think you can handle a father right now.

GLENN: Yeah, that's right.

BRAD: There's a tenderness of how god I think wants to communicate to us. The movie is funny. It will make you cry. It's not very religious. But it has a lot of deep, spiritual truth in it.

GLENN: I have to tell you. I don't know why I'm saying this out loud. I said it yesterday on the TV show.

I had somebody in my faith write to me the other day and say "Hey, I've been thinking about you. How are you spiritually and how are you physically?"

And I wrote back and I said "I'm great spiritually, and I'm great physically. Religiously, I'm having a real problem because I am so sick of religion and the fighting and the my way or the highway and all of this garbage."

I watched The Shack with my wife, and you were there. I loved it, and I felt uplifted, I felt closer to God, I felt like I wanted to have a deeper relationship with God in my way not with a black woman and an Asian Holy Spirit, you know?

I understood this was an allegory.

BRAD: Yep. God's a relational being. We can get all stuck in doctrine, and I think doctrine is very important. Theology is very important. But it's not the same thing of actually having a walking, talking relationship with the living God.

GLENN: Did Billy Graham have this problem when John Denver was hearing from George Burns as god?

BRAD: No, I think people enjoyed that movie. I think people enjoyed this one too.

GLENN: It is the same thing but deeper and more meaningful. The John Denver god thing was just seeking for some laughs and had some truths in it. This has real universal truth to it and healing.

BRAD: It was such a treat to actually listen to you watch this movie because I don't think there was an important line that you missed. You were groaning with appreciation at everything that was being said there because there's an awful lot of great truth that's just packaged in the human drama. It's not some sermon. It's the fact that most of us are -- most of us struggle in pain. It doesn't feel like God's around. And this story hits that head on without any -- offering any kind of trite answer. I think that's why people -- it has an endearing honesty that I think people really enjoy, and I think all of us struggle. It's like in this world when the world is kind of spinning out of control, we do ask the question where is god? Which then leads to the where is god really? And I think this story climbs into that space in such an interesting way.

GLENN: The part where he wants revenge, and he goes, and he has to sit at the judgment seat himself is so powerful. So powerful.

STU: You started kind of with a controversy about the movie, whatever controversy there is.

GLENN: I don't know what the controversy is.

STU: I mean, can you kind of bring us through the actual story and what people are --

GLENN: Brad, can you?

BRAD: Yeah, basically, there's a man that takes his family on a camping vacation. And in the midst of that, the youngest daughter goes missing, and they find her bloody dress up in an abandoned shack and the suggestion is that she might have been brutally murdered.

That is so --

GLENN: And hang on just a second. I was concerned myself because I can't go to another movie where my heart's going to be torn out and stomped, especially on missing children. I can't do it. That does not play horribly. It's tender. It's not brutal. You do have the moment where you're, like, oh, my gosh. Can you imagine what that feels like?

But they didn't overplay it to rip your heart out. It was perfectly done. Perfectly done.

BRAD: It steps up the difficult that sends Mac, the main character into a depression. And he gets this note in his mailbox, and it says, hey, Mac, it's been a while. Would love to get together. I'll be at the shack if you meet me. And it's signed papa, which is his wife's nickname for God. Which leads to who in the world is writing me this? So against all better judgment, he doesn't know what else better to do, and he travels back up to the shack and what unfolds there is what the heart of the drama's about.

GLENN: And it is -- it's really good. And it starts -- I mean, I have to give you hats off, Brad, for the opening line is something, like, you don't have to believe this story. But this is how I saw it. Or something like that.

BRAD: Yeah, it says "I'm about to tell you something that's really fantastical."

And I think the wonderful thing about the way we told this story is it's not asking you to believe anything. It's a story to truth. And I think movies that are often pedaling an agenda, they're not that fun to watch. This one is a powerful drama that has layoff stuff in it. But at the end of the day, you're not forced to do -- there's no alter call. There's no sense of demand. There's just the sense of wow. I mean, people love to talk about this. I mean, you can't get people quiet. They want to go talk for coffee and they want their friends to see it. That's been the fun response.

GLENN: I will tell you. I know people who are so turned off on one of them. So turned off by religion and by the judgmental aspect of religion. Not faith. Of religion that they can't go into a church. Any church because they've had bad experiences with it. And everything is, you know, you're a sinner because you thought this or you think this and come our way and stay away from those people or you're still a sinner -- they can't do it. And I've -- I watch this movie with that eye the entire time knowing the people that I would love to have a relationship with God, how are they going to view this? Almost every movie I have seen in the last I don't know how many years that tries to bring you closer to God has at least a moment in it where you're, like. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I got it. Yes, I got it.

BRAD: It's a sales pitch.

GLENN: This has none of that in it. This is just a great movie.

BRAD: Yeah, I think -- I don't think people are wanting to be sold. I mean, when I go into a store, and we have the overzealous, eager salesman, I put shields up.

GLENN: Me too.

BRAD: In terms of selling stories, the truth doesn't need a sales pitch. You know what? I think people are spiritually hungry out there. I think they're looking for answers. I think in the midst of difficulty, especially in a world today, they're looking for something that brings hope. This is not so much gee, I'm going to go find god. This is god crawling into the midst of our lives, and it's not pretending it's all puppy dogs and rainbows.

GLENN: You have a theological degree, do you not?

BRAD: I do.

GLENN: So how is this working in Hollywood? I know they -- you didn't work on the film for a while because the disagreements. But you got -- you were back on, and you seemed to have won all the major battles.

BRAD: It was a fascinating thing to watch this go through Hollywood because I don't know -- that spiritual movies are not something they're used to doing. Not to disparage anybody. The movies me make are hard to make. I didn't want this to be a story torn apart by a whole bunch of other opinions. So it took about five years to get through development and to really come up with the story that we all thought was fantastic. It was great to work with folks that don't believe what I believe because we were striving to find something that would communicate to everyone. And I didn't want to compromise the truth that it's built on. And I think we actually got there in a marvelous way. I think this story -- you don't have to know anything about Christianity, and it's not asking you to embrace all of that. But it is a story about the God that is of the Bible. And so, you know, I knew that we would have the Christian Taliban wanting to, you know, absolutely go through this with every, you know, fine-tooth comb.

GLENN: Well, I would like to hear them take on Tolkien. I have a hard time finding Christ in the lord of rings. I get it but certainly not a moment I walk out going you know what? I love Jesus.

[Laughter]

And this one I walk out feeling uplifted. I can feel God in the message.

BRAD: Well, it's an encounter with god that I don't think most people would have like you could have. For most people, God's a big voice over. We took literary license, and we displayed the trinity as three actual characters. You know, Jesus in the Bible is the only one who is incarnated. But in this story, it's a marvelous drama. You see God the Father, God the Son, god the Holy Spirit relating to each other and just a warm, wonderful way that is not religious.

GLENN: And quite honestly, you don't even know at the end if this was a dream or not. I mean, you know -- relax, people. Relax.

BRAD: And we did that on purpose so that people don't feel like they have to make a call on this.

GLENN: Correct. Right.

BRAD: It's more try on a nice coat. If you enjoy it, do something with it. If not, no harm no foul.

GLENN: Brad, when does this open up?

BRAD: It opens March 2nd in 1,000 theaters with a wonderful event attached to it. And then March 3rd it is opening 3,000 theaters nationwide.

GLENN: I cannot recommend this highly enough. The shack. Bring your friends. Bring your family. Bring people that just want to see a great movie. Bring people who are depressed, who are struggling with something. Just go see a great movie. Don't tell them this is going to change their life. It's just going to be a great movie that perhaps they will find some truth in and perhaps change their course just a little bit. Let God do the work here. The shack opening March 3rd nationwide. March 2nd in select theaters. Thank you so much, Brad. And excellent job.

BRAD: Thanks, Glenn.

GLENN: You bet.

STU: People are so sensitive about everything. There isn't really this little red guy with his hair on fire that represents angry living in your brain. However, inside out was a movie, and it was not anti-brain. It was a funny way to look at what actually kind of might happen in your brain; right? And there's no reason to because it's not theologically perfect to your beliefs to bash a movie to try to do something good.

GLENN: It really is so well done theologically if you accept the fact that, you know, Jesus isn't a lion. If you can accept that Jesus isn't really a lion, you can certainly accept this.

STU: And to be clear, we don't know if he's a lion or not. To be clear. There's someone out there that might believe that and is offended.

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[break]

GLENN: I tell you. The shack is really funny. I don't want to tell you any of the lines because I don't want to blow it for you. But it's really funny. It's funny. And I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with allegory when we all know C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian writers of all time A made Jesus into a lion and B said the better story than that is the Lord of the Rings. Where's the Jesus character there? I mean, I don't understand the arrogance. Oh, so you're a better theologian than C.S. Lewis. Okay. That's interesting. You can handle those two but no to to the shack.

RADIO

Will Trump swap Americans for Russian spies for ‘questioning’ by Putin? Bill Browder doubts it

'On the Basis of Sex': Notorious RBG trailer will make your head explode

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

On the Basis of Sex. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you probably didn't expect those five words to come out of me this morning. No, that's not my version of a clickbait headline to get you to pay attention — although that probably just happened — but this is the title to the new movie based on the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Progressives and liberals have been hovering over YouTube like a pack of rabid wolves, anxiously awaiting the first trailer to drop. And — three days — they got their wish. Something in the last few seconds caught my ear. Watch:

Now my first thought after hearing that went something like this: The word "freedom" is literally the fifth frigging word in the first sentence of the First Amendment. It shows up for the second time just two sentences later. How do you screw that up? I always assumed that liberal Hollywood movie makers had never really read the Constitution, but this is just sad.

But my second thought was that maybe they don't consider the Bill of Rights actually part of the Constitution. However, according to the National Constitution Center, the Bill of Rights officially became part of the Constitution — not a separate document — when it was ratified in 1791. This is rather easy to fact check, so there's really no excuse here.

But then I had another thought. Either liberal Hollywood forgot that the Constitution changed in 1791, or they actually prefer the vaguer pre-1791 version of the Constitution where God-given rights can be excluded if the state so pleases. Think about it. The Bill of Rights is the single greatest roadblock to the radical Left's "progress." Do you hate the fact that private gun ownership encourages self reliance and personal freedom? Do you also hate the fact that dissenting views, opinions and speech can't be silenced and crushed? Then the Bill of Rights is a clear and present danger to your agenda. It's enemy number one.

The new Left that is radically moving toward the extreme absolutely abhors the year 1791.

You see, the new Left that is radically moving further toward the extreme absolutely abhors the year 1791. They wish it never happened. The Bill of Rights is a constant reminder that some FREEDOMS can't be given by the government, they're granted by GOD. And that thought — you being aware of that — scares the hell out of them.

Now, it's possible I thought too much into this. It's also possible the screen writer made a simple mistake and thought Ruth Bader Ginsburg was actually born before 1791, figuring it would be a nice tip of the hat to her longevity. I can actually see how you could make that mistake. But it's also possible that this is a sign of the times we live in.

The Bill of Rights is under attack, maybe more now than ever. It's never been more important to let the Constitution of 1791 be our guide, true north and lighthouse.

UPDATE: Here's how the discussion went on radio. Watch the video below.

How did this slip by?

The Left has been foaming at the mouth waiting for this movie to drop and when the trailer finally hit the interwebs, it ended with an embarrassing factual error about the Constitution.

What will happen when the Titan kneels?

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

You can tell that the NFL season is approaching because you can hear the whining from highly-paid athletes as they prepare their kneepads for some kneeling.

In May, the NFL instated a policy that penalizes players who take a knee during the national anthem.

"A club will be fined by the League if its personnel are on the field and do not stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem," the statement said. "The Commissioner will impose appropriate discipline on league personnel who do not stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem."

Tennessee Titan's defensive end Jurrell Casey has decided that he will continue his whining and kneeling.

"I'm going to take my fine," Casey said in an interview. "It is what it is, I ain't going to let them stop me from doing what I want to do. If they want to have these battles between players and organizations, this is the way it's going to be."

Maybe Casey can find work elsewhere. I hear that Universities love to hire self-righteous ranting lunatics.

He added that "At the end of the day, we got to do a job, but I will continue to use my platform to keep on speaking up."

Yes, he does have a job to do. And that job is playing football. His bosses have made it clear that political activism is not part of the job. Who knows, maybe Casey can find work elsewhere. I hear that Universities love to hire self-righteous ranting lunatics. There's also Starbucks. They need a self-righteous CEO.

BUCKLE UP: Glenn Beck explains 7 scandals that make up the Russia connection

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

All anyone can talk about right now is Russia and collusion, and for good reason. Special Counsel Robert Mueller just indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for cyber attacks and the hacking of cyber-systems in energy, nuclear, water, and manufacturing sectors which you can read about here.

The Trump-Russia scandal, in a word, is maniacal. There are many moving parts that are very hard to solve — or simply don't want to be solved. All of these are "mysteries wrapped in an enigma," asserted Glenn on Wednesday's episode of "The Glenn Beck Radio Program."

From the curious case of Imran Awan to the hacking of DNC servers to "Russian" meddling in elections via social media, all of these deserve scrutiny.

On today's episode, Glenn examined seven scandals that make up the Russia connection:

Russian operatives who used social media to divide Americans during the 2016 election.
The meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
The Fusion GPS Dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Voter fraud in Illinois.
Hillary Clinton's emails.
Imran Awan. Awan was an IT staffer for Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who was part of a federal investigation and was arrested on bank fraud charges.
Lastly, the 2016 DNC email leaks.

For the entire explanation, tune into the podcast below:

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

There are three tribes when it comes to Trump and Russia: Which tribe do you belong to?

When it comes to Donald Trump, Glenn Beck argues that there are three tribes that categorize the way people examine him regarding his foreign and domestic policy.

Tribe one is the #Resistance. They are the ones who believe that everything President Trump does is bad. They're also the ones who call for impeachment and who label President Trump a "treasonous traitor" even before a summit with a foreign leader takes place.

Those, according to Glenn's analysis, include groups like Think Progress, who published an article suggesting that women's rights would be rolled back if the President's SCOTUS nominee is confirmed by the Senate. This tribe also includes progressive talking heads and far Left publications and politicians like The New York Times and Hillary Clinton.

Tribe two are those who defend the President and his actions at all costs. He can do no wrong. These are the people who deny the President's mistakes. They believe the President is a master chess player and everyone else is a pawn in Trump's game.

Both who operate in tribes one and two maintain a "win at all costs" mentality. They don't care what happens as long as their side wins. Glenn calls this a "cult of personality madness."

Tribe three are those who are "free thinkers." These people question the President with boldness and aim for intellectual honesty when evaluating the President's policies and behavior.

Glenn believes tribe one and tribe two are smaller than tribe three.

So, what do all these tribes have to do with Trump and the Russians? Find out in the clip below.

Where do you fall when it comes to Trump and Russia?

When it comes to Donald Trump, Glenn argues that there are three tribes that categorize the way people examine him regarding his foreign and domestic policy.