The Shack...

Last month while Crystal and I were browsing the outlet stores in Lincoln City I came across one of the books high on my Amazon wish list, The Shack by William P. Young. I first heard about it through listening to one of Mark Driscoll's sermons (those that are close to me know that I absolutely love listening to Driscoll's preaching and believe it to be a big part of the renovation in my walk with God). He said in one of his sermons that if you haven't read the book yet, don't. So the next day I added it to my Amazon wish list. Since then, I have heard quite a bit of buzz surrounding the book and couldn't resist the purchase once I had the book in my hands. I finished the book over a month ago and I still can't get it out of my head so I figured I would write about it on here. This is seemingly becoming my outlet for getting stuff out of my head.

If you haven't read it, I will try not to spoil any of it (as hard as that will be), but essentially it is a fictional book (at least my copy says fiction for the genre on the back cover) about a guy named Mack who goes to a shack in the middle of nowhere and meets God in three distinct persons. God as an African American woman and an older man (he apears differently at different times in the story) referred to as Papa, the Holy Spirit as a woman named Sarayu, and Jesus as what else but a Middle Eastern carpenter. So, Mack is at the shack and he has a conversation with God as the three different people. That is it, end of the story.

I suppose there is a little more to it but not really. Mack lost his youngest daughter previously and the shack is where she was murdered by a serial killer. Along with that there is a little back story how Mack left home when he was in his early teens to get away from his father who was an abusive alcoholic. Mack, in his conversation with God, begins to trust God and see God as Papa, a name he previously could never call God by. He comes to the understanding that it is not God that has placed the bad things in the world but essentially the fall of man has brought sin into this world and from that sin is the reason that bad things happen. God tries to use those things for his glory but it is never his intention that his children should suffer the pain of the bad things that plague our world. Most importantly Mack begins to understand what it means to forgive. To forgive his dad for the abuse he suffered as a child and to forgive the guy that killed his daughter.

Pondering the thought on why bad things happen, It is beautiful to think that God doesn't really want bad things to happen to any of us and that any bad thing that does happen is the result of us sinning. If that is the case we can't really blame anyone for our lives many tragedies but I have to admit I don't find this very fulfilling. I am also not truly convinced this is the case. Why do bad things happen? It is a question that has been pursued for ages and I don't think a definite answer will be wrought anytime soon.

Getting back to the book, if you have read this far and haven't read the book you are probably wondering what the big deal is. You may even be thinking it doesn't even sound like a story worth reading but what is it that has stirred the hearts of so many? People that really enjoyed it are passing it along to everyone they can and then there are those that are willing to fall on a sword over the detrimental theological blasphemy proclaimed within the pages of the book?

The book is a fictional book and I understand the concern that Driscoll and others have about the way Mr. Young portrays the Trinity. However, I have to question your motivation for reading the book, or any book for that matter, if you are reading a book to understand theology. If you want to answer the question about who God is, I think you are looking in the wrong place. If you want to understand anything about God you need to be in the Bible because that is the only authority on such topic and anything that you read authored by someone other than God should be read with a certain level of skepticism and discernment.

I personally place Mr. Young's fictional work in a genre akin to the work of CS Lewis or Tolkien. It is easy for me to see why people have a much harder time with this book because there is a lacking abundance of mythical creatures such as the Centaurs conversing with lions or Orcs battling Hobbits (however on that note I do think I personally know some people that would qualify as Hobbits and am not entirely convinced they are indeed a mythical race). Having classified the book as such I don't feel the urge to wrestle with the questions and declarations of the book being heretical. I do question whether Driscoll did in fact actually read the whole book because having finished it myself I don't think that his criticisms of the book are valid. It would be easy to see how he could come to his conclusions if he was reading it simply to pull some criticisms out of the book but having read it for what it is I don't see how you can come to the same conclusions.

I personally just can't get the story out of my head and I keep asking myself why? The only conclusion I can come to is that people want it to be real. We don't want this to be a work of fiction. We want to know that Mack is real and that his story is true. Yes, it is a tragedy what happened to his daughter, but the fact that he can find forgiveness in the monster that caused him all that pain is nothing short of a miracle in itself. If that guy can be forgiven then surely my wrongs aren't that extreme and I can be forgiven. We want to believe we can have a conversation with God like Mack does and we can find the joy he as afforded for the pains in his life. Most importantly that God can be as real to us as he is to Mack and that he can be our Papa.

The truth of the matter is that God is all of those things we want him to be and if we could just get ourselves out of the way for half a second, we would see him as such. My personal discovery is that I have this little idol factory atop my shoulders and its continually manufacturing these idols that make me blind. Each day it's money, success, materials, family, friends, relationships, security, love, drugs, alcohol, sex and for me the list goes on and on. As soon as I bury one of them the factory is quick to produce a replica or something entirely different. In the moments when I can shut the factory down my heart begins to take over and all of the sudden God becomes all of those things I am yearning for him to be. I realize in worship of him he actually becomes more.

If I could just shut down that factory...

As we were driving home from the beach last month we rediscovered Shaded Red's version of When God Ran (http://www.myspace.com/shadedredwhengodran). It is a beautiful song about the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) and God's love for us. We had just come from the beach where the waves crash into the sand and all the iniquities end up washed away and wiped clean without hesitation (a real life etch and sketch). I am continually messing up and everyday I feel like I find myself running back into the arms of God. Running to me, God grabs me in this giant bear hug and says, my son, I've missed you and I love you. Once again the iniquities are washed away and I can start over again. Finding the forgiveness in those arms is only thing that saves me from the constant barrage of atrocities I seemingly create for myself.

One side note I find intriguing about Shaded Red, in the late 90's they were in a tragic car accident that took the life of their drummer. I personally don't think that they were ever really the same after that accident. So why does God choose to do the things that he does, or does he really even choose any of it in the first place?

Alas, I must stop here and I have to apologize for another the long post. I understand if you didn't get this far. Before writing this I downloaded Coldplay's Viva La Vida, ran two miles, showered, and proceeded to drink two cups of coffee. All of which, in hindsight, was probably not the best combination. Now I need to get up in a couple of hours so I better be off but before I go I raise my last sip of coffee to my pursuit of shutting down that idol factory permanently...

T~