| | What would happen if you encountered God face-to-face in a shack?
That's the gist of William P. Young's speculation in his book "The Shack." His main character, Mack, had a young daughter who was kidnapped and brutally killed, and since that fateful day Mack has dealt with "The Great Sadness" and has questioned God's goodness. Then one day he gets a note from "Papa" (God) inviting him to a meeting at the shack--the very place where they found the evidence of his missing daughter's death.
I read this book after a couple friends told me a should. I don't always feel the need to read the books "everybody's reading," but sometimes I want to be in on the conversations and see what all the hype is about. And there's quite a bit of hype about this one.
Unwarranted, I think. It could be that the $6 I paid the library in late fees (oops!) has given me a bad taste for the book, but I think it's more than that. Aside from a few somewhat-significant theological differences (Tim Challies covers them pretty well in his review, which I encourage you to check out if you want a more involved theological review--especially what he says about the Trinity, submission, free will, and Scripture), there was one thing that bothered me the most.
It just doesn't seem to line up with the biblical stories of people encountering God.
Not that it's heretical, really. It might come close sometimes, but it's often too vague for me to really be sure of what he's getting at (other than that Young is definitely not a Calvinist). But one big thing is missing.
He doesn't fall on his face.
When the great prophet Isaiah "saw the Lord" (Isa. 6:1), his response was "uh-oh... I'm a goner" (my paraphrase). The glory and splendor was too much; he saw his sin as too great and thought he would die. But God in His grace took away his sin and allowed him to see and live.
When John, arguably the man closest to Jesus on earth, saw a vision of the risen, glorified Jesus, he fell on his face (Rev. 1:17) and Jesus had to touch him and raise him to his feet. In fact, throughout Scripture, we see seraphim covering their faces and feet, angels falling on their faces, and people bowing down at the presence of God.
When Job (another man with a lot of hurt who questioned why God had allowed it to happen) heard from God, he--like Mack in "The Shack"--was given more questions than answers, learned more about God than about his situation... but the differences in the responses of "God" in The Shack compared to God in the book of Job are profound. In Young's writing, God spends most of his time trying to show Mack that he is loved and that God is good. In Job, we hear God say, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?... Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?" (Job 38:4, 34-35).
The God we find in Young's book does not seem that big. Nice, perhaps wise, and a good cook... but no one's falling facedown. There's a conspicuous lack of glory. And the lack of glory makes the love seem not as meaningful.
That's not the God I know.
It's part of Him, perhaps. Like I said, the book's not heretical. It rattles some cages that probably need rattling and has a few profound things to say, but not enough to warrant most of the hype I've heard. Young wants to take God out of the box most people have for Him, and I can respect that. But I wonder about some of the ways he chooses to do it. Yes, God could show up as an African woman if He wanted, I suppose, but you've got to wonder why He never does this in Scripture. Mack is startled to realize that all of his mental pictures of God had always been "very white and very male," and well, the white is probably something from his culture, but male... that's likely because God is called "He" throughout ALL of Scripture... and don't you think God probably has His reasons?
Read the book if you want to know one man's perception of God. But if you truly want to know GOD, the best book I'd suggest is the one He wrote about Himself. |
| | Posted 2/24/2009 7:46 PM - 5 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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