The Shack

There have been few books written over the past few years that have had such a polarizing effect as The Shack, written by William “Paul” Young.  The self published work has taken the publishing industry by storm and skyrocketed to the top of the NY Times best seller list.

The work is a fictionalized account of Mack, who’s daughter is abducted during a family camping trip and murdered at an abandoned mountain shack.  Readers are taken on a heart wrenching journey as Mack struggles to cope with the loss, his anger at God and his eventual pilgrimage back to the shack where his daughters body was discovered only to encounter the Trinity in an amazing way.  

What is shocking to me is the profound effect that this book has had on millions of readers around the world and the attack waged by those who have jumped on the bandwagon of condemnation.

Influential pastors like Mark Driscoll have urged their congregations to boycott the book saying that the author has taken a heretical view of God.  His first point is that the author has intentionally created a “graven image” of the invisible God, presenting Him as a jovial black woman named Papa.  He maintains that Christians are taking this work of fiction to represent a physical manifestation of the Trinity, as if congregations across America are now pulling down their paintings of Jesus and replacing them with images of Aunt Jemima. 

This was not the authors intent.  Why did God chose to present Himself to humanity in the form of Jesus?  Because that is how we could actually relate to Him….clothed in flesh and modeling what a life of dependence on the Father should actually look like.  God desires to draw us into an intimate relationship with Himself.  He desires to restore us to the original relationship that was intended before the fall.  C’mon, if God manifested Himself in a burning bush to Moses, why does Mr Driscoll have such a problem with the author using the imagery of a black woman?  The point that Mr Driscoll is missing is that this is simply a work of fiction…one man’s story of redemption and reconciliation, written for his children.  Here is quote from the author’s blog

“I wanted my kids to enjoy a story and through the story to understand their own father better and the God that their father is so in love with.” – Paul Young

It is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a theological discourse.  The author was never attempting to encourage readers to believe that God is, in fact, a large black woman. 

So, back to this graven image thing.  Col 1 says that Jesus is the exact image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation and that God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to Himself.  God may have no bodily form but He chose to present Himself in Jesus and can choose to present Himself to us in any way, shape or form that He chooses and for me, Mark Driscoll or anyone else for that matter, to say otherwise, places limits on God and creates a box in which God will not inhabit.  

Driscoll’s second point is that, by presenting God as a woman, it is some form of goddess worship.  How ridiculous!  God is perfectly male and perfectly female.  We were all created in His image and we all draw our uniquely male and female qualities from Him.  This issue is raised in the book when Mack asked Papa why He chose to present Himself in that form to which He replied…

“Let me say that once we (the Trinity) knew creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering…the emphasis on fathering was necessary due to the enormity of its absence”. (pg 94)

In the book, Mack had been severely wounded in his relationship with his earthly father (which is in fact the case with the author’s relationship with his earthly father).  Intuitively, we can all agree that our relationship with our human fathers will influence how we relate to our heavenly Father.  Papa chose to appear to Mack in that form to alleviate potential barriers to relating to the message that Papa came to deliver.  As the author states “I didnt want my kids growing up with the image of God as a pissed off Gandolf” (a character from the Lord of the Rings movies)

Paul Young recently spoke at our small church in Greensboro NC and what I heard from the pulpit were stories of God’s redemptive power in the life of a broken man  (to listen to audio transcripts of these messages, click here).  It was a story of a life spent on the mission field, of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of trusted people in his life, of infidelity…it was a story of the intensity of life in a fallen world and how we are all deeply wounded and in need of a personal restorative relationship with Jesus Christ.

I admit that I struggled with some of the imagery used in The Shack.  I, along with every other living, breathing Christian, would like to wrap my head around who God is but I applaud anyone who, through exploration of their own pain and struggle, can invite his brothers and sisters in Christ into a deeper discourse into God’s healing and redemptive nature.

I encourage Mark Driscoll and all other detractors to loosen the grip on their theological swords and investigate the background and life story of the author.  Read the book for the story of redemption and healing that it is and support a brother in Christ who is helping many Christians around the world to see God in a fresh way.