I tried to read Pilgrim’s Progress before I learned to love Scripture. I made it through a few pages and tossed it aside as irrelevant and just plain uninteresting. The language was laborious, the words seemed scripted, and I found it difficult to believe that Pilgrim/Christian could teach me anything.
But I picked it up again a couple of years ago. I’d recently spent some time in the Valley of Humiliation, and I was beginning to test out my swordsmanship. This time, I was in love with the book almost immediately. Over and over again, the thrill of the story was not in the bare facts of Christian’s victories but in the way that those victories displayed the efficacy of the whole armor of God. Pilgrim’s Progress was in my mind as I read The Shack, since many have noted similarities between the two. In my mind, the similarities end at genre. It’s kind of like comparing William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience with Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections.
Does that mean I didn’t enjoy the book? No. I’ll confess that there were certain little thrills as I read it—the thrill of a new idea or a plausible spin on an old one. Countless times as I read through the book, I thought, “Wow, what a fascinating way to understand the nearness of God!" But these thrills were more like flights of fancy--God on display as we have imagined him rather than as he has revealed himself.
On a literary level, I found the book engaging but not enthralling. Young’s style is effective in that it disappears; the way that he tells the story doesn’t distract from it (nor add to it, particularly). This is a critical skill for a good storyteller, so I will be quick to assert that Young is a gifted writer. But the story never really transported me. It was much more didactic than I expected; after the first 100 pages set the stage, we were knee-deep in thinly veiled theology. Yes, the book is a work of fiction, and that matters. But since God is real and The Shack's portrayal of him is different from what the authoritative source shows, it tends to read more like revisionist history than fiction.
Young is an astute observer of human nature, and his diagnoses of sin and pain are often spot on. Much of Mack’s conversation with the members of the trinity is an attempt to explain why Mack (or other humans) do what they do. Typically, those explanations boil down to grasping for autonomy or some related sin. You won’t catch me disagreeing! But where was the cross in these discussions? I couldn’t find it. And if there’s no cross, there’s no gospel. And if there’s no gospel, there’s no help or healing. If all you can do is give me an accurate diagnosis, I am still sick.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that The Shack will be difficult to stomach if your conscience is particularly sensitive. It reminds me of that old Joan Osborne song, “What if God was one of us? / Just a slob like one of us?” If you can’t listen to that song, don’t try to read the book. Although I trust that Young’s intentions in making God so homely were good (I don’t pretend to know about Osborne’s aims), the result is sobering. Do we now dare to speak so casually and flippantly about God that we involve him in a conversation about "the trots" or imagine him calling humans "idiots"? Do we no longer feel the need to cry out with Isaiah, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”(Is 6:5).
Others have offered more detailed analysis of the theology in The Shack, and I would commend at least these two reviews to you: Tim Challies and Doug Wilson. I will speak here on one overarching issue: the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.
It is possible that I’m forgetting something, so realize that I did not read this book looking for examples to prove my case. But I cannot recall a single instance in The Shack where Scripture is referred to in a truly positive light. Scripture is always, more or less, what’s left when God doesn’t actively intervene. At best, it’s the parting gifts that you give the losers of the game show. At worst, it’s not the sword of the spirit but the dagger of religion. Mack’s seminary training is only mentioned to show its futility.
I’ll be honest with you: I’m crying as I write this part. I love God’s Word. Does my life always reflect that? No, it doesn’t. But it breaks my heart to think that someone, somewhere is going to read this book and begin to hold Scripture in contempt. Our hearts are deceitful, and we need no incentive to turn to our own devices.
The disdain for Scripture is the heart of the issue, because out of it grows the questionable theology that fuels the story. There are many points at which Young puts words into the mouth of one of the members of the godhead that directly contradict Scripture. So you find Jesus saying that his life was not meant to be an example to copy (151), though Paul exhorted the Corinthians to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (I Cor 11:1). You hear God telling Mack that there’s no authority among the members of the trinity (124), which cannot be reconciled with I Cor 15:28, which says that "the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all”? Only if we ignore the clear teachings of Romans 13("For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God") can we buy into the conversation in which Papa calls all hierarchical relationships on earth--including political and marital--“such a waste!”(124). Once, Jesus even tells Mack that the whole trinity is submitted to him (Mack) in the same way they are submitted to one another (147). It’s hard for me to even speculate as to what this means. But, at a minimum, it would mean that God puts the will of man before his own will as an act of deference or respect. Is this the God of Scripture--the God of whom Revelation 4:11 says, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created”? Can we possibly exist in a relationship of mutual submission with the God who upholds our very existence? Can we do so and simultaneously give him glory and worship him in the splendor of holiness? I don’t think we can.
The world of The Shack is a world built for man and not for God’s glory. At one point, while Mack is lying on his back beside Jesus, looking up at the stars, he revels in “the thought that everything was about him…about the human race…that all this was all for us” (115). I could go on. But the contents of The Shack are not what matters. What matters is the truth of Hebrews 4:12, which assures us that “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.” We don’t need God to turn himself into a woman or to temporarily suspend our everyday reality. We don’t need him to do fantastical things. He has done for us all that we need in Christ, told us all that we need in his word, and given us his spirit by which to interpret all these things. So my prayer is not that God would take you or me to the shack, but that he would “Open [our] eyes, that [we] may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps 119:18).
