So runs the strapline for William Paul Young’s ‘The Shack’.
I wouldn’t have dreamt of reading it – had it not been the subject of our local clergy book club. But I’m glad I did.
Eugene Peterson writes that “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!” I’m not sure about that – but it was good.
It’s a book about God, and the Trinity, and suffering, and judgement, and forgiveness, and sacrifice, and above all about relationships: God’s with him/her/themselves (you have to read it!), our’s with God, and our’s with one another. I don’t think it says anything new about any of that – but it does use some novel and interesting metaphors and images to convey it all. And you can ready it all in a day!
The author uses the quote from the book: “If anything matters…everything matters” as the strapline on his website.
My own ‘keynote’ quote would be: [Papa (God), to Mack (the central character)] “…just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.”
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6 April 2009 at 5:59 pm
Phil Groom
I read it because I was sent a review copy – have yet to write a review though.
Much of what Young says is good: a fascinating if somewhat contrived exploration of what an encounter with God might actually be like, with God largely refusing to conform to conservative stereotypes of what s/he ought to be like.
But by the end, the Shack’s God fails and I finished the book disappointed. I was angry at the outset with the author’s use of a child abduction and murder as a platform for exploring his theology. Eventually Mack asked the billion-dollar question: could the Shack’s God have prevented the tragedy? And the answer? Bog-standard conservative evangelical apologetics: s/he could have prevented it but didn’t “for purposes that you cannot possibly understand” (p.222).
That, putting it bluntly, is a cop out. What would we think of a human being who excused his or her failure to act like that? We’d call them a monster, and rightly so. So why do we balk when it’s God making lame excuses? Or, more precisely, human apologists, making lame excuses for God?
The reality is that even an omnipotent God, even if there was one, couldn’t make a square circle. Evil happens; and if we’re in a position to do something about it, do we not have a duty to act? I think we do ourselves no favours when we try to defend an indefensible failure to act by coming up with variations on the “God knows best” apologia front.
It’s a nice idea to believe that God somehow weaves together the dark strands and the light strands of life to make a tapestry — but that analogy falls apart because a weaver uses wool dyed different colours: it’s still perfectly good wool. Try to weave a tapestry made out of wool with a few strands of barbed wire thrown in for good measure and you end up with a nightmare: not so much “grace in many facets and colors” as blood, running red: God crucified, wearing a crown of thorns twisted together and shoved down onto his head by human hands.
No: I think the best thing we can do with evil is not to pretend that God weaves it into his/her purposes but to acknowledge that evil exists outside of God’s purposes, that as a friend of mine once remarked, the most evil thing about evil is that it has no purpose. Oh, how we want it to have a purpose: how we want to bring meaning out of meaninglessness!
But the truth, the reality we have to learn to live with, I think, is that God is crippled by evil: think Superman and kryptonite and we’ll begin to get the picture. Crippled but not crushed: and that’s where hope begins to emerge. We want an almighty God who could make everything right but doesn’t and his/her mysteries are too deep for us to fathom; but what we’ve got is a God in whom we live and move and have our being and for whom evil is a cancerous growth which s/he calls on us to work with her/him to destroy.
So, at least, it seems to me. Of course, I could be wrong.
23 November 2009 at 4:20 pm
Shawn McGary
Hm… you seem like a very wise man, but I’m confused on what you are saying. Some sentences seemed to bash my God and some like you believed in him. God doesn’t orchestrate the evil, He clearly states that he can’t. It would make him an unloving God. You said, “It’s a nice idea to believe that God somehow weaves together the dark strands and the light strands of life to make a tapestry — but that analogy falls apart because a weaver uses wool dyed different colours: it’s still perfectly good wool,” and what I see wrong with what you explained was that God doesn’t weave dark strands in with light ones. He doesn’t wrap evil up in good. He takes the destruction of evil, you know, that aftermath of an evil, sinful act, and uses it to show his glory. I could be completely wrong about what you’re saying, and if I am feel free to explain to me more, but that is what I understand from what I read in the book. God bless.
23 November 2009 at 5:42 pm
Phil Groom
Thanks Shawn. Appearances can be deceptive: I just read a lot, not especially wise…
I like your idea of God taking the aftermath of evil and using it to show his glory; but — taking two examples at opposite ends of the scale — I’ve yet to see God’s glory in the spattered remains of a hedgehog run down by a car, or in the Nazis throwing live human babies onto their bonfires in the Holocaust.
Maybe one day when we can see everything from God’s perspective these things will somehow make sense; but personally I can’t see it. The God who is, is not the God of pop-evangelical theology, even theology as liberated as Wm P Young’s.
But I’m older than you: maybe I’m just an old cynic; and as always, of course, I could be wrong…
24 November 2009 at 4:14 pm
Shawn McGary
When a hedgehog gets run over, do you think that everyone just drives by it unwounded? I’ve seen some pretty, the nicest way possible I can say… crazy people that make huge movements about animals’ abuse and care. You also have to remember that God created man to share in a love relationship with him. Yes animals are amazing and I love my dog, but in the beginning God states that he put them here to keep Adam company. They are a way to show affection, maybe even help some people to learn to love so they can love the quality of others. And you’re completely right, you could be wrong, and so could I. Well, not really since I’m not claiming that I ‘Know’ anything. I ‘believe’ that God made me and he made you, and no matter how hurt you’ve been and how much loss you’ve had, He still wants you to walk you through life and enter eternity with him. I never thought that I, still being a teen, would comment something like this, but God put it on my heart to. I’m not sure why, but I did it anyway. Life is confusing, everyone knows that, and I also believe that some things we just have to say, “God is God and I am not.” Some things we don’t need to know and we don’t need to understand. Wow, if we knew everything and all the answers, then why would there be any need for faith? I just leave it to God. Oh, and the whole baby thing, that makes me want to break down and cry, not a usual thing for me. I have absolutely no idea why people would want to do such a thing, but don’t you think that the people seeing that happening were changed? Don’t you think that that changed things for the future? Did we not swoop in and help the Jews? God didn’t think, “Maybe if I let all these babies and men and women and children die, then it will make the future better,” the Nazis were going to do it, and God’s grace was still shown. If you talk to the survivors, which there are very few today, they would most likely say that it was a miracle that they were saved and that the Americans stuck their noses in and stopped the maddness. And when they tell their children, that’s planting a seed. This all leads back to God working his glory through all evil. He isn’t going to stop it because that would stop people’s free will, ending true ‘love’. It’s hard for most people to understand, and I’m still struggling with it and don’t know it all. But I don’t want to know everything, some things are better left to God. Thank you for the comments. God bless you sir.
23 November 2009 at 4:10 pm
Shawn McGary
WOW!!!! All I could think about while reading this outstanding novel was that back when Mack is meeting with Him, He knew that I would be reading this too, and that it would open my eyes to questions I had and now understand. Thank God for what he has done. He is truly amazing. The way the three talked among themselves hit me so hard, this is how we should be communicating. Out of sheer love. I love God, Jesus, and the holy spirit, or should I say, Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu. Thank you author and Mack. You have helped me so much. I’m only 17, but the questions running through my mind were eased by this story. I believe every word of it. Praise God. God bless all who took part in this project. See you in the fields, our bright lights will shine together, praising our Lord. Can’t wait to see Papa in my own eyes, or do I see him even now?