While I haven’t yet read Vintage Jesus, I just finished The Shack, by William P. Young. As strange as I feel about it, I have to side with Michael W. Smith. This is a very good story. We live in a time where we need story. We need to be read even as we read. We need to be connected to a larger picture, we seem to be suffering from “meta-starvation.” In this all about us world, suffering doesn’t make any sense. Why would a loving God allow us to shed even one tear? I realize that this seems far fetched, but I hear the question more often than not. We need more than propositions and argument for our hearts, minds and souls.
The Shack is a fantastic opportunity to enter into the story of God and be comforted. Young is a great storyteller and has found a way to share truths about relationship, love and even the Trinity without the trappings of an academic work.
The Shack is about (as if you haven’t heard by this point) a man, Mackenzie, who has shut down internally because of his inability to come to terms with a great and grave tragedy. The grief in his life has separated him from the love of the people around him. His relationship with God has become one of pretend, with God becoming a fictional construct rather than incarnated Savior. In an act of immense grace, Mackenzie receives an invitation to return to the source of his pain, the shack, where he spends a weekend with God as the Trinity. While I have heard the theology criticized as “modalism,” I assure you it is not. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit character sit together at a table and eat with Mackenzie — an act that is impossible if they are behaving modally. In this story, God is portrayed as a black woman. This has been attacked as Goddess worship. Such theological naiveté must be ignored for the sake of the parable that The Shack so clearly is. Otherwise, we must accuse Jesus of idolatry as well. Anyway, the characterization makes sense in its context and the point of her being what she is is the point, God is not a person. God can reveal God’s self as whomever God wants to. Jesus is delightfully Jesusy and Sarayu (sanskrit for “wind), the Holy Spirit, is erratic and enigmatic.
This is a story told through dialogue. It’s about characters revealing who they are. If there are times where you might be inclined to disagree, then great. That’s what good literature does, it draws you into dialogue with it. It makes you take apart your beliefs and analyze them before putting them back together. Authors (good ones) don’t insist that you agree with them, but hope that you will engage. So engage this. We don’t engage God as Trinity much as a religious or non-religious culture. We have put God in a box, the same one where we keep Santa. His job is keep us “happy” and our shelves fully stocked. This of course falls apart when real life happens. What power does Santa have when we really suffer? We don’t need Santa 24-7, we need God.
The Shack is a tender tale of God’s compassion, sacrifice and concern over us. God enters into our suffering and heals us, pushes us to move forward. That’s the God on display here, the God of Job, the Christ of the Cross, the Resurrected One. If you’re looking for a study on the Trinity, give this a try. I’d love to hear the discussion. The Shack gives the Trinity a very fair treatment. I haven’t heard many preachers put it so well: emergent, neo-fundi or otherwise. We need to reimagine our relationship to God…and his relationships. There’s a bigger story to be told. Young is in his element. I hope that this is not the last we hear from this author.
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