The Shack, Part the Second

Given my promise to review the Shack and share my thoughts and critiques with you, I feel it is time for the second installment of my thoughtfully spaced-out Shack posts. It's only been two months since the first, but I just can't wait any longer. [Is joke! In actuality, I've been holding off on this post out of respect for some friends, with whom I intended to discuss the book. However, that discussion has not materialized, and I think enough time has passed to allow me to publish my thoughts here.]

The organization of my review has been a bit challenging for me. I'm not sure how much detail to include for my arguments, and whether to attempt it all here or whether to present one point at a time for your reading and commenting pleasure. Since I tend to be a tad verbose, let's try Plan B and see how it goes. Shall we?

As I read through The Shack, book in one hand, Bible in the other, and brand new gel pen poised at the ready, I came to understand why the novel is a source of such incredible controversy. Young presents a wonderfully moving story that captures the reader's emotions and tugs his heartstrings almost nonstop. The main character, Mack, stumbles upon a unique opportunity to spend a weekend with the Trinity in a rundown Shack and experience both transformation in his view of God and healing from the Great Sadness. While the book is not exactly classic literatary material in its composition, the story is nonetheless compelling, and one is tempted to turn the final page with the conclusion that one has come to a deeper, more intimate understanding of the Trinity and of God's role in the context of pain and suffering.

But does one, really?

As I mentioned in my first The Shack post, the discerning Christian must consider the implications of the book's teachings on God, salvation, and Christianity in general. That the book is "just fiction" is no excuse to turn a blind eye to the theological propositions that pervade the narrative material. I hope in my review to fairly acknowledge Young's purposes behind the way he treats the Trinity, Scripture, sin, and other essential Christian doctrines. He is often reacting against negative stereotypes, but he does so by swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction. I'll cover this more when I talk about his treatment of God's character and other issues, but for now let's begin more broadly with the mere existence of Papa.

Problems With Papa (I)
1. God the Father as a human woman
So here we have God the Father portrayed in human flesh. The author claims to have presented God the Father thus as a reaction against our religious stereotypes of God as a white grandfatherly type who sits in the heavens and judges. That's an understandable stereotype against which to rebel, but the answer is not to fight idolatry with idolatry.

Scripture says that God is Spirit (John 4:24). This has several implications regarding His nature - God the Father is alive, animate, and personal. But He is also invisible (Colossians 1:15, 1 Timothy 1:16-17). No man has seen God at any time (John 1:18). We are commanded not to exchange the Creator for a creature (Romans 1:9), and the Ten Commandments include a prohibition of worshiping any created likeness of anything under heaven (Exodus 20:4). A woman qualifies as a creature under heaven, does she not?

You might argue for artistic license, but in light of repeated descriptions of God as invisible Spirit and warnings against compromising His true nature, it may be a bit presumptuous for an author to represent God the Father in human form - particularly one that is so far from portraying the complexities of God's character. Writing a book about God, whether a novel or theological treatise, is no small thing and ought to be approached with great fear and trembling, and a sober examination of one's accuracy. Including God the Father as a human character in a novel is indeed thin ice upon which to skate.

While the representation of God the Father as a human being is one form of idolatry, there is another present here which is just as grievous. Could not the Creator be exchanged for the creature of one's own perceptions and stereotypes? We must be careful, whether in our minds or in our literature, not to reduce God the Father to any particular set of attributes that is anything less than the full complexity of His character. Young emphasizes Papa's love, acceptance, joy, and relational nature but does so at the expense of the holiness and righteousness that is more frequently emphasized in Scripture than even God's love. God is holy, holy, holy (Rev. 4:8), and to portray Him as anything but intolerant of sin is patently false!

Both the "grandfatherly old man" and "bubbly black woman" images of God the Father are charicatures, inaccurate representations (as any portrayal of God must be). This is idolatry, and we must turn only to Scripture for our understanding of God's true character.

Because we are dealing with a novel, this is where I have sometimes heard the Aslan/Narnia argument. But folks, Aslan is a fictional lion who rules over the fictional land of Narnia. At no time does C.S. Lewis claim that Aslan is God (in fact, were he a person of the Trinity he would be Christ). We understand many of Aslan's actions and his role in Narnia to be those of a Christ figure, but he does not introduce himself as Jesus or, more importantly, as God the Father. Young's "Papa" character is explicitly stated to be the real God the Father and as such, interacts with a human being to answer his most difficult questions. Important distinction!


The attributes of Young's Papa have many implications for the rest of the book's theology, including its treatment (or conspicuous lack thereof) of sin and repentance. Stay tuned!

Up next: Problems With Papa (II): The Character of God