The Shack: Style and Semantics

I have finished listening to The Shack. The recording included an author’s explanation of how the book came about as well as a “friendly” interview (I have also just finished listening to an “unfriendly” interview.) Young answered my concerns about the quality of writing: basically self-published.

As stated in an earlier post, I struggle to comment on the book because I can’t remember the points I wanted to discuss, and I can’t go back and check what I thought I heard (actually, I don’t want to spend time rewinding and hunting, but I could). All that to say, I know some of Young’s theology is suspect, but I also know that he does some other things well. I have thought about commenting on other’s reviews, but you can read those yourself if you are interested.

I do want to comment on one argument in the “unfriendly” interview mentioned above. While Young did fail to answer some of the interviewer’s questions, they also wrangled over semantics. One might say, “We’ll just define your terms and move on.” The problem occurs when someone uses a term differently than how everyone else does. If the majority of Christians use a term one way, and someone else uses the same term differently, confusion can occur. 

When Bultman says he believes in the resurrection, someone might say, “So what’s the big deal?” The big deal is that Bultman does not believe in the same resurrection as most Christians. He believes in a spiritual resurrection. Bultman’s resurrection leaves Jesus in the grave. I can’t reconcile that with 1 Corinthians 15:12-19. 

So we must use care in using our terms, and if we use a term differently than it is normally used, we must define it to avoid confusion at best and accusations of heresy at worst. Young has left himself open to that charge.

Probable Impossibles

Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water quotes Aristotle: “That which is probable and impossible is better than that which is possible and improbable.” Fiction works this way. We buy the boy riding the dragon (an impossibility) because the author has made it a probable occurrence in his novel. However, when a normal character does something that the author has not set up his character to do, even if it is something he could do, the reader doubts. 

So what’s the point? My troubles with The Shack belong in this category. Mack keeps doing things that just seem improbable. I wish I were reading instead of listening as I can’t give you a direct quote, but Mack, racked with sorrow and depression, will hear something from God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit and all of a sudden all is well. And I don’t think God’s explanation answers Mack’s questions. In fact, God has promised a better explanation later about a couple of issues (hell and judgment), but as of yet, He (or should I say, she) hasn’t delivered. For me, Mack’s character is possible but improbable. And that makes The Shack less fun than this interesting theological treatise should be. I don’t want to be thinking, “Mack wouldn’t do that!” when I’m trying to wrestle with the theology of the book. For me, the writing distracts from the message. 

The Fractal Garden

Theology aside, the concept of a fractal garden as created by Young’s Holy Spirit character in The Shack fascinates me. I have always loved mathematics. The endless complexities of this world and the amazing order that accompanies these complexities excite my inquisitive mind. Think about pi: a number that never repeats and never ends yet describes such a simple concept. And those paradoxes abound. (By the way, did you know that the string of numbers in my birthday appears 3 times in the first 200,000,000 digits of pi? To find how often your phone number or birthday or some other random string of numbers appear, go here. Keep reading down that page if you are a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.)

And so Mackenzie sees “the mess” from his perspective, but if he could take on a different perspective, he would see a fractal. As a wish-I-had-time-to-garden gardener, I would love to play with plant placement having read this, as I’ve always put the tomatoes with the tomatoes and the peppers with the peppers. Aren’t things supposed to have order from my perspective?

I am reminded of how little we actually see of what God is up to in life. Often I see a dark mass in front of me, but if I could see everything, I would see that that dark mass is only a tiny black thread in a tremendous mosaic of color and form and meaning. 

God is a God of order. But He is also the God who knows the order in what we perceive as random, chaotic, hopeless. And so the fractal garden delights me because it reminds me of His character and the fact that He controls the chaos and mess in my life.

The Shack—so far, so bad.

I have heard much praise for The Shack. I have heard nothing about its contents, surprisingly, other than it is the “Pilgrim’s Progress for our day.” Interested, and seeing it for $5.99 on i-tunes, and having some money still on my account from a Christmas present (yes, I shop selectively), and having 25 minutes of commute time each day, I thought, “Why not.”

Being two hours into the eight hour recording, I have to say I am underwhelmed. The writing is clichéd and sloppy throughout. The characters seem to do contradictory things to they way they are described. Granted, I am listening, not reading, so going back and checking details is not an option, but this inconsistency has happened too often. The characters and their actions, for me, anyway, are not overly believable. 

The story itself is intriguing. I am curious how Mack gets out of his depression, which I am assuming he will since it is the “Pilgrim’s Progress for our day.” I have almost stopped listening a couple of times, but I do want to give it a fair shake. Patience is running thin, though.

On a brighter side, I have started Par For the Course. I have little expectations for this except humor and relationships. I sprinted through 150 pages last night and can’t wait to read the rest. I will comment on it soon. A delightful read so far.