"The Shack" - Who Is God?

One of the great questions that confront readers of "The Shack" concerns an understanding of God. Yes we do a lot of talking about God and sometimes even hint that we know God. But, I believe if we were really honest with ourselves, most of what we understand about God could fall into either one of two stereotypes. William Young mentions both. The first is that of the old grandfatherly type. Young has his God character say to Mack Mackenzie: To reveal myself to you as a very large, white grandfather figure with flowing beard, like Gandalf, would simply reinforce your religious stereotypes, and this weekend is not about reinforcing your religious stereotypes (p. 93). There are those moments when we want God to wipe away all our hurts, to solve all our problems - always to our best interest, and to give us our every desire. We want God to "make everything better." But God does not always do that. In fact, I have found that He very seldom does those things. I need to come to the realization that He is God and I simply need to trust Him.

The second stereotype is also confronted in this book. Young has Mack say these words in a conversation with God: "But if you are God, aren't you the one spilling out great bowls of wrath and throwing people into a burning lake of fire?" Mack could feel his deep anger emerging again, pushing out the questions in front of it, and he was a little chagrined at his own lack of self-control. But he asked anyway, "Honestly, don't you enjoy punishing those who disappoint you?" (p. 119). In my teaching of the Bible I have had many students whose understanding of God was founded upon a similar thought. God was angry. God was vengeful. God always got even. In response to this statement, Young has his God character respond with words that cause serious reflection: "I am not who you think I am, Mackenzie. I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it" (p. 120).

Read that statement once again...slowly. "Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside." Now read Psalm 32:3-5. Sin consumes us. God offers us a cure...deliverance from the power of sin and from the penalty of sin. Yet many people continue to succumb to the disease of sin by refusing God's offer. Could we say that God's wrath that is now and will be in the future poured out upon the world is a consequence of mankind's refusal to accept God's offer rather than His punishment upon sin?

Well we have not touched upon how Young created God's character in his story. I honestly admit I was not prepared for that presentation. In fact, it almost caused me to quit the reading. For I was not ready to receive God in the person of a "large beaming African-American woman" who desired to be called "papa." I immediately was tempted to say, "Hey, this is very New Age, for don't they describe God as being a woman?" But, I continued reading, and slowly I began to understand why the author described God in this way. He was forcing me to think of God outside of those stereotypes that I so easily ascribe to God. He was asking me to see God as greater than anything I could envision. I don't think the author was saying that "God is a woman." No, because at one point in the story we do see God taking the form of a father figure.
Nor do I believe that the author is asking us to see God in everything around us - sort of a pantheistic view. But the author is most definitely challenging my concept of God. Even the dialogue within the story invites me to rethink that concept. And, I must say, that, after reading "The Shack" I have had a desire to reread especially the Old Testament to gain a better understanding of God in order to know Him better.

Reader, don't let the appearance of God as a large African-American woman deter you from proceeding further into the book. Remember, this is a work of fiction and some literary license is granted in that genre.

In our next meeting I would like to address the subject of the Trinity and how the author understands that concept.