So, I go on vacation and have a fantastic time...you know, just checking out. In ministry there are times when you will be barraged by the onslaught of neediness, and endless activity and sometimes the best remedy is simply to just get out of town, shut off the cell - ignore email and hang with the family. And that is exactly what I did.
I was looking for something to read that was not work related - I read a ton and sometimes its great to grab a work of fiction and just enjoy. The Shack was recommended to me by a friend we saw on vacation not because it was good but because he was upset with it. Now, you're no dummy, you know that negative reviews actually bolster book sales or circulation - you say something and people want to know for themselves. So, to that end, this book review is not to tell you what to think - just read the whole posting and add your comments at the end - good or bad.
I must say that I found the book, at the onset, to be a gripping mystery with a few twists I was not expecting. Or, to put it differently, I liked it until the author began to dive into his understanding of the Trinity.
Here is the basic set-up (without giving it away): Mack is a the main character and essentially goes through some really hard life experiences by the time we catch up with him. He is disenfranchised and unaffected by his walk with Christ. On one particular day he is alone and thoughts are flying, he goes to the mailbox and gets a letter - or an invitation rather - to spend a weekend with God at a Shack in the mountains.
He accepts and shows up at the shack where the Trinity is hanging out (God is portrayed as an African American woman named Papa, Jesus is a middle eastern male carpenter, and the Holy Spirit is a translucent Asian woman named Sarayu).
This is where I try to understand - "hey, its a work of fiction and I need to treat it as such..." but my mind and heart could not wrap around the portrayal of God. You see, God commands us in the Bible not to make graven images (idolatry). When we take God (who is spirit) and make him a woman, or a Santa Claus figure, or what have you - we have just engaged in idolatry. Anything God looks like in our imagination is typically from a construct specific to our experience - simply put: our understanding of what God looks like is subject to our experience, not absolute truth.
As the weekend wears on conversations ensue about life and things Mack does not understand and we are introduced to a concept called modalism. Modalism says that God was revealed at different times in different ways and thus has three "modes" of appearance rather than being One God in three persons. Essentially Papa says that he (or she - for the sake of the book) is "...truly human in Jesus." By this line of logic the problem becomes that God is limited to the particular role being played at the current time.
There are many other areas of concern in the book and I don't want to sit here and tell you what to think or give the book away - but let me just ask you to do a few things:
- Read the book for yourself. (toward the end of the book, after the author gets done playing theologian, there is actually some really good and sound dialogue that I was pleased and challenged to read) It will challenge some of your long held beliefs and cause you to examine Christian orthodoxy (that just means "right belief").
- Know that it is a work of fiction. Don't use the book to shape your theology. Know this, the Bible is the first and most authoritative way one can develop a right understanding of God - and that only because the Spirit of God would reveal it to him as he reads the Bible (see Luke 24:27 & 45).
- Watch the embedded video below.
