Allow me to be clear, I am not interested in defending The Shack.
I want to defend honesty and scholarly reviews. I just read Dr. Michael LeFebvre’s review of The Shack, entitled The Shoddiness of The Shack (here)
and was overwhelmed with his misrepresentation of The Shack. Dr. LeFebvre’s
first sentence establishes a false criterion to review the book. He writes, “The Shack is a
modern day allegory of the Christian life. Like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progress, William Young’s The
Shack is a vivid tale designed to teach the
reader about the way of salvation.” The
Shack is neither and allegory, nor intended to teach “the way of salvation.” To treat it as such is dishonest and
unscholarly. A strawman argument is an
informal fallacy which substitutes
“a person’s actual position or argument with a distorted, exaggerated, or
misrepresented version of the position of the argument.” This is the methodology that LeFebvre uses in
his critique of The Shack.
LeFebvre treats The Shack as though it is an allegory of
the Christian life. The Shack is a novel that does not in any way resemble an allegory. Nor does it address the “Christian life” per
se. It would appear that LeFebvre saw
Eugene Peterson’s comment on the cover of the book and then began his review. “This
book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgripm’s Progress did for his. It’s that good.” Eugene Peterson did not intimate that The Shack is an allegory. Peterson simply said that it will impact our
generation as Bunyan’s work did his own.
Young’s subtitle explains what the book is about, “Where Tragedy Confront Eternity.”
In the Acknowledgements, William Young writes, “Most of us have our
own grief, broken dreams, and damaged hearts, each of us our unique losses, our
own ‘shack.’ I pray you find the same
grace there that I did…” The point of The Shack is how a believer can face
extraordinary pain by meeting with God.
An honest review will address the main prmise of the book, not demand
that it meet the readers expectations on an entirely different topic.
Not
only did Dr. LeFebvre errantly treat The
Shack as an allegory, he also treated as “designed to teach the reader
about the way of salvation.” Again, the
subtitle is abundantly clear “Where Tragedy
Confronts Eternity.” The main character
of the book is a believer. He has
wandered away from God due to an unspeakable tragedy, but he did not stop
believing. In a conversation with Jesus
about the effects of the fall (pp. 148-149) Mack asks Jesus, “Is there any way
out of this?” To which Jesus replies and tells us something of Young’s view of
salvation, “It is so simple, but never easy for you: by re-turning. By turning back
to me.” Jesus’ character in The Shack points out that the effects of
the curse are only addressed by turning to Jesus, (Matthew 11:28-30). Later, Mack expresses his faith by saying “I
love Papa…” (p. 166). Young did not
write the book to tell non-Christian to go to a Shack and meet with God to be
saved. He wrote The Shack to help believers deal with grief. He points out that the reason our grief turns
believers away from God is that their “understanding of God is wrong.” When overwhelmed by our grief, we forget that
God is good. That is the point Young
seeks to make in Mack’s meeting in the cave with Wisdom (aka Sophia). LeFebvre continues on in this mistaken trajectory
and predictably dismisses the book’s value.
LeFebvre
points out the strengths of The Shack, which
is its effort to answer hard questions about grief. He writes, “The church would benefit
from more novels that confront the hard questions about God’s hand amidst the
dysfunctionality woes of modern society.” He then criticizes The Shack for removing Pilgrim’s fleeing from the City of
Desctruction and finding grace. But this
was never Young’s point. Whereas the
Pilgrim in Pilgrim’s Progress initially
was unsaved, Mack is a believer from the beginning of chapter one. LeFebrvre criticizes Young as having “a novel
image of God and a new doctrine of salvation.” In order to prove this, LeFebvre takes a portion
of a statement made to Mack, the believer, aand presents it as though it is an
expression of the way of salvation.
Papa is helping Mack learn to forgive. In referring to Mack’s unforgiveness, Papa
says, “I want to take away one more thing that darkens your heart.” The scene is all about a moment of
sanctification in a believer’s life. As
Mack finds his heart resisting, Papa says gently, “Son, this is not about
shaming you. I don’t do humiliation, or
guilt, or condemnation. They don’t
produce one speck of wholeness or righteousness, and that is why they were
nailed into Jesus on the cross.” The
statement, “I don’t do humiliation, or guilt, or condemnation.” Is not a
comprehensive declaration of Young’s view of salvation. It is a reflection of Romans 2:4, “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to
repentance?” and Romans 8:1, “Therefore
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It is neither novel, nor a new view of
salvation. Instead, Young’s words
accurately reflect the Word of God. It
also leads me to wonder if LeFebvre read the book, or just sought out quotes to
discount it. If he did read it, how
could he miss the obvious and absolutely clear context of those words? If he noticed the context, why would he
misrepresent it? It seems very dishonest
to me and clearly unscholarly.
LeFebvre goes on to
accuse Young of wanting to oppose traditional orthodox Christianity. He writes, “The Shack really is an explicit effort to offer
Christians a new vision of God beyond that presented by a traditional, orthodox
reading of the Bible.” Young does
not want to oppose orthodoxy, but the error of legalism. Not all seminaries teach orthodoxy. Apparently, the one Mack attended did
not. Is that not a more reasonable,
honest, and charitable understanding of Young’s intention? Why not recognize that what William Young is
trying to present is that many presentations of God within Christendom are
flawed. Sadly, many people believe these
ideas and when they face tragedy, they lose faith.
When an individual is
overwhelmed with the sadness in this life they need to reconsider what they
think about God. That is what Young is
trying to provide. He begins by
accurately presenting that God is Triune.
He represents the Trinity in an awkward fashion—partly because we cannot
grasp the concept of three persons and one God—but he is clear that God is
one. He agrees with the anti-ESS crowd
by pointing out that there is no hierarchy in the Godhead, therefore women are
not subordinated to men. (Well said, Mr.
Young.) When Mack asks, “Which one of
you is God?” ‘I am.’ Said all three in
unison.” (p.89). (Exactly!) He begins with the Trinity to demonstrate
that love is an essential characteristic of God. This allows the believer, facing grief, to
understand that God cannot act toward him in any way other than in love. When facing grief, the accusation that the
mourner faces is that God is not loving.
Young begins by destroying this accusation.
The next accusation
faced in grief is to question God’s goodness.
When I see the awful mess around me, I must find comfort in God’s
goodness. As I counsel people facing
great loss, I continually remind them to interpret the events through the lens
of God’s goodness. Sadly, the ‘Health
and Wealth’ preachers of our day interpret goodness as health and wealth. If God is good, he will give me one of
these. Isn’t that essentially what Job’s
friends told him? Young addresses this
when Mack speaks with the Holy Spirit (aka Sarayu). Sarayu asks Mack, “When something happens to
you, how do you determine whether it
is good or evil?” Mack responds, “something
is good when I like it—when it makes me feel good or gives me a sense of
security.” To which Sarayu responds, “So
it is pretty subjective then?” That is
just the problem. We tend to judge God
and his goodness based on our narrow, limited, subjective perspective. Young seeks to oppose this as he invites us
to judge our situations based on the goodness of God. This is precisely what Isaiah indicates in Isaiah
55:8-9 "’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’
declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My
ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” In light of faith in God’s goodness, the
Christian is able to trust that God’s way is good, even when he cannot see how.
When I am honest, and
I consider The Shack in light of its
stated intention, it becomes a helpful book.
It is flawed. It is awkward. It does push against some popular theological
ideas. Young is an Arminian. As a Calvinist, I must overlook his view of unlimited
atonement—what else would I expect? (He
doesn’t need to agree with me.) Honestly,
all of this is true of an book written by a sinful man. What I resist is the condemnation of The Shack—or any book—which does not take into account what the book actually
says. In Seminary we spoke of students
known as “heresy hounds.” These men
sought to find any error and expose it as a damnable heresy. They would even say, “What the preacher said
is true, but what he meant is heresy.” I
never liked that approach to life.
Somehow it seemed to violate 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. I think that Dr. LeFebvre’s review does the
same thing. I hope that reviewers will
try to be honest and scholarly in their reviews.
