A Note: I wrote this paper for a college course and I found it interesting. I would be interested on what you think of my interpretation of The Shack and to know how any of you feel about The Shack. It's clear this is a college paper so do expect too much!
From what the reader can gleam, WM. Paul Young, in his book The Shack, portrays all of the persons of the Triune God in a very different light. He portrays the character of the Father as a rather large black woman, the Spirit as a small Asian woman, and the Son as a Middle Eastern man. For the purposes of this paper let us start with the Father.
When this woman, Papa or the Father God, meets Mack she throws her arms around him and spins him around. She tells him how much he is loved and how long she has been waiting to see him. Let me state that again, how long she has been waiting to see him.
At this point I guess the reader can get rid of all those parts of the Bible that says the Father sees all the things that are done in secret, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matt. 6:5-6). This means that the Father knows all that we do, in public and in secret. The Father does not need a body to see us.
It is important to state once more, that the Father is unseen, like the Holy Spirit. The only person of the Triune with a body is that of the Son. Moreover, the reader can get rid of the parts of the Bible that state that He formed us in the womb and had a purpose for us before time, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5). I guess it is alright to say that God only formed us but does not know what we are doing and may have made plans for us from before time but He does not know what we look like or how we have been growing . This destroys the picture of the Father that remains in this readers head. The Father knows and sees all things. He is the one who knows the day and the hour, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matt. 24:36). However, Mr. Young then interjects at a part of the story and has Papa listening to a band that has not come out yet; in fact, they have not been born yet. This is just confusing for the reader; does the Father know all or does not He? Mr. Young tries to redeem himself by stating that the Father does know all, but for a time there it was unclear.
As the author is trying, poorly at best, to show the love of the Father, Young has Papa saying things like, “It’s okay, honey, you can let it out… I know you’ve been hurt, and I know you’re angry and confused. So, go ahead and let it out. It does a soul good to let the waters run once in a while- the healing waters” (Young 85). Not only is this a very bad, stereotypical portrayal of a Southern Black woman it makes the Father sounds slightly mystical and over affectionate. Mr. Young states through Papa that she appeared as a woman as to not play into Mack’s stereotypes of what God looks like, but only his stereotypes of black women. In this way, the Father seems as though He has forgone knowledge and respect and gone straight for love. It is true that the Triune is love but that does not mean that the Father expects no respect or honor from us.
Not only does Mr. Young have the Father saying emotionally compelled things but he also has Papa saying crude things. This can be seen when Papa says, “Well, Mackenzie, don’t just stand there gawkin’ with your mouth open like your pants are full” (Young 90). This is not how I picture our holy, sinless, creator speaking. Does someone who is completely holy and perfect say things about people going to the bathroom in their pants?
If this were not bad enough, Young then goes on to portray the Holy Spirit as a small Asian woman. Here is how she is described,
This wiry-looking person appeared to be of northern Chinese or Nepalese or even Mongolian ethnicity. It was hard to tell, though, because his eyes had to work to see her at all. From her clothing, Mack assumed she was a groundskeeper or gardener. She had gloves folded into her belt, not the heavy leathers of the man, but lightweight cloth-and-rubber ones that Mack himself used for yard work at home. She was dressed in plain jeans with ornamental designs at the fringes- knees covered in dirt from where she had been kneeling- and brightly colored blouse with splashes of yellow and red and blue. But he knew all this was more of an impression of her than actually seeing her, as she seemed to phase in and out of his vision (Young 87).
Young has single-handedly taken the Holy Spirit, by whom we can even come to the Father, and turned Him into a stereotypical, fresh off the boat, Asian. This is not to say that the Spirit could not manifest Himself as an Asian woman, for this reader is not sure, but why would the Holy Spirit try to manifest Himself as an Asian woman and fail. It seems that Young is trying to keep some semblance that the Spirit does not have a body, but he already completely missed that fact with the Father, so now it just appears that the Spirit is less than that of the Father and the Son.
The Shack then goes on to portray Jesus, our Lord and Savior, as,
He then glanced past her and noticed that a third person had emerged from the cabin, this one a man. He appeared Middle Eastern and was dressed like a laborer, completely with tool belt and gloves. He stood easily, leaning against the doorjamb with arms crossed in front of him, wearing jeans covered in wood dust and plaid shirt with sleeves rolled just above the elbows, revealing well-muscled forearms. His features were pleasant enough, but he was not particularly handsome- not a man who would stick out in a crowd. But his eyes and smile lit up his face, and Mack found it difficult to look away (Young 86).
This is not altogether a bad portrayal of Jesus. Any reader of the Bible knows that Jesus was a carpenter and that His looks were plain. What is also interesting about Young’s portrayal of the Holy Spirit and Jesus is the fact that they are both workers, meant to do the work of the Father and the Father is an overweight woman. This seems to be saying that the Son and the Holy Spirit do all the work for the Father, while the Father does nothing but occasional meet with people and comfort them through their struggles. These are only the subliminal underpinning that this reader has picked up on.
Mr. Young had Jesus say one very interesting thing when Mack is looking at the stars with Him. Mr. Young has Jesus say, “I created it as the word, before the Word became flesh. So even though I created this, I see it now as a human. And I must say, it is impressive!” (Young 111). I am not sure how I feel about this. We know that God looked on what He had made and said that it was very good; so, would Jesus going from being the Word to being the incarnate Son change His view. He would now have a body and be fully human and fully God, but would that really change how He looked on creation? I have never thought about this before and this might have been the most interesting and least heretical thing Mr. Young has said in all the chapters that I have read.
Through his book, Mr. Young is trying to show that the Son and the Spirit work with the Father and all of this is done in love. At one part the Father, Papa, has her feet washed by the Son and this may not seen like a bad thing, for Jesus did tell His people to wash each other’s feet, but there is just something wrong with the picture. The picture is of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all laughing and communing with each other, also not a bad thing, but the way that they interact does not seem real. It does not seem like the Father would act the way that He is being portrayed.
Young also disbands the hierarchy of the Triune God. He has the Father, Son, and Spirit, working in a kind of circle so that not one of them is above the other. This is a problem; for, anyone who has read the Bible knows that there is a structure that the Triune functions under. Through a very complicated argument I have shown this in one of my other papers, but I simply do not have the room to make the argument here.
For that reason, we too, as human, have a structure in our relationships and dealing in the Church. But at least the unity of the Father, Son and Spirit is kept when Papa tells Mack that all three were at the crucifixion. Papa tells Mack that the Father never left the Son. I am not too sure what I think about this because the Father did have to judge the weight of the world’s sins upon His shoulders. Thus, it would seem that the Father would have to leave the Son in some way in order to judge, but this is not something that I am sure of. The passage that he is referring to is from Mark and it states:
At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’—which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of those standing near heard this, they said, ‘Listen, he's calling Elijah.’ One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. ‘Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down,’ he said. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last (Mark 15:33-37).
It does not say anywhere in this passage that the Father was with the Son. I think that it can be inferred, but I am not sure to what extent. We know that the Father and the Son, as well as the Spirit, are always together but that still leaves the problem of the judgment.
When Papa tells Mack this, she is crying. This shows the love that the Father had for the Son. It seems as though Young holds to the fact that the Son’s job was to die for the sins of the world and the Spirit brings comfort and knowledge of the Son and the Father to the world. The love of the Father for the world is so focused on, that the hatred that the Father has for sin is over looked. Yes, it is true that the Father so loved the world He gave His only Son; but, it is also true that He hated sin so much, and was so holy that this was the only way to save the world.
Furthermore, The Father comes to Mack first when he gets to the door. This goes against what we know to be true about the Triune. First, the Holy Spirit must do a work in a person’s heart so that they may believe in Jesus. Consequently, it is only by that belief in the Son that one may come to the Father. If one does not have a belief in the Son, caused by the Spirit, then one cannot come to the Father.
Additionally, when Mack interacts with the Spirit, she looks into his eyes and takes away his stress and lifts a weight off of his shoulders. This would only make sense if Mack had been praying and asking for the Triune to take away his burden. But at this point Mack does not even fully believe or trust God. He is angry with God and mad about the loss of his daughter. Now, this is understandable but God is not someone that we take our anger out on.
I find the whole premise of The Shack to be preposterous. I do not think that this book is helpful in anyway but to hinder a relationship with the one true God. I feel that if you wish to destroy a new relationship with the Lord you should give them this book. I think one of the worst parts of this book is when Mack is thinking about how to address God and then he gets mad and feels that it is okay just to bang on the door and see what God will do. Why would God put up with our little temper tantrums? This seems to put God the Father, who is a large black woman, in a place of less respect.
I would do nothing to this book but burn it. I think that this is a dangerous book that gives people the wrong picture of God and His Triune persons. First of all, seeing them split like this makes it seem like there is more than one God. I know that they are all God and all different persons since before the creation of time, but seeing them separated like this does something to their unity. Mr. Young tried to show that the persons of the Triune God work together at all times by saying that they were all there during the crucifixion but he put them all on an equal footing. Now it is true that the Father, the Son and the Spirit are all equally God but there is still structure in the Triune. There is diversity in their unity and that is what is missing from Mr. Young’s picture of the Triune. There is far too much diversity and not enough unity. I think that this book could be a big problem for new believers or believers who do not know the Bible well. I think that I would have to read it again before I make my final decision. At this point I am far too angry at the book to make a clear decision.
There were parts of the book that were good. One of these was when Papa was talking about free will and said that she does not want prisoners. That she wants people that come to her of their own free will. She also goes on to explain that even though she knows what we are going to do it does not mean that she has taken away our free will. Mr. Young, also, has Papa go into the fact that we are not really free right now because of sin anyway. We cannot live a life without sin; thus, in order to live we must sin. This means that we are not free from our sin life and thus do not really know what free will is. I think that this was a good point and there were others but I think that the book as a whole, with the parts that I read, are dangerous to new believers, and believers as a whole, if they do not think about what they are reading and what they know to be true of God.
