A friend of ours recommended our reading The Shack, by William P. Young. I did, and enjoyed it. You see, I was reading it in an uncritical way, and I was focusing on the strengths of the book. In particular, I was happy to read things that help us think of suffering from God’s perspective. In my case, I think of Gale and Rachel’s long-term health challenges. So passages like this were interesting to me:
“A bird’s not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image.” (page 100)
I also enjoyed the picture of there being such love among the members of the Trinity:
“Love and relationship. All love and relationship is possible for you only because it already exists within Me, within Me, within God myself. Love is not the limitation; love is flying. I am love.” (101)
However there are very serious issues in the book, because of the faulty portrayal of God and his relationships with mankind. I became aware of this when we visited one of our supporting churches, Franklin Road Baptist Church, in Indianapolis, where Larry DeBruyn is pastor. Larry has written several perceptive and very well researched articles that are published on Herescope.com. (The link should take you to all the articles on The Shack. If not, go to herescope.com and search for “shack.”) A search of Herescope will yeild the following articles by Pastor Larry, plus several other reviews.
- THE SHACK, “Elousia,” & the Black Madonna, IMAGINATION, IMAGE, AND IDOLATRY
- THE DIVINE-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP Part 1, 2 and 3: The Consequence of Role-Reversals in The Shack
- THE SHACK and Universal Reconciliation— Relationship, Rules and Reconciliation
- Sin Separates— THE SHACK and universal reconciliation
- Universal Reconciliation— The Theological Implications
Our pastor here in Siloam Springs recommends the article by Tim Challies found at challies.com.
Tim’s review ends with an excellent quote from John Piper:
Since time immemorial humans have wrestled with
the question of how a good and loving God could
allow evil–the kind of evil we see on display all
around us in this world and the kind of evil William
Young describes in The Shack. How do we react to a
world where a man can steal and kill a young child?
Where is God in the midst of such suffering? And
digging deeper still, what possible reason can there
be for such suffering? John Piper answers this
question in a convincing manner in Suffering and
the Sovereignty of God. Suffering, he says, exists in
order to display the greatness of God.
“The ultimate reason that suffering exists in the universe is so that Christ might display the greatness of
the glory of the grace of God by suffering in himself to overcome our suffering. The suffering of the utterly
innocent and infinitely holy Son of God in the place of utterly undeserving sinners to bring us to everlasting
joy is the greatest display of the glory of God’s grace that ever was, or ever could be.
“This was the moment–Good Friday–for which everything in the universe was planned. In conceiving
a universe in which to display the glory of his grace, God did not choose Plan B. There could be no
greater display of the glory of the Grace of God than what happened at Calvary. Everything leading to it
and everything flowing from it is explained by it, including all the suffering in the world.”
