Chuck Waterman

The book is clearly story, not systematic theology, for me the imagination was lacking and trying to explain the mystery of the trinity…well, perhaps it is best left a mystery…maybe it is meant to be that way for us.
The part of the story that is very interesting and I think relates to everybody is the simple question that all of our “great sadnesses” bring us to…How can God love me if He lets this happen to me? The only real answer is that our search to answer it can only drive us to the cross in my opinion which, at least for me, has been my pilgrimmage.

I am one of those who expected to be bothered by the “Christian mediocrity” issue, because I do get frustrated by it. However, God used the Shack to get me to reexamine my subconscious, visceral attitudes toward God, and I found a lot of things that were holding me back.

I grew up in a church with a solid theological emphasis, and I value my heritage. However, repeated emphasis can cause things to become “old hat.” Moreover, it’s not an issue so much of what is in the Bible as how we’ve taken the wine and turned it back into water because we are threatened by the mysterium tremendum, or the extravagance of grace and love. We all see things in the Bible differently. It is unfortunate that we polarize and question each other’s orthodoxy rather than being relaxed enough to engage in stimulating dialogue and begin to see God in a new way. God is big enough that no one can see all of divinity. What are we really so afraid of, that we have to keep “biting and devouring ” each other? God doesn’t need me to defend Godself.

The Shack helped me see how, in spite of the best theology, certain things get distorted by quoting texts and Bible beatings. It helped me see my own distrust of God and my own judgement of God.
My own “Great Sadness” has to do with spiritual abuse suffered at the hands of the “righteous”– the way some Christian subcultures seek to fit everyone into a particular, “scriptural” mold, with the result that people are dehumanized, not allowed to be genuine, and feel they have to defend their holiness by judging others, or being so absorbed in their praise and worship that there is no real communication, much less communion. I bear scars from those who claim to hear from God issuing their divine judgements about me because I do not fit their molds. I told God, “no thanks. if those who are so close to you are like that, I don’t want any. Why do your people become so mean and nasty and downright weird?”

I think it is the spirit, and not the letter, of the book that got to me, reminding me of God’s patience, compassion, kindness, lack of disappointment, pathos, creativity, playfulness, humor, delightfulness, desire to be with the kids, and affection, all of which tends to get overlooked in theological discourse. It also gave me hope for my own journey, and melted something on the visceral level that released my barriers toward God. I am grateful for that.

Second, to comment on Aslan, what if he had been portrayed as a lamb instead of a lion? Would Narnia have been as popular? Consider:

“And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” (Revelation 5:5-6 KJV).

The elder spoke to John about Jesus as the Lion, but when Jesus revealed Himself in the next moment to John, He revealed Himself as the Lamb.

You write that if I can’t get past the “minor issue” of the book that I have seemingly anchored myself on, then I “will miss the peace, joy, and freedom that Christ intended me to have.” Brother, in all sincerity and love, I must ask– isn’t that hanging a *lot* of my relationship with God on a fictional book? Is getting what so many other people have gotten out of the “The Shack” (positively, that is) crucial to my Christian life?

One doesn’t have to love “The Shack” in order to deeply experience the mysteries of the Christian life. The Bible contains more mystery than I can ever penetrate with my puny, finite mind. Before anyone goes there, again, I’m *not* anti-art. I love art– all forms of it! Great art has enriched my Christian life, from the music of J.S. Bach to the films of Ingmar Bergman to the novels of Dostoevsky. Art made by thoughtful non-Christians (such as Bergman) has even enriched my life more than most contemporary “art” (I use the term loosely) made by Christians.

Having said that, when a Christian author writes a fictional book intending to convey some sort of message about the Christian life, and that book contains serious theological errors, *and* it is getting a wide audience which is being deeply affected by it, that concerns me. Are we so sure of the soundness of our faith that we think we cannot be negatively affected by the bad theology in a Christian novel? The very fact that so many people say that book has drawn them closer to the the true God, when the true God and His ways are seriously misrepresented at different points in the book, illustrates my concern.

I love art. I love symbol. I love metaphor. I know very well how these things work. I majored in English in college, and I love quality novels, poems, and films. Again, a novel doesn’t have to pass a theology test in order to be valuable.

However, C.S. Lewis himself said that one could “smuggle in” a a good bit of theology in the form of novels, poems, etc. Aslan is a Christ figure. Lewis said that he didn’t intend for Aslan to be taken even as an artistic depiction of Christ Himself, but as a Christ figure of sorts. Conversely, “The Shack,” in the *artistic form of fantasy,* purports to tell us truths about the true God. It doesn’t say that God *is* a black woman. It does strongly imply, though, that God is willing to reveal Himself to us in ways that *conflict* with how He reveals Himself in the Bible, and that He is willing to do so because of our issues and weaknesses. This is a pop psychology God. By contrast, in Flannery O’Connor’s works, to my knowledge, God is never shown as working in ways that are opposed to His revelation of Himself in the Bible.