The Shack. Off Track? The Hack!!!
June 18, 2008 Rachael Emily Kligmann was hit by car while riding her bike. 2 weeks later, July 2 2008, after removing life support, she went home leaving me, her mom, her 7 brothers and 4 sisters, in a state of grief and devastation. About 2 weeks later someone gave me the book, The Shack, to read. I read it. It was really hard for me to read a book about a man whose daughter was killed. But I did. The thing that really hurt about the book was when I found out that it was fiction. I was incensed, maybe a little enraged. How could they present this as a possibility?! It took me a lot of digging to get to the truth too. I threw the book aside and never touched it again.
Fast forward to 2 nights ago. I dared watch the movie. Mostly to see about what was all the social media fuss and religious indignation. As far as portraying the book goes, they did a really good job with the casting and following the story line. So let's look at the story itself. Let me preface this by saying my outrage had long passed and I was trying to keep a neutral view. I have to admit that I can't see why so many feathers got ruffled. My wife, Corinne, said it was because God the Father was portrayed by a woman.
So let's look at that. If you followed the story, as a child, the only person that represented safety, love, and concern for the main character's well being after he was beaten by his father, who also beat his mother, was the woman who gave him apple pie. It stands to reason that the memory of her would be transmitted into his dream as the loving caring Father God that he had been taught about in church. This is a no brainer. Psych 101. Not blasphemy nor is it heresy. The mind does things like that all the time in dreams. So not worth the uprising and drama. Would God take that form? Sure! Why not? God needed to get through to the protagonist in a way that he could hear him. Is God outraged for being portrayed as a woman? A woman who was wise and gentle and caring and loving? Genesis 1:26-27 says Let us make mankind in our image. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Kind of nullifies the gender argument.
The Jesus character, I had not heard anything in opposition to his representation. I would have thought he would have had a bigger role in the story but it was not my story. Other than that, I could not see any heresy there either.
The third character was of course the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was portrayed by a beautiful young woman of Asian descent. I think in the book the person was a young Native American woman but I may be mistaken. The gender argument, again, I don't see blasphemy or heresy. I refer back to Gen 1:26. The "us" in the verse includes the HS.
So what about the story itself? Can or would God have a damaged person able to speak to dead relatives? Why not? He is God. He can do as He pleases. If he allows us to speak to our dead parents or children, who are we to say yeah or nay? It is not a contradiction since the meetings were not shown as being ancestor worship. If it were, you would get no argument from me about heresy. I have experienced something similar myself. Several months ago, I was stressing over something, I don't remember what, but clear as day I heard my dead daughter say, "Its OK Daddy." It was her voice and she was right. The heart of the story was that the character needed to let go, forgive, be healed and stop blaming God for his pain. Seems to me that these are some key Christian and biblical precepts.
There may have been some things I missed but overall, I see no reason to declare the book and movie anathema. There are so many other things for us to be concerned as Christians, we need to be more discerning about on what we take a stance. The bible says that the only anger we should have is righteous anger. Here is the caveat. The bible also says that none of us are righteous, no not one (Rom 3:10) and that human anger does not lead to God's righteousness (James 1:20). So maybe we can concentrate more on representing God's love rather that our own righteous indignation.
Fast forward to 2 nights ago. I dared watch the movie. Mostly to see about what was all the social media fuss and religious indignation. As far as portraying the book goes, they did a really good job with the casting and following the story line. So let's look at the story itself. Let me preface this by saying my outrage had long passed and I was trying to keep a neutral view. I have to admit that I can't see why so many feathers got ruffled. My wife, Corinne, said it was because God the Father was portrayed by a woman.
So let's look at that. If you followed the story, as a child, the only person that represented safety, love, and concern for the main character's well being after he was beaten by his father, who also beat his mother, was the woman who gave him apple pie. It stands to reason that the memory of her would be transmitted into his dream as the loving caring Father God that he had been taught about in church. This is a no brainer. Psych 101. Not blasphemy nor is it heresy. The mind does things like that all the time in dreams. So not worth the uprising and drama. Would God take that form? Sure! Why not? God needed to get through to the protagonist in a way that he could hear him. Is God outraged for being portrayed as a woman? A woman who was wise and gentle and caring and loving? Genesis 1:26-27 says Let us make mankind in our image. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Kind of nullifies the gender argument.
The Jesus character, I had not heard anything in opposition to his representation. I would have thought he would have had a bigger role in the story but it was not my story. Other than that, I could not see any heresy there either.
The third character was of course the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was portrayed by a beautiful young woman of Asian descent. I think in the book the person was a young Native American woman but I may be mistaken. The gender argument, again, I don't see blasphemy or heresy. I refer back to Gen 1:26. The "us" in the verse includes the HS.
So what about the story itself? Can or would God have a damaged person able to speak to dead relatives? Why not? He is God. He can do as He pleases. If he allows us to speak to our dead parents or children, who are we to say yeah or nay? It is not a contradiction since the meetings were not shown as being ancestor worship. If it were, you would get no argument from me about heresy. I have experienced something similar myself. Several months ago, I was stressing over something, I don't remember what, but clear as day I heard my dead daughter say, "Its OK Daddy." It was her voice and she was right. The heart of the story was that the character needed to let go, forgive, be healed and stop blaming God for his pain. Seems to me that these are some key Christian and biblical precepts.
There may have been some things I missed but overall, I see no reason to declare the book and movie anathema. There are so many other things for us to be concerned as Christians, we need to be more discerning about on what we take a stance. The bible says that the only anger we should have is righteous anger. Here is the caveat. The bible also says that none of us are righteous, no not one (Rom 3:10) and that human anger does not lead to God's righteousness (James 1:20). So maybe we can concentrate more on representing God's love rather that our own righteous indignation.
God is all things to all men so why now represent himself as a mother figure and father figure. I enjoyed the movie and thought it was thought provoking just like the book was. Will I live my life with the gospel according to The Shack? No but I have a number of friends who read the book when they would not read the bible and it started a good dialogue of who God is and salvation.
ReplyDeleteI felt the same about the movie, Pete. It was so poignant when the daddy carried his daughter out of the woods saying over and over, "I forgive you, I forgive you." What a deep and profound reminder of an eternal truth that is at the heart of our faith.
ReplyDelete(P.S. this is jamie using michaels account)