Cover of The Shack
On one hand I can understand why. The Shack attempts to explain everything anyone would want to know about God. How does the Trinity work. Why did Jesus have to die. What is Gods plain for the world. And the most important question in the book, why is there pain in the world.
As for myself I did not like the book. To me The Shack seamed to be one persons attempt to spread their own theology. What little plot that exists is only there to support the long philosophical arguments about God.
Undoubtedly some will find this very helpful, but I feel this book is a snapshot of some of what is wrong with Christianity today. To often we seek the easy answers, the explanations that will satisfy our deepest questions. What I find fascinating about Jesus is that his narratives were different.
Jesus spoke in parables. Short story's that explained little, but drew the listener into into a deeper questioning. The Shack reads as if some one is preaching to you rather than asking you to question more.
1 comment:
Books about God or religion always evoke so many strong feelings and opinions and that definitely seems to be the case with this one. The book is not about religion, but a story about William P. Young's depiction of God and his thoughts about the nature of God. From what I've read on his blog, the story is fiction but the main character, Mack, is partly a story of him, partly a story of other people he knows and partly just a story he made up. It was evident once I started reading it that this man had been through many of the emotions and "The Great Sadness" that he describes in heartbreaking detail and in a way that the reader can feel the character's pain. I think that most of us have been there at one time or another and can relate to that great sadness and the fear Mack feels in aspects of our own lives which makes parts of the book almost painful to read.
When he gets to the part of meeting God and speaking with the three aspects of him, I could feel the pain I felt for the character melting away as he delved further into the nature of God and discovered that He is all about love and that he, the character was never alone and neither was his daughter who was murdered. When God tells him that he never left his daughter and that he was right there with her the whole time, the tears were difficult to stop.
The book made such a huge impression on me. I guess the conversations the author talks about are much like those I have, and maybe that most people have with God? God, to me, isn't someone in white robes and a long beard sitting up in the clouds, but someone or something much more abstract, but real nonetheless. And I have come to the same conclusion as the author that the nature of God is love and not condemnation. Maybe the book isn't theologically correct, but I guess I've never been as concerned about the theology of religion or the rules as I am with the "being" or existence of a Supreme Being that I am personally involved with and that I somehow instinctively know or remember somewhere in my subconscious. I don't consider myself to be a "religious" person.
Post a Comment