When you have a few years, you might read this post:
Along with The Great Divorce, I’ve been reading a more recent novel, The Shack, by recommendation. A NY Times best-seller, Shack has been compared to Pilgrim’s Progress in impact. The book is written by Wm. Paul Young, set in Oregon. Let me suggest that you find Young’s profile on Wikipedia or check out other reviews on www.theshackbook.com.
To me, the book’s reputation preceded itself in various ways, in fact. I had heard Christians in the area were delighted at its approach. Our WELS Arizona-California District President, John Buchholz, even mentioned it in conversation.
The hook into this novel is how it presents God so simply to the main character, Mack; God invites Mack to spend a weekend at a shack. And as this Mack fellow wonders whether to take God up on the invitation, the reader learns about some startling details. First, we find that, at age thirteen, Mack poisoned his father’s booze in order to avenge routine family beatings. Later, Mack’s young daughter, Missy, is murdered at the hands of a child predator, nicknamed the Little Ladykiller. The shack where Mack eventually meets his Maker face-to-face is the shack where he once found the last known remnants of his daughter–Missy’s bloody dress.
Mack is a believer, but distant, since he resents God and can’t understand why God let his daughter die so soon in such a disturbing way. He also can’t deal with father figures so well, so God the Father comes to him as a large black woman. It eludes me why a short, balding white man can relate better to a Mammy stereotype than to an older white man, especially when the Bible never chooses to speak about God as a woman. However, the point that God communicates to us in ways we can understand—anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms—is well-illustrated in this way. For instance, when Scriptures reference the Lord’s right hand, it’s really describing his power in a figurative way. Likewise, God is “neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from [his] essence” (page 93 of Shack).
Shack appropriately lays emphasis on love and forgiveness, on freedom and relationship. The enemy of Young’s theology is human desire for independence, or the struggle against relationship. In an insightful way, the emphasis on relationship and freedom in the novel is a striking preachment against legalism. (Here I would define legalism as behaving in the right way outwardly by compulsion rather than desire.) Anti-legalism is something Martin Luther strived for in his life, and all Lutherans would work to emphasize, as well.
The difficulty I have here is that the author does a great deal of bashing on what he sees as religion, and he does this boldly from the lips of God. Young’s Holy Spirit character, a small Asian woman, says “religion is about having the right answers … but I am about the process that takes you to the living answer …. ” (198 ) I don’t believe religion disagrees with this! To juxtapose religion and God seems dangerous to me. I think of passages that religion is founded on in the first place, passages like John 8:31-32 and Heb 10:25-26. These are the words of God! These words remind us of the benefit of encouraging one another and meeting together in the truths of Jesus’ teachings! We naturally resist the workings of God in our hearts anyway (Ro 8:7); why did we expect religion to be so smooth and agreeable? Is it theology Young takes issue with? But that hardly makes sense, as Young illustrates well by his whole novel, all theology is practical.
There’s a particular aspect of this novel that comes off hokey to me, and that’s the love that Young desires to spread throughout the novel by a kiss on the cheek. The Holy Spirit kisses Jesus on the cheek and Jesus kisses the father on the cheek and on the lips … This comes off a little strange, I think. The idea is that, in order to prove the Trinity, the author explains that a God who is self-sufficient and loving must also be plural. It’s an intriguing thought to combine these attributes as a proof for a three-in-one God, but it ends up being weird in the novel. Nor does the Bible offer us this divine equation. Our existence is already proof of his love; he didn’t need to be more than one God to be love. The Trinity is proved to us by the clear passages of Scripture (John 15:26). Anything else, even divine equations, limp.
One last glaring issue I have with Shack is that it blurs the line between fact and fiction in terms of God’s communication with us. God is truly a living being, if you want to think of him as a verb. But we can also find out many things about him in the Scriptures, many firm and fast divine expressions that are very much like nouns. For instance, it can be very comforting to know God doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6) or lie (Psalm 12:6), God is all-powerful (Ps 115:3) and operates outside of time to our benefit (2 Pt 3:9). God is faithful (1 Co 10:13), and God is love (1 Jn 4:8 ) and truth (Jn 14:6) and salvation (Lk 1:31, Jn 17:3). Again, Young himself draws on many of these attributes throughout the novel. To go looking for feeling and insight in nature can be enlightening and emotionally appealing, but God isn’t going to reveal himself as Savior of the world there. He only reveals his story of salvation through the means of grace, the gospel in word and sacrament (Ro 10:17, John 3:5, Matt 26:28).
Wm.–I like his abbreviation–Paul Young wrote Shack in 2007. He has a depth of theological insight in treating these topics of suffering and pain. In fact, there is more topically than a blog can truly address. (Though if there’s more interest, I have more to say.) Young constantly shows thought as well as feeling. I found myself tearing up at points, which doesn’t surprise me when I’m reading from someone who has founded his comfort on the Bible.
I recommend Shack to those readers with both a discerning eye and a love for the gospel’s work in the lives of sinners.
Posted by wordsofgracevicar 
