The Shack Attack
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
If you haven’t heard of, read or thought about reading “The Shack” by William P. Young you might be hopelessly out of the loop of popular American church culture! The book follows a long line of 20-and-21st-century Christian bestsellers… books like The Prayer of Jabez, Purpose-Driven Life and many others.
I just want to talk about this latest book star, The Shack, for a minute. I haven’t read the whole book. I have read quite a few excerpts from it and trustworthy people’s comments on it. Several good and thoughtful reviews can be easily accessed online (I’ll provide links to those at the end of this article.) What I want to talk about here, though, is how and why we all come to be so enamored of books like this that fail the test of sound doctrine, and why we ought to choose better things to help us and teach us through this life.
Appeal, interest, warmth, emotion–these are all good qualities in a book, but they do not automatically guarantee a book that will really help us. Only the truth about God makes us free. Truth is found in God’s word. There is a line when we are writing about God that, when crossed, blurs the truth about Him and how He deals with us, about what His purposes are for us in this life. If we say “it’s only fiction for goodness’ sake!” we’re kidding ourselves…reading is akin to eating, in that we become what we take in. We are what we read, only it’s more important than becoming what we merely eat. Because it is through our minds and thoughts that a true… or false… knowledge of God comes.
Because of that, we should use lots of discernment about anything we read. But spiritual discernment is in short supply in the American church today. Why? There are lots of secondary reasons: the American church is often biblically illiterate; we have lost the knowledge of why and how to study the Bible seriously; there is a huge bias against the use of the mind, but toward the trusting of our own intuitions and feelings about the things of God. The bottom line though, I’m convinced, is that we do not fear God or “tremble at His word” as we should. We don’t even know how far gone we are there, or that we’re so lacking in that.
So we’re sitting ducks for every new faddish read that comes along. Publishers make sweeping promises about what this latest book will do for us and how it will change our lives, and we buy into it and buy the book and talk about it for a while before its popularity finally begins to fade. If we are reading a book like The Shack to learn something more about God and life and suffering and ourselves, we will have missed it, I promise you. The truth about suffering and God and us is something very different from what this book portrays. It’s a whole lot better. The real truth about all that will change your life.
Most importantly, God is not glorified and shown as great in The Shack. God is glorified by the truth about Himself; that He is sovereign over all things, including our suffering, and that His purposes will prevail. He is glorified by the fact that He is good in this sovereignty, and all His decisions are right and just and true. The truth about the Trinity glorifies God greatly, increasing our understanding of His majesty, holiness and power, causing us to worship Him and honor Him as God. Sadly, The Shack attempts to diminish, belittle and change these glorious truths. The god of The Shack is certainly not the sovereign Lord of the universe that the Bible reveals Him to be!
The Shack is the current “hot” seller in a long line of popular, best-selling Christian books. What sets this one apart is the fact that so many hurting people are reading it for hope and comfort, and the hope and comfort it offers is just not the real deal. In the long run it’s not helpful, because it is contrary to the unbreakable word of God: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). And not only is it not helpful, it is also potentially damaging, since it distorts the truth and misleads the reader.
There are very helpful books written that are based on the Scriptures; those books can help to bring light and healing to us. There are great fiction works that make use of metaphor (Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan and The Chronicles of Narnia books come to mind) in helpful ways. But The Shack doesn’t use metaphor; rather it makes claims. The characters are called by the very names we know them by, and the setting of the book conveys the fact that this story is meant to teach us, the reader, something about God.
So what are your thoughts or opinions on The Shack? Please feel free to comment, even if you disagree! Meanwhile, here are two things: a couple of book recommendations for people who may be hurting or grieving, and then the links I mentioned to a couple of helpful reviews of The Shack. Let’s look to the Lord for the wisdom and discernment we need to read all things for His glory, and our good, through these difficult days. It is always through the opening of our eyes to His greatness and sovereignty that we are most helped.
Book recommendations for those who are suffering:
Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, edited by John Piper/Justin Taylor
When God Weeps: Why Our Suffering Matters to God, by Joni Eareckson Tada
Links to helpful reviews of The Shack:
Dr. Scott Kaufman at “Between Sundays”