As I started my 65 goals for 2011, so I decided to take a pretty logical approach to knocking some of these out. Tackle the small tasks that could be completed within a week and knock those out first, along with that start tackling long term goals or goals that needed to completed over winter (example, don't miss a week of church all winter long) and then work forward from there!The reason I decided to tackle this goal first was simple... 1. it was easy (ha) 2. I had heard loads of praise about the book and I was excited to see what all the hype was about and 3. Another goal of mine was to read more... so naturally completing this would be a nice building block for that one.
Looking at the book as a whole, I can honestly say, I am totally torn over this book. "The Shack" dramatizes several messages. The first one, that I think is most important, is that every person is loved at every moment with a boundless love by God. The drama of this story hit me in a way that allowed me really wrap my mind around this idea. Another central message, which supports the first, is that most of us live with the illusion that God is absent, that we are separated from Source and from each other. As a result, we re-act out of fear instead of acting out of love, and so we cause pain.
This book displays brutality inflicted by one person onto another, actually onto a very young girl who is dearly loved, perfectly innocent, and vulnerable. It's a meditation on the problem of evil: why do bad things happen to good people? Most people would argue that the book is worth reading just on that question alone. The answer it offers us is that suffering is not justified; it is redeemed. Unjustified suffering is part of the mess that mankind has made of God's plan... God could clean up our mess by depriving us of freedom, but then the plan of sharing God's life with us would be lost. Instead, God builds a context around the pain that we cause, which turns a fear-based action into a step toward love and light. Whether that answer works or not can be debated but, it is definatly profound.
I thought that the "The Shack" was a compelling story, and has many little nuggets of wisdom.
On other hand, the book was uneven -- it was not all written by the same hand, and there were passages that just did not make a whole lot of sense to me.
On top of that, there are boat loads of other problems in the book were difficult for me to overlook... I don't understand the mentality that says, God is pictured as a lot of things in the Bible, so why can't I picture Him/Her as whatever I feel comfortable with? Well, because one of the most devastating forms of heresy is to give God an identifiable form, hence the commandment: "Though shall not worship false Idols". We are not supposed to put God in a box, whether that box be an old bearded Caucasian male, or an overweight African-American female, it doesn't matter.
The truth is that even if an angel were to enter a scene, people would fall on their faces in awe.
Making God a poker buddy isn't going to improve my or your relationship with Him.
This is a humanization of God. We often times trying to fashion God in our image, and this book simply reinforces that idea. The author goes from one extreme to another, a "God as an impersonal force that wants to punish us" to the other, a "God blows smoke rings, listens to punk rock and is my buddy". He beats us up with one wrong image of God, then he shoves us all the way off the other end of the shelf by presenting a completely different, image of God.
God is my Father, my Friend, my King, my Deliverer, my Redeemer, my Fortress, my Tower, my Alpha and Omega, my Bread and my Savior and the Word tells me that this is indeed so.
Also, I thought that the philosophy in this book was pretty weak. In fact, I still don't know the conclusion. If you were to try to communicate the lesson of this book, what would it be? I am expecting a little girl in my life this March and I hate to sound harsh but, this book scared the shit out of me and then never really gave me any satisfying resolution. I believe there are powerful and effective answers to address the problem of evil, but in my opinion, this book didn't give them to me.
I guess If you are someone who really doesn't understand the powerful love of God, then this book would be great. But other than that, I think it fell way short of my expectation and may even be strangely destructive.
I read a lot of fiction and love the liberal use of fictitious personalities, conversations, and circumstances to help me place myself in the time period and to appreciate others' experiences but, having said that, I could hardly wait to finish this book mainly because I was getting bored half way through.
It became almost like a chore to read all the “babbling” from the personalities of The Trinity... going on and on about some things that are not at all that engaging (though Mack somehow finds them enlightening and attention-keeping).
I’m not an expert but, theologically, the story fell apart fairly quickly as well. My biggest problems with the book was: 1) Apparently there is no hell (and if there is no hell there is no heaven) and 2) God's anger is not felt...I mean, I was extremely pissed about Missy's death being described by God and him saying "she was not alone (God was there)...that she was so brave!" I can't imagine the Holy Spirit telling a grieving parent that He was there and the child handled being kidnapped, raped, and murdered...bravely? That just sounds odd to me.
I didn't have a problem so much with the personification of The Trinity but, calling a woman "Papa" (God) pushed my limits. I wanted to like this book and about a third of the way through I really did. Boy, what a turn... I honestly thought the writing just got extremely boring. I’m glad I read it because I heard a lot about it but, it defiantly isn’t a must read and it didn't live up to the hype in opinion.
Out... Cundiff
No comments:
Post a Comment