The thing is, it's sweeping Christiandom at this point. I've got friends who've been Christian for many years saying, "Oh, man, oh I didn't understand God as deeply as I did after this. I mean, oh, this changes everything." They sound like Martin Luther after having read the New Testament with his own eyes for the first time. But really, it's chock full o' heretical nonsense, and wrapped tightly in an emotionally gripping story. The story, BTW, is written as fact; only the "Forward" indicates otherwise.

I listened to Michael Youssef's broadcast on it. He opened by mentioning that only three times in 33 years of ministry has he dedicated an entire sermon ("a sense of urgency") to respond to a book; this is one of those three. He was so taken aback by how people are gobbling up this book and the heresy it contains that he felt the need for a rare stop-everything message. He posted his 13 Heresies in The Shack talking points. It's worth a look.

About the only advantage of all this Shack mess is that it's really exposing those who love theology (i.e., actually wanting to know the God they love) and those who don't: "No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval." 1 Cor. 11:19

I've reviewed and tracked discussion The Shack at my blog. I give it a mediocre endorsement as lit and points for being a creative theological narrative. And it is a narrative- a man's story, and in its way, Young's own story. It is not literal. It's like Great Divorce. Critics who say its bad because God the father is black woman might as well complain that God is portrayed as a lion or Lewis is a heretic because he portrays hell as something other than a lake of fire.

People who criticize Young's writing style on its theological content are entitled to do so, but it's a major failure of not reading the book- which many critics don't do- to say that a narrative fantasy is supposed to play by the rules of Grudem's Theology.

The book is about a weekend of reconciliation with God over terrible events. I don't agree with all the theology, but it's a darn sight more interesting way to get people talking about God than outlining the Institutes.

Its frustrating that the focus on portraying God as a female human character is completely legit in a fantasy. I'm totally puzzled why anyone would find that so odd, given Lewis's exploration of God as Aslan.

As literature, its amateur. As theology, its left of center, but very bold an interesting. As a threat to evangelicalism, its an example of a movement looking for something to blame for their own aversion to the Gospel.

Here's a good question: Why are millions of people clearly not satisfied with the way their own pastors teach and talk about God? What is it about a God who personally invites you to a reconciliation over the worst thing a person could ever suffer that appeals to people more than the God presented by so many pastors and teachers today?

peace

ms

First, full disclaimer: I haven't read The Shack and so can't comment on its content or theology.

But I too get nervous when people claim a book has changed their lives, especially when the book sweeps through pop culture. I felt this way about Prayer of Jabez. I never read it, but it was the first time I remember people moving from "good book. Interesting, spiritually very helpful" to "IT CHANGED MY LIFE!"

I felt the same way about Wild at Heart, which I did read. What a mush of scripture-twisting bad application that thing was! And, again, people didn't just say "Yeah, good book." People were saying that next to the Bible it was the most earth-shattering book they'd ever read (and they also added a new twist: giving a Clint Eastwood stare and questioning the manhood of every wuss who didn't think it was [expletive deleted] great).

So I don't have a desire to read The Shack.

iMonk. I would agree with you if most Shack readers thought of it the way you do. But too many of them *seem* to talk about it like it practically replaces the Bible.

And, a personal note, and I know we don't see eye to eye always here: every disagreement or issue doesn't have to mean that the evangelical church sucks.

Maybe people like the Shack because it tells them what they want to hear? Maybe they don't like the God their pastors and teachers present because they don't like the God presented in the Bible?

Of course, many pastors and teachers get it wrong. I'm a teacher, and I'm sure I get it wrong. But I don't think people flock to books like The Shack and Prayer of Jabez strictly because the church is awful. Although, yes, the lack of good gospel preaching in many churches may be a factor. But even in good gospel preaching churches it's extremely easy to find unsatisfied church consumers. It's not like people are flocking to the Gospel. People flock to what makes them feel good.

I think they flock to these books because those books tell them what they want to hear.

but it's a major failure of not reading the book- which many critics don't do- to say that a narrative fantasy is supposed to play by the rules of Grudem's Theology.

You're speaking hyperbolically, right? I mean, I read a few reviews out there and didn't come across anything about anyone complaining that the book is not in-line with Grudem's theology.

I'm totally puzzled why anyone would find that so odd, given Lewis's exploration of God as Aslan.

Lewis' lion is an obviously biblical metaphor. I think there's a distinct difference between the two portrayals in question.

Can I just ask - why don't you guys read it?

Because I don't want to. :-) I don't think it'd ruin my faith, and I don't think it would be a sin to read it, but, personally, I don't want to take the time to read it.

If I were doing a full out book review on it, I naturally would have needed to have read the book, but that's not the point of my post.

I get nervous when people fall all over themselves because of a book as well. Then again, some of those books turned out to be pretty good after all (Narnia, Mere Christianity, LOTR, Harry Potter -- I avoided them all at one point thanks to the hype-machine). I listened to a radio show recently where the main criticism against The Shack was the Amazon reviews were over the top. Be that as it may, I personally think it makes for a weak criticism of the book.

Having read it, I'm amazed at the responses on either side. No, it's not the "BEST BOOK EVAR!!1" and it has issues, some of which IMonk addressed. On the other hand, the negative reaction seems even more unhinged. No, it doesn't teach goddess worship, and no he doesn't teach universalism. Good people like Michael Youseff should be able to tell the different between idioms and metaphor and Systematic Theology. His "heresies" list is filled with the worst possible reading of a phrase, usually divorced from the rest of the book.

If someone doesn't want to read it, that's totally fine. There's a lot of "Read This! It'll change everything" out there that I routinely skip over. However, just as the gushing reviews may reveal more about the writer than the book, the virulent critical reviews seem to have the same effect.

UNLIKE LEWIS and most of his readers, Young and his "Shack" fans are unwilling to talk non-fictionally about theology.

That's really unfair, don't you think? Considering I've read positive reviews from people with far more extensive, theologically sound backgrounds than myself, I just don't see it.

Young is appearing at our church tomorrow night. I guess I'll test this theory.

At the seminary I attend, one of the professors has The Shack on his required reading list for his Trinitarianism class so his students can discover modern heretical issues with its view of the Trinity.

I haven't read it yet - if you saw the list of books I have to read for said seminary, you'd understand - but I'm very much interested.

Obviously, Jesus was God revealed in human form, but the portrayal in the excerpt that Bird posted is easily heretical. Arguing just one phrase (although there is certainly more to spend time on, as Bird points out), Enoch certainly believed God's love to the extent that he was taken to heaven without even dying - do we need to list the Patriarchs and their belief in God's love? Hebrews eleven does a fairly good job of listing those having gone before Jesus who believed in God's love. (Believing in God's love, after all, is faith, right?)

Personally, I don't take issue, necessarily, with God being portrayed as a black woman and I don't really think anyone else should either. If someone has a problem that God was portrayed as a human at all would be a different conversation, but while He is our heavenly father, I don't really believe that there is ever any humanly physical gender associated with Him. In Scripture, God spoke through a bush, a donkey, a light, etc., couldn't he speak through a human? Although I haven't read it, I don't think the book seeks to argue that God is a black woman, but simply a form that he took on to have this seemingly inane "discussion".

There is benefit in getting people to think of God as something other than an old, white man. There is good in helping people understand that God does not fit into any mold - including that of black woman. He is too big, too lofty, too clever, too powerful, too complex and too dimensional for us to comprehend, so there is no way he can be adequately portrayed. The best our human language can do, as designated by God, is "I AM". So, in talking about God, if we're going to give him some form to use him in such allegory, a black woman is as worthy as a lion is as worthy as a computer bag. One might better suit Him, to the extent it helps us understand who He is (as Lewis' lion does), but that does not make it more valid. Once again, God took on the the suit of a donkey to talk to Balaam. Why is it absurd that he take on a black woman? There is borderline prejudice in there, right?

So, with those claiming its heresies I agree. With those defending the use of black woman to represent something that can have no adequate earthly representation, I seem to agree. Maybe when I graduate, I'll pick it up. My guess is it will be old news by then, the author will have written a crappy follow-up and no one will care.

That's really unfair, don't you think? Considering I've read positive reviews from people with far more extensive, theologically sound backgrounds than myself, I just don't see it.

It's my perception, granted.

Where are the positive reviews with theological backgrounds that say the book offers a "new" theology and defend it?

I know there are scholars/smart people defending the book. But most of them are just saying it's fiction, it's an allegory, or whatever. They are NOT saying the book is good theology.

On the other hand, I'm talking about the rabid fans I see all over the place who are saying both a) this book changed/challenged my theology, and b) I don't think I should have to defend myself or the book, b/c it's fiction.

I agree with iMonk. I really enjoyed The Shack and think that in many instances its detractors either misunderstand what the author is saying or make genre mistakes. In other instances I think they are correctly spotting questionable theology but throwing out the baby with the bathwater - like an exclusivist who would throw out "The Last Battle" in its entirety because in it, Lewis presents an inclusivist view of salvation.

John Stackhouse of Regent in Vancouver did a series of blog posts on The Shack. I'd recommend them to those of you who haven't read the book.

http://stackblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/the-shack-1-in-defense-of-ideological-fiction/

http://stackblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/the-shack-2-some-theological-concerns-part-1/

http://stackblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/the-shack-3-theological-concerns-part-2/

http://stackblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/the-shack-3-some-celebrations/

To go a little further: do any of the critics here know the author's story and how it plays into this book that he wrote initially for his own children?

William Paul Young grew up on the mission field in New Guinea, among a primitive stone age tribe, the Dani. As a child, he was the first human to speak both Dani and English fluently. He was repeatedly molested by the Dani, who his parents were there to minister to. His father was, in his words, "an angry young man" who took his anger out on his family and children, and emotionally wounded his son in significant ways. He was then sent to missionary boarding school at age 6 or 7, where the initiation for the younger boys was to be repeatedly molested by the older boys at the Christian missionary school. He later turned his childhood shame and pain into a perfectionist, "everything's perfect on the outside" Christianity, went to seminary, dropped out - pursued relationship with God through getting all the theological answers "right" and through getting all the external behavior "right" . . . only to have it come crashing down in his late 30's when he had an affair and nearly lost his marriage. Eleven years of healing and counseling and seeking God later, he is able for the first time to relate to God as his loving Father in a way he never could before. [All of this Young has shared in interviews].
[MILD SPOILER ALERT]
So he writes this book, compacting what he beleives he's learned in the last 11 years into Mack's (the protagonist's) one weekend at "The Shack." Mack's murdered daughter Missy is an allegorical figure for the author's lost childhood innocence.

As for the whole God as a black woman thing, leaving aside for a moment the defense of that literary device, the place that it came from is that in the author's own life, a black african american woman who he met in church forms the prototype for "papa" in the Shack. In his life, this woman embodied God's love for him and shone with such Christian and Godly joy that she helped him understand God the Father's love in a way that (at the time) a male mentor or pastor or friend could not - because of all the pain and baggage that was wrapped up in his own relationship with his earthly father. So the Heavenly Father used a black woman in this author's life, to reach the author with His love. Is that so farfetched? Can a woman not "be Christ" so someone? He then took what had actually happened in his own life and extrapolated it into a "vision" that the book's protagonist has, where God the Father appears in the form of a black woman to a man who can't relate well to God as Father because of his earthly father's abuse, embraces him in love and invites him into loving relationship. As John Stackhouse writes:

"(So the critics who accuse Brother Young of fomenting goddess worship [!] really do need to calm down and look again at what he’s trying to do: write a novel of how God might have met a particular person in such a way as to help him at that particular moment. Criticisms such as these give the literal reading of Scripture—the time-honoured principle of submitting to the Bible’s authority according to its various literary forms—the bad name of genre-deaf “literalism.” Sheesh.)"

Is that so farfetched? Can a woman not "be Christ" so someone?

Yes, a woman can be Christ to someone. But, no, a woman can not be God the Father. That's the difference, I think.

Seriously, let's look at the example from the author's own life - something that really happened. Was the african american woman who showed God's love to him really only showing something of Christ to him and maybe the holy spirit - but nothing of the first person of the trinity? Was the embracing and joyful love that he felt from her and that he was able to connect (perhaps for the first time) to God's love for him in a way that his heart could respond to and finally dare to believe - really NOT saying something to him about how God the Father loves him? Or was it a way of the Heavenly Father getting a message to him - the message of the Father's love in the prodigal son story - in a way that his earthly-father-burned heart could receive?

If that real-life woman could be used that way in the author's life, I see no problem with the author imagining a story where a guy gets into a car wreck on his way to visit his daughter's murder site and is given a vision that meets him where he is and teaches him about how God loves him - even if in the vision God the father chooses purposely to appear for a time in the guise of, or represented by, the form of a human woman. Women are after all made in the image of God as much as men - aren't they? There are places where I disagree with Mr. Young's theology, but I'm with Stackhouse on this one.

Also, for what it's worth (not that anyone asked me) - I don't know much about The Shack but I'm least troubled by the portrayal of God as an African American woman.

I don't care about the black woman thing either.

Stephen King did that first in "The Stand" anyway.

If I had conflated Young with Lewis I'd take it back but that's not what I did.

Yeah, I don't think I was singling you out. But I've heard that all over the place: "What about the theological problems in The Great Divorce or Screwtape", etc.

I think Jared explained the diff between C.S. Lewis' fans and his impressions of Shack fans, so I won't go into that.

I'm just not comfortable with all the conflationary talk. I apologize for conflating you with the ones doing the conflation, though.

Can I just ask - why don't you guys read it? Yes, it will likely validate what you already think about it, but it will also validate your opinions of it when you blog about it.

I'm in the process of reading the book. I feel more strongly about it now than before.

As a person who has a friend (heading toward a divorce) who (since reading "The Shack") has a better understanding of who God is because of this book.

She tells me that she now knows that God would not have sent her brother to hell - no, he was not a believer, yes, he died in rejection of Christ...but "The Shack"...she learned that God is not a punishing God.

I asked her what Scripture says and she just told me that she really read the Bible very much. But she learned so much about God from "The Shack".

No problem, Quaid. :-)

Raindream, I think I'd have a concern any time that God is portrayed in a way that is not portrayed in Scripture.

I mean, if I'm going to hold to "Sola Scriptura", why is the way that God chose to reveal Himself not good enough?

I heard the author say it was significant for her to bear the marks of crucifixion, because God suffered on the cross too (or something like that). That's a sorry muddling of the Trinity.

Yeah...but...

(from the book - page 99) When we three (emphasis mine) spoke ourselves into human existence, we became fully human. We also chose to embrace all the limitations that this entailed. Even though we have always been present in this created world, we now became flesh and blood...

that being said, one of the most readable explanations of the Trinity is on that same page: "We are not three gods, and we are not talking about one god with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father, and worker. I am one God and I am three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely one."

I also like what I heard of the book's explanation of God as Mother, that being the main character would accept or listen to the God character better in the form of a woman. I wouldn't make that choice as a writer, but then I would never write a book like this either. More than that, God speaks through women in real life, and in many ways we learn the character of God from the women in our lives, so I don't have a problem with Mamma. Course, if the character ever sounds like Gia, the earth goddess, I'll pitch the book into the trash.

Interesting: today Scot McKnight has a blog post about The Shack and Roger Olsen's new book examining it.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/02/god-in-the-shack.html

My first self-caution is that one can learn NOTHING about God from this book, especially if they have no familiarity with the Bible.

That is a caution that many people miss, and that (I believe) is the biggest problem with the book (the people reading it).

The church I'm attending is starting a four-week series tomorrow based on this book.