William P. Young
William P. Young
William Paul Youngis a Canadian author. He wrote the novels The Shack, Cross Roads and Eve...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth11 May 1955
CountryCanada
religious expectations understanding
It's always been you know, religion that has been the primary impediment to actual relationship with God, because it creates a mythology about performance -- that you can perform your way into the appeasement of the deity. And you know, when you're born inside the cultural framework that I was, and you're born inside the religious traditions that I was, that becomes your understanding of spirituality: That it's about trying to please God. So, it's really not about God at all; it's about our ability to perform according to whatever the expectations are.
religious book thinking
I think my books give people a language to have a conversation about God that's not religious. There isn't enough new literature that brings the conversation of God into a modern context. I love the Bible, but in the West we've analyzed it until it fits into a structure of control. We need more new stories. We need different ways of looking at things, and I think it's coming.
christian religious mean
It seems like -- especially in religious circles and Christian circles, we want to first talk about the things we're opposed to. That means we have to categorize that person. We can call them emergent or neo orthodox or someone who feminizes scripture. There's the category, let's stick them in the category then just blow up the box and him along with it.
religious real differences
He was sick of God and God's religion, sick of all the little religious social clubs that didn't seem to make any real difference or affect any real changes.
religious dad father
Religion and anger has gone together a lot, historically. My father, being very religious and angry, was trying to reconcile the ideas of love and forgiveness with damage in his own heart. We historically create God in the image of someone who will redeem us, or someone who has damaged us. A lot of my imaginations of God was a projection of my own damage because of my father. God is good but he has a lot of expectations, of which I have failed -- just like my dad. But I don't think it's truthful to create God as a projection of either our damage or our altruism.
religious women fall
I think one of the greatest losses to humanity was the domination of women. I think every religious system has found ways to be kind to them in a kind of subordinate way. Very patronizing, very colonial. But if you start looking at the fabric of society, even religious systems, they would fall apart if it wasn't for the embedded ability of the women who are involved.
children broken parent
In some sense every parent does love their children. But some parents are too broken to love them well& others are barely able to love them at all..
powerful lying safe
Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe & powerful.
believe metaphor
Because you continue to inhabit and believe your metaphors, you cannot see what is true.
self mind emotion
Emotions talked to you before you had words, so listen to them ... they are often more honest than the mind's remarkable ability to self deceive.
god trying santa
I'm trying to get far away from [picturing God as] Gandalf or Santa Claus.
thinking identity who-we-are
Disconnect your identity from what you produce, and that's a hard thing for us because we think of our significance, worth and value based on what we do instead of who we are.
love-is stronger faults
[...] love is much stronger than your fault could ever be.
life reality greater
This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come.