Monday, January 27, 2025
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The Shack
Christ is mediator of a new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Christ entered heaven, that he might now appear before God on our behalf.
Written most of twenty years ago by William P. Young, The Shack is sometimes assigned reading for high school students at Christian schools. It’s a story about a man named Mack, who is bitterly unforgiving toward the man who abducted and murdered his daughter while his family was on a camping trip. Her bloody clothes were found in a shack deep in the woods, but her body was never found.
Five years later he receives a note from “Papa,” his other daughter’s affectionate name for God, inviting him for a weekend at the shack, the same shack, and his anger rises up again and unforgiveness rages wild.
Still, he decides to accept the invitation.
During the next few days Mack engages in fascinating conversation and activities with three people who introduce themselves as God the Father (an African-American mama), Jesus (a Middle Eastern carpenter) and the Holy Spirit (an Asian woman named Sarayu). The action of the story maintains itself like any good thriller, and the plot is interrupted by gifts of wisdom from each of the three parts of the Christian Trinity.
Not everyone likes the book. My friend who is principal of a Christian school moderated a discussion of those who defended it and those who disagreed. After lots of words from both sides, he and the courageous teacher offered an alternative to the parents and their kids. They could read Pilgrim’s Progress instead.
My parents set me free early to watch or read things they found distasteful. I remember Mom going with me to see Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? because it was rated R and I was under 18. I think she hated the movie. It depicted a late Saturday night after-faculty party gathering of four professor types at a small college. It was raw, raucous and obscene –Elizabeth Taylor as the main character was overweight and loud. Her husband Richard Burton teased her at every turn, until the end of the night when their friends left and they consoled each other about their lives, empty from the outside but rich with understanding and acceptance from within.
Once for all Christ has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.
That’s how I saw it anyway. Decades later The Shack seemed tame to me. Mr. Young’s willingness to do theology on the edge of our understanding rather than settling down safely in the middle of what we think we know, appealed to my slightly untamed mind. Still, I am sure my friend’s willingness to offer Pilgrim’s Progress instead was the right thing to do.
A week or so ago I watched parts of Oh, God! George Burns plays God in this 1977 movie, and John Denver plays Jerry, the grocery store manager chosen by God as another Moses. This movie also challenges the center of theology, as you might expect when God is personally involved. A commission of theologians from several religions present Jerry with questions written in Aramaic to present to God, who eventually answers them. Later when Jerry is sued for slander by one of the preachers, God appears in court and asks all of us to be more kind to each other. He does some card tricks for the judge and then disappears.
Sound silly, but when Jerry and his wife beamed at each other in the face of silly ridicule and persecution, unconditional love rushed onstage. God’s presence closed mouths and opened hearts.
That’s theology at its finest.
Just as it is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment, so also Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.
(Hebrews 9, Psalm 98, 2 Timothy 1, Mark 3)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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