Comments on: Driscoll Critiquing The Shack

By: ed

ed — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:14:13 +0000

I would have to say as a Pastor who has wrestled with the question of why did God allow________.? asked by desperate people, this book attempts to answer that. The idea of accusing William Young of trying to define trinity, to me seems a bit presoumtous. I think what william was saying was the God is all about relationship and He reveals relatonship through the trinity and that is the message God has been speaking to men through the trinity. He appeared to Mac as a women becase that was the way that Mac needed God to be revealed to him. Lets admit God revealed himself to men through out scripture in language and symbols that they could understand. He was a burning bush to Moses, a Pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day to the Isrealites he was a wheel in a wheel to Ezekial,YHVH Nissi - The LORD My Banner: (Exodus 17:15), to Abraham he was a shield Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield, Gen 15:1. Just to name a few. If you really read from the context of the setting i think we would see that God met Mac right where he was at. He removed the barriers that obstructed Macs view of the love God had for him. A father for Mac was, at that time, offensive,brutal, mean uncaring. God had to convince Mac that he was not like that at all, so he revealed his love to Mac in a language he could understand, because that was the most important thing to God his message of Love to humanity. The Book is about removing the obstacles that stop us from seeing that God Loves us and desires relationship, that is constant through every valley and mountain of life.

By: josh

josh — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:54:36 +0000

I like Driscoll a lot, and respect his opinion. That being said, I think he COMPLETELY missed the boat on this book.

1) it’s not primarily an explanation of the Trinity, it’s a reflection on a harder topic — where’s is God in the middle of pain?
2) Driscoll thinks because God reveals himself as an African-American woman he’s saying God physically IS that … although God appears later as a man and makes it clear throughout that He’s not actually ANY of those things, but is putting them on so Mack can relate to Him.
3) The book is not addressing Modalism, which says one God shifted between different ways of revealing Himself. Rather, it’s attempt to grapple with the mystery of God’s self-contained community.

The biggest mistake Driscoll seems to be making is assuming that Young was trying to establish a complete theology of God when I think Young was more attempting to illustrate what it might look like if God invaded a humans life in a very tangible way.

I think — if read carefully and deeply — the book is fantastic. It makes me sad that Driscoll — whom I greatly admire — so completely missed the point.

By: Will

Will — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:09:49 +0000

I haven’t read this book, The Shack, but I feel compelled to respond to the post and the comments because I feel that there is a very important aspect of the book and of scripture that has been overlooked thus far, although I think that Ron was moving in this direction. A writer is an artist … the writer of the shack and the writers of scripture … and art is art only because of its ability to tell us something beyond the lines, colors … beyond the words on a page. The Shack is most likely (again, I haven’t read it) using metaphors to help us get a picture of certain aspects of God in the same way the book of Hosea uses the metaphor of husband to an adulterous wife to help us better understand the relationship between God & Israel. God was certainly not incarnate in a real, male, human being … and for that matter, the nation of Israel was not literally a single, female whore. Instead, the story of Hosea and Gomer was just that … a story! And whether the story actually happened or not probably doesn’t matter that much. Its purpose was to help us understand something else. And there are tons of other places in the Bible in which the art of metaphor is used. Revelation is a great example of something called “apocalyptic literature,” a style of writing that was very popular around the time John most likely penned his recollection of this vision.

All this is to say: if you are going to throw out books because they speak of God, or the Kingdom of God in language that you aren’t comfortable with then you’ll probably have to throw out a good chunk of the Bible as well. My suggestion would be to learn to identify metaphor, to appreciate the art of story, and to ask questions rather than walk away. If it feels weird, its probably not much different than the disciples felt after Jesus told them a parable that they inevitably didn’t understand. And I hate to say it, but the choice is humility or arrogance.

By: Todd Burus

Todd Burus — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:45:50 +0000

Simple answer, Mr. Cole: the artist does not have that much liberty. And to assume that Mr. Young is not trying to make a point about theology through this book is intellectually dishonest. Christian artists have liberty, but as Christians they should also exercise discernment. Far from exercising discernment though, the author here actual takes out a stick and bludgeons God’s commandments for a couple hundred pages. This stuff is dangerous since, as has already been stated, most people are biblically illiterate. Remember “The DaVinci Code”? That didn’t even masquerade as Christian fiction and it caused a world of crap.

I hope this makes sense.

By: ron cole

ron cole — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:31:29 +0000

I guess the problem I have with bashing this book comes from an artists perspective. Young has never come out and said his book is a theological treatise on the Trinity. This is a piece of art, a creative work expressing faith. My question is should we be censoring all art done my ” christians.” And how much liberty does the artist have. No one in my sphere of friends has seen this book as ” pure ” theology.” There is other places to go, to look for that.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:24:49 +0000

Its funny you point out the reference to Driscoll on husband/wife interaction, considering he just preached on that last week when dealing with doctrine of love. I do suggest you listen to his words on the subject and not my summation of him, but he’s fairly big on the equality of Man and Woman. He points out as both created in the image of God, we are all equal in that image and likeness. They express things like emotions differently, but they are equal. Also, when dealing with dominion, he points out that the man/woman are a team, just as the Holy Spirit is the helpmate in the trinity, woman is the helpmate to man in scripture.

Now, I’m definitely not a 100% driscoll defender, because I don’t completely agree with his hard line on woman in ministry amongst a few other things, but I’m hard to find the ‘danger’ of his theology. Here’s the deal with me, and why I would agree with him on the Shack. Most people are biblically illiterate… I don’t think I’ll get much argument there. And when that happens, people are more easily influenced by a pseudo-spiritual fiction book. Now, I don’t believe so much that people are going to read The Shack and literally think that God is an African-American woman, but when God tells us not to do something, I try to be faithful to that. That’s the bottom line, to me. Its less about whether someone has a hard time discerning fiction from reality, and more about whether scripture has something to say about it.

By: Steve K.

Steve K. — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:57:04 +0000

Chris,

Do you really believe anyone is going to read “The Shack” and believe that God is like an African-American woman, the Holy Spirit is like an Asian woman, and Jesus is, well, a Middle Eastern man? (OK the last one should be obvious.) I mean, come on, it’s fiction! Let’s give people a little credit for being able to discern fiction from fact.

Driscoll’s critique is based on a really ridiculous LITERAL interpretation of “The Shack.” And the really telling thing to me is how his theology of the Holy Spirit conveniently supports his view of the pastor being OVER the congregation, the husband being OVER the wife, etc. Where’s the mutual submission/accountability? That’s equally “biblical,” right? Nowhere to be found in Driscoll’s theology, apparently.

Forget “The Shack” for a minute — Anyone else see how crazy dangerous Driscoll’s theology is?

By: Dan Ra

Dan Ra — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:22:38 +0000

I haven’t heard of this book until this entry.

Strange.

Too busy reading Peter Rollins =)