I read The Shack recently and thought it was fantastic. As fiction, it was "fanciful or capricious". As a theological work, it was "highly unrealistic or impractical". It can be good for fiction to be fantastic, I can't think of any good reasons for theology to be fantastic.
Please note that as fiction, I enjoyed it and thought it had an interesting premise; as a father I wept with the main character and enjoyed many of his observations of the natural world around him. And if it was being read only as fiction, I doubt I'd be writing such a long post on it.
It's when we look at it as theology that we get into trouble. Some have said that it is heresy and others have said that it is a great book. I won't argue too much with either of them. Some have said that it is "the next Pilgrim's Progress" and that does worry me a bit. I'm concerned that folks might read The Shack and take it too seriously, or even worse, too literally.
There are definitely some things to like and dislike about The Shack. Here's my biggest beef: it completely misses the mark on how we'll respond when we enter into God's presence or when we discover we're with God. Here are two examples of how it really happens:
When Isaiah meets God in the throne room and he understands where he is, he immediately wails, "Woe is me! for I am undone!" He realizes immediately that he is unraveling (undone). Not until God cleanses his lips is Isaiah even useful to God. As sinners, we cannot stand before holy God.
Another example is when the mob accosts Jesus in the garden. They tell Him they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth and He replies "I am He". Jews of that day would have heard those words and remembered how God answered Moses when he asked "whom shall I say has sent me". They would have understood that Jesus was claiming to be God. What did they do in response? They "they drew back and fell to the ground".
OK, here's a third, non-biblical example. When Mrs. Beaver explains to the children about Aslan (a Jesus-like figure in the book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), she tells them "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just silly."
So, for contrast, what does the main character of The Shack do all weekend when someone named "Papa" invites him to the shack for the weekend? He hangs out with what he thinks is the Trinity all weekend, chatting in the kitchen, going on a hike, watching stars on the dock, going canoeing, working in the garden and generally just palling around with what he thinks is the Trinity, father/(mother), son and ghost.
Wayne Jacobsen takes issue with his critics in this response. He tells people to "enjoy the meat and toss the bones". That's fine as long as the eaters can recognize what a bone is. Many folks reading The Shack will, unfortunately, try to eat the bones and may perhaps die choking on them. Because, ultimately, that's what we're talking about: not a work of fiction but eternal life. This is serious stuff and I don't know that we can afford to get any detail wrong, however insignificant it may seem.
Others have used a similar metaphor and said that when you're making an omelet and find that one of the dozen eggs you've used is rotten, you toss out the omelet. You don't try to eat around the rotten parts. I was told once that swimming through a sewer for a cookie was a bad idea. Extreme examples, both of them. But I think they paint a better picture than Mr. Jacobsen's chicken bones.
I'm going to leave comments open (unless they get nasty). I don't really care if you think I'm right. I'm only really interested in comments that take issue with my "how will we respond when we meet Jesus/God/Holy Spirit" stance. Because I think that's where this book falls. So if you want to tell me that I'm boneheaded, go for it, but also tell me why I'm wrong. Keep it to the topic, though!
