shacked

[If you really enjoyed "The Shack" you may want to skip this.]

I don't believe that any of the millions of readers of "The Shack" ever really believed that God, if he appeared to them in the flesh, would take on the appearance of a mighty old man with a beard and thunderbolts and a stern visage. But they believe that's what other Christians think, and what non-Christians think they think, and therein is the essential appeal of the book: this is so wise! God is an obese, middle-aged, singing and chortling black woman baking in the kitchen, just loving you to death, and smiling indulgently at all those misperceptions you can then pretend to be enlightened of. "Mack" even claims to be surprised that Jesus isn't handsome, or Caucasian. He's "surprised" that God doesn't enjoy punishing bad people and casting them into a pit of fire. The fact that not a single one of those misperceptions is really upsetting to a conventional, conformist view of Christianity is beside the point. It just feels wise. It feels deep. They remind you of those tedious youth ministers some churches hire specifically to minister to young people, who wear jeans and listen to DC Talk to show that they're hip, and admit that they sometimes feel tempted to, gosh, darn it, curse right out loud. These revelations will not, as the cover claims, "astonish" you. If you like the book, they will simply confirm what you already believe, and make you feel smarter about it. The same way Morgan Freeman makes you feel like you're not a racist.

"The Shack" is fiction, in more ways than one. Mackenzie Phillips' youngest daughter, Missy, is abducted and murdered while "Mack" is in the water rescuing his son from an overturned canoe. The police, who behave like New Age saints in this story (always tenderly sensitive to Mack's feelings), can't find Missy, but they do find a small wooden shack with her dress and blood on the floor. Later, a bitter Mack receives a note from God to come to the shack. Is it a hoax? Or will his experiences there "change his life forever"?

Yes, that does sound a bit cheesy. It is a necessary convention that Mack is reluctant to go to the shack. It is also necessary, for the conceit of this book, that Mac was not just sitting on a dock fishing, or checking out girls at the beach, or washing dishes when Missy is abducted. Or that the police never seem to hold any suspicions at all about Mack, even when he knows something that only the murderer would know. Unless you believe in miracles. Do all cops believe in miracles?

There is an explanation (but it's a spoiler) about why the three beings sound so much like youth pastors-- and it is an artistic weakness of the book that all three sound alike-- but it doesn't explain or illuminate why Mack would ever be surprised at the revelations. I mean, it would have been fun if he had found a clever way to allude to some aspect of his own personality but... well, that's asking a lot.

I am reminded, whenever Young tries to describe a scene of overwhelming magnificence, of Mark Twain's observation that most people would describe heaven as consisting largely of the same activities that bore them to tears in real life: singing and harp playing and floating around in gossamer chaste ecstasy. When Young describes a host of children, and Mack's father, emanating light and song and colour-- it sounds a lot to me like that kind of weird picture of the afterlife.

There's nothing particularly awful about Young's book. There's just nothing particularly amazing about it either. Why is this so popular?

I'm not sure that a real victim of violent crime would find "The Shack" all that comforting. Or enlightening.

Here's an alternative example of theological inspiration.

Rant of the Week

Shacked: "Sin is it's own Punishment"