So I'm on the bandwagon, too.
I've been reading The Shack, and am up to the part where he discusses freedom with Papa. Whew! Way to skate through the Big Questions. A regular Reader's Digest version of Intro to Philosophy of Religion. I suppose that's all a lot of people want, or need, but I for one am left gasping and growling, and furthermore, am feeling guilty and wrong for wanting more.
Some parts are great, like Papa's explanation why God is appearing to him as a motherly woman. But overall, I feel like I'm eating fast philosophical and theological food. I may feel full after dining, but I haven't gnawed on any bones or savored any nectar.
(νέκταρ = nek- "death" and -tar "overcoming". )
Overall, it's difficult for me to separate the author from his main character. Perhaps I'm not supposed to? Young himself keeps a safe distance from Mack, telling the story "for him" in third person, which suggests to me that he, as an author, wishes to be "free" and "outside" the narrative. But that's ironic, since the story is about the reestablishment of intimacy and relationship! Maybe that's postmodern irony for you.
Speaking of which, Mack/Young seems to have really bought into postmodernism, with all its suspicions about authority, institutions and intellect, and its contradictory desire for simultaneous autonomy and community. Lots of passive aggression. For me, reading The Shack is like reading a text in a foreign language. I speak a different philosophical and theological tongue. I can do it, but it takes a lot of energy to constantly keep translating.
We all react to our past, and what goes around comes around. So far The Shack has deposited me back into my late teens, among Christians who told me good Christians don't wonder about Big Questions. Furthermore, they certainly DON'T study Vain Philosophy. (And good Christian women don't ask questions, period!)
The carousel of time now has gyrated so that now not only women but men are told, "don't bother your pretty little heads asking questions...the only answer is the Complete and Certain answer...anything less is no answer at all...and since you are a mere human, you can NEVER understand the Complete and Certain answer...God is too big for you...so just relax....flow with the mystery..."
(musterion --"But whereas ‘mystery’ may mean, and in contemporary usage often does mean, a secret for which no answer can be found, this is not the connotation of the term mysteµrion in classical and biblical Gk. In the NT mysteµrion signifies a secret which is being, or even has been, revealed, which is also divine in scope, and needs to be made known by God to men through his Spirit...mysteµrion is a temporary secret, which once revealed is known and understood—a secret no longer.. "--Harpers Bible Dictionary )
Many are finding The Shack to be a means of deepening their relationship with the Trinity, and for that we should all be greatful. So far it isn't doing much for me. I still return to Eleanore Stump's article, "Aquinas on the Sufferings of Job" when I am troubled by the Big Question of suffering and evil.
"...Everything depends on what you take to be dream and what you take to be reality," she concludes. Now that is something William Young, Eleanore Stump and I can all agree on.
1 comment:
Count me in as "not a fan." I guess my first mistake was expecting more from a literary perspective; I love a good novel, and find myself flustered by not-very-good novels. I put this up there with that "Dinner with a Perfect Stranger" book, in which the desire to prove a specific point completely drives the narrative, thus robbing the story of any power of its own. Give me Tolstoy any day. But I, too, was bothered by the anti-church bent, which shows up here and in so many other contemporary writings. "I didn't come to found an institution or a religion" sounds so good, and can be right, but only if nuanced for about 45 minutes. Otherwise, you're smacking Ephesians in the face. We must tread lightly when speaking out against Christ's bride.
Oh, and one personal thing. We had a lot of difficult times with difficult people in Gresham, so for him to make that one of the main locations of the book. . .that just pushed too many old buttons. But that's just my own issues I still need to deal with.
Post a Comment