This past spring, a deacon at my church who had read The Shack was so impressed by it that he decided to conduct an adult education class on the book. I was curious about what kind of novel would prompt a class at church, so I checked it out on the web. The Shack is, first of all, a publishing phenomenon. According to what I’ve read, the author, William Young, could not find a publisher and decided, as many writers do nowadays, to publish it himself. It’s now an international best-seller; copies have sold in the tens of millions. I’m sure that’s an inspiration to all aspiring writers of fiction who seek fame and fortune. I ordered a copy. The day it arrived, I had to run a few errands, some of which involved wait-time, so I took the book with me. Several people I encountered cooed, “Oh, you’re reading that book. It’s wonderful!” and similar stuff.
According to web reviews, the book is “controversial,” apparently because of the way the Trinity is presented: God the Father is a middle-aged African-American woman who likes to bake cookies, Jesus goes around in a t-shirt with a tool belt and makes jokes about being “human,” and the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman who wreathes around ephemerally like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. Evangelical Christians are said to be offended by this presentation, but Evangelical Christians say they are offended by being called “offended,” etc. So it goes with manufactured controversy (which sells books); encouragement to take sides is ubiquitous. As for Catholic reviews, Father Barron of Word on Fire gave his view here:
My own view is in accord with his. The book is okay, until we’re told—by God, no less—that religion is worthless, that rules and obligations are obstacles to grace; pretty much the theme song of the Reformation. As Father Barron calls him, Young is a disciple of Luther. He has no objections to characterizations, and neither do I.
But this put-down of religion is not what caused controversy. Apparently—and disturbingly—everybody agrees with its anti-religion message. What gets people upset is the way the Persons of the Trinity are presented. It’s obvious (to me, anyway) that the film The Matrix impressed Young deeply with its presentation of the head honcho (I’ve forgotten how she’s referred to in the film) as a middle-aged African-American woman who bakes cookies. In fact, the term “matrix” is used in dialogue many times. I attended one of the sessions of the class. One woman remarked with the sarcasm that intellectual superiority affords, “Well, we all know that God is a white male.”
Cookie-bakers don’t bother me; put-downs of the Church do. It’s theologically oxymoronic as well as intellectually impossible to be pro-Christ and anti-Church. Regardless of any emotional reactions the Church evokes, for whatever reasons, you cannot love Christ and hate the Church. You may indeed love a Christ idea, but it’s just that—your idea.
And that’s the point. What the character learns from these Persons is the “real” theology, the one that religion would have you ignorant of, which is, in a single word, Relationship. And we’ve got it all wrong when we say that “God is love.” Religion has messed us up. God is not love—Love is god. So who needs religion? As Sophia Mason has pointed out in her blog, the reductionist-evolutionists adhere to the conviction that as we cease to need something, it ceases to exist (like wisdom teeth or body hair, I guess). Young would be as intellectually at home with that crowd as he is socially at home with the secular humanists, who adhere to the conviction that love is god and all we need is each other.
Young loves his cable-guy Jesus, a Christ that would be unintelligible to a twenty-first century Tibetan peasant or a twelfth century European king, a Christ that has no catholicity, no universality—and a theology that cannot transcend the space and time which has given it birth and rendered it intellectually fashionable. A vernacular Christ—with a vernacular theology in his tool belt.
Somehow I’ve had occasion to repeat myself in a couple of places across the Catholic blogosphere today, but this question is exactly what made Lewis call true Christianity (Catholicism) “the religion you couldn’t have guessed.”
God became Man, body and soul, and he transmits that union to us all, equally shockingly, by means of sinful men, water, and bread and wine. To deny the Church, is to deny the Incarnation, which is to deny Christianity itself.
Stop by my little blog, PopSophia.
As Saint Cyprian so eloquently put it so many centuries ago, “You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the Church for your Mother.” (On the Unity of the Catholic Church)
I largely agree with your assessment of The Shack. The depiction of the Trinity is beautiful. But then God himself talks down the Church and says that you don’t have to be Christian. You can read my review:http://syrophoenicianwoman.blogspot.com/2011/09/shack-good-bad-and-ugly.html
I did enjoy the book immensly but I guess that I lack the intellectual train of thought to take it apart. I knew it was fiction, I love sentimental journeys, and am positive that I am still a loving and practicing Catholic I’ve always been.J.M.J.
ps A friend and critic objects to my use of the term “vernacular” here.
My semantic intention was neither linguistic nor liturgical, but metaphorical.
Dear Richard,
Like Fr. Barron, I have no problems with Young’s characterization nor his fictional journey, just his kool-aid theology. It has nothing to do with intellect, everything to do with faith.
Dear Thomas and Brad, I agree: It’s not possible to deny the Church without denying the Incarnation altogether. But for Christianity, we could not know any sort of Christ.
Dear Bethanie,
I read your review–very thorough and even-handed.
Thanks for commenting.
Very clearly written excellent discussion. I started to read the shack but ran out of energy after the scene where he encounters the trinity. It is very powerful up to there and then the change is so quick it is jarring and I lost ‘trust’ in the author. But very interested to read the lutheran analysis. ON the whole though maybe the book does more good than bad in allowing people to reflect on their own grief / anger /tragedies in their life.
Dear Tim,
Yes, we can say that maybe the book is good for those who are grieving, if we have to judge it at all. I don’t think we have to pass judgment on it one way or the other, just understand it.
I know that feeling of “losing trust” in an author. Sometimes it can happen quite suddenly without even knowing why, but I don’t put the book down. I’m too curious for that. I start skimming instead of reading; it’s sort of like taking the wheel of a car away from the driver instead of remaining his passenger. And by the end of the book–or even long before–I know why I lost trust.
Thanks for your comment.