Warning: I’m going against my personal blog philosophy of keeping posts short.
Preamble: This review has been sitting as a draft for the past week or so. I have been hesitant to post it. I realize this review may offend some who liked the book. But I feel this needs to be said for those who haven’t yet read and are wondering about it.
OK, now I’m starting: “Have you read The Shack yet?” I have had this question asked of me over and over again in the last month or so. As a pastor, from time-to-time I get asked on my thoughts about certain books. But I don’t recall ever being asked about a fiction book. No one asked me what I think of the latest Karen Kingsbury or Francine Rivers novel. But everyone seems to want to know what I think of The Shack, so I thought it was time to check it out and find out what all the hoopla is about.
As I write this, The Shack sits at number 10 on the Amazon best seller list. That means this book is selling a lot of copies. And, undoubtedly, it is selling many copies to people that are attending churches.
Just as a quick synopsis, The Shack, authored by William P. Young centers around a character named Mack. Three years before the events of this story take place, Mack’s young daughter was tragically kidnapped and killed. For the past three years, Mack has been plunging into a kind of depression, full of feelings of guilt, anger, etc. Now, Mack receives a note from God to return to the shack, the place where his daughter was presumably killed. The bulk of this story is the interaction between Mack and the Trinity - God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
A number of reviews have been written about the book and you can find those yourself. What follows might be described as a review. But I want to do more than just review the book. As I read the book, I was more interested in what The Shack says about God and whether it squares with the Bible.
Many people have reminded me that this book is a novel, and that I ought not to read it with it with too tight a theological framework. I have heard it compared to reading Pilgrim’s Progress or The Narnia Chronicles. Ironically, I have am presently reading Narnia to my son, and I find no comparison either in style or in genre. Bunyan’s work has been described in the category of allegory, while Lewis’ work has been described as fantasy. I wouldn’t place The Shack in either of those categories. Also, whereas in Narnia, Aslan represents Christ, there is no physical representation of God and the Holy Spirit, such as there is in The Shack - where God appears in the form of an African America woman referred to as Mama (sometimes Papa) and the Holy Spirit appears as an Asian woman names Sarayu.
Well, if you have not read the book, you’re already starting to see why my one-word description of The Shack is that it is “Bizarre.” [Other Christian leaders I respect have called it subversive and undiluted heresy). I don’t think the author would have any quibbles with that description. When Mack reflects on his weekend with God, he is said to be “struck by the sheer absurdity of the moment” (p. 200). That’s probably a better way of describing the encounter.
For my purposes, I want to look past the issues of the ‘absurd,’ and go to what I perceive to be an agenda behind the book. Since this is fictional, I might be wrong in these perceptions, but I just want to point out some dangers that I see the book. I fear that many will read this book and think that this is what God is like. What follows is some issues that I find problematic from a theological standpoint.
1. God the Father and God the Spirit as physical beings. In the Bible only Jesus is God Incarnate. In response to the disciples’ desire to see God, Jesus answered, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” As an aside, I might have found the book somewhat more palatable if only Jesus had appeared to Mack.
2. Transcendence. I find this entire encounter takes away any sense of the transcendence and holiness of God. I realize God is immanent as well as transcendent, but I see no sense of “Woe is me, for I am ruined… for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.” God is exclusively seen as a Friend or “a very big grandpa” (73) in this book.
3. Omnipotence/Sovereignty/Omniscience. There are instances throughout the book when God is powerless and seemingly limited in knowledge. One example is when Mack says something and Jesus responds with, “I haven’t a clue what this man is talking about.” He looks at Papa (God) and Papa says, “He’s got me lost.” In another instance, we see that God was apparently surprised by the murder of Mack’s daughter. “I did not purpose Missy’s death, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use it for good.” In a final example, it would appear that God is dependent upon the actions of humankind. When Mack is exhorted to forgive the killer, God says that Mack needs to forgive in order to “allow me to redeem Him.” (Note: this also presents problems with regards to redemption).
4. Inter-Trinitarian Relationship - While the Persons of the Trinity are co-equal, the Bible speaks also of the submission of the Son to the Father (1 Cor 11:3). Yet in The Shack, on page 122, Sarayu describes the relationship like as follows: “We have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship… Hierarchy would make no sense among us.”
5. An unbalanced view of God’s attributes. I wasn’t quite sure how to describe this, but God relates to Mack almost exclusively as a God of love without any mention of the grandest expression of that love on the cross, where Christ absorbed the full cup of God’s wrath against sin and “made Him to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” This is love without the Gospel. The one time God’s wrath is mentioned is when Papa says, “I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it. It’s my joy to cure it!” That is just downright unbiblical.
You might have noticed that in many places I have qualified my remarks, with “it seems as if…” or “it would appear that….” The reason I can’t say anything categorically is because the language is often confusing and incoherent. But that just goes along with the entire post-modern mantra that says truth is unclear and ambiguity is to be celebrated. You will find that mantra expressed throughout the book.
- When Sarayu takes Mack out into a garden, this garden is described as “chaos in color” in a “blatant disregard for certainty” (128).
- Jesus is quoted as saying, “People are afraid of uncertainty. These institutions (marriage, for example) are all vain efforts to create some sense of certainty and security where there isn’t any. It’s all false!” Life is “an ongoing dialogue of us sharing journey together” (179-180).
- Papa is quoted as saying, “Faith does not grow in the house of certainty” (189).
- Sarayu (just to complete the Trinitarian celebration of uncertainty) is quoted as saying, “I have a great fondness for uncertainty.”
And just in case you thing this is not an agenda, head over to author William P. Young’s blog and you’ll find this article entitled, “The Beauty of Ambiguity (Mystery).”
Conclusion: I now know why so many wanted me to read this book. It is not an ordinary Christian fiction book. All the hoopla is taking place primarily because this is a book about God. It is a story that has a less-than-hidden agenda to provide it readers with a portrait of what the Triune God is like.
In that effort, I would say this book is largely unbiblical. It is inconsistent with the biblical portrait of God and in my opinion, fashions a god according what the author would like God to be like.
So… in good conscience, I cannot commend this book to you.
grrraeme
Marlene