The Shack

My church that I attend has their own library so after having a cup of coffee, I was admiring the lovely books that was out. A lot of people told me that the shack was a good read. So I took that book out. I have just finished it this morning, I started it on the bank holiday Monday. As I got an exam today I had to leave my book downstairs otherwise I would not get my nine hours sleep otherwise I would finished it yesterday evening!

I enjoyed reading it, that's for sure. It brought me to tears. Though reading the shack for theology point of perspective I don't like it. It's very poor. From what I understand from the book, that bad things happens because God created a freewill. So it is our own fault things happen? Or is just life being chaotic and random? I notice in my life when bad things happen, I get closer to God than ever not by praying and resent it to God. having bad things happen in life make you stronger. Cliched as it sounds, I believe that.

If this book wasn't recommended by my church congregation, the chances are I would give up reading. The entire beginning of the book bored me. I had to make endless cups of tea just so I could read it. Though after I got through the beginning it changing from being boring very thrilling because there were interesting things going on, When it came together at the end, I did have a greater appreciation of the way plot elements came together, but most of the time thought certain components of the story weren't very well done.

I re-read one paragraph where the author uses nine similes! Two of them concern tears and are in the same sentence. Someone please sit this author down and explain that similes and metaphors are to open windows. We don't need an entire glass factory delivered to us every page. (You can tell I have an English exam, can't you?

Please hear me out with these three paragraphs.

Aside from the cursing, I couldn’t believe it when members of the Trinity began to appear to the main character as black women.  Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about race, it is about gender and the representation of God.

Representing God the Father as any image or human is a serious error even in fiction. We are not to build an image in our minds of God--we cannot "reduce" Him to our level of comprehension as He is so far above us in all things. Jesus had to die a painful death to reconcile us as sinful humans to God the Father due to His holiness. Jesus is the bridge and mediator, we cannot approach God apart from Him, let alone misrepresent Him in this careless way.

Why represent God as a woman? The Bible makes it clear that the authority structure is for a man to be at the head. The Shack is more dangerous because it feeds society's attempts to undermine the biblical gender roles and provides direct support for the feminist agenda. Christians should be standing against cultural trends where they conflict with the Bible, not promoting and supporting them.

I was very annoyed and frustrated by the profanity and don’t think it's ever okay for a Christian to swear or use blasphemy in their books whether fiction or non-fiction

We need to remember that it is the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow way to life. In the latter times, people will gather teachers that say what their itching ears want to hear and we are warned that many will be deceived. The popular way is not God's way. Simply put in this modification of a quotation from G. K. Chesterton,

Wrong is wrong even if everyone else is doing it. Right is right even if no one else is doing it