"The Shack"

Kathy Lee Gifford, Co-host on NBC's Today Show, said, "The Shack will change the way you think about God forever." Is this good or bad?

The copy of the book, The Shack, that I just finished reading says that the book has over one million copies in print and is on "The #1 New York Times Bestseller" list. The book is about a father's encounter with God, after his daughter is kidnapped and murdered. It is a novel about tragedy confronting eternity.

In it, God, who exists in three persons, appears to this father, Mack, to help Mack think differently about God's nature and role in relationship to this and other tragedies that happen in this world.

The author believes, as do I, that there are many people that have the view of God that Mack had before his conversations with the three persons he encounters at the shack who represent the Holy Trinity- God the Father, God the Son who is Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit. Through these encounters, the way Mack thinks about God changes and his evolution of thought about God is intended to guide the reader to change his view of God in the same ways.

In my opinion the author is attempting to help people see God differently and the essence of what he is attempting to get readers to realize is captured when a woman called Papa, who represents God the Father, (maybe I will put my thoughts about this in another blog) says to Mack, "...I'm not a bully..." It is true, in my opinion, that many people wrongly see God as a bully. The full statement is , "I'm not a bully, not some self-centered demanding little deity insisting on his own way." (p. 126) My problem with the book can be seen in an examination of this sentence.

This statement is true when it says that God is not "a bully". The desire of the author, William P. Young, is to help people stop thinking of God in this way, and this is good. Young wants readers to better understand and feel the love of God and this is a great need because God is often misrepresented and misunderstood to be a being that is not compatible with the statement that "God is love." ( 1 John 4:16)

It is also true that God is not "some...little deity" acting like humans who demand and insist on their own way. When humans demand and insist on their own way they are being self-centered and petty which is selfish and unloving. It is not possible for humans to be self-centered without being little by insisting on their own way. God, however, can be and is self-centered, demanding, and insists on His own way without being little and selfish and unloving.

God commands humans to love and serve Him and many see this as self-centered. For God to command humans to love and serve Him is not petty, selfish or unloving, though it would for any human to do so. This is true because love desires and seeks the best for others. God commands us to love and obey Him because this is the only way for humans to experience the best - now and forever. God's glory and our good can't be separated. Therefore, God can't seek our good, that is He can't act lovingly, without seeking His own glory, which is selfish for humans to do.

In his attempt to lead people to see that God is loving and not a petty bully, the author seems to deny the attributes of the character of God that are exaggerated and warped in the minds of many that cause them to see God as a petty bully. Is wrath an attribute that is a part of God's character? Yes. But when people have a view of God that distorts this attribute as a result of identifying it too closely with the wrath of "little" people, they have a caricature of God that is unbiblical and makes Him undesirable.

If the author had attacked this caricature of God by showing the difference between the wrath of men and the wrath of God and the difference between the demandingness of men and the demandingness of God, I could fully endorse this novel. Instead, he undermines belief in this attribute of the character of God subtly and indirectly, and that is bad.

Has the love and grace and mercy of God been inadequately communicated and inadequately celebrated in a great deal of Christian preaching and literature? Yes. Has the wrath and judgment and law of God been inappropriately emphasized to intimidate and manipulate people? Yes. These realities have lead people to see God as a bully and obedience to Him as a burden. These ideas about God and Christianity need to be corrected, but not by denying hard truths taught in scripture but by explaining them better and in connection with the love and grace of God.