I picked up the book on my kindle a few days ago, and had to finish another book before I could start reading The Shack. I started reading it today – and I’m half way done. It is a pretty amazing book.
I wanted to take a quick second to address a concern that I’ve heard about this book in it’s representation of the trinity. I don’t want to say too much, because I don’t want to spoil the book; but I’ll say enough that you’ll get some general ideas of what is going to happen, so if you haven’t read the book yet, and you plan to – don’t read ahead just yet.
I’ve heard some concerns that the representation of the Trinity in this book is “heretical”. There is a point in the book where the author very clearly addresses his purpose in having God appear as he does: a large African American woman named Papa.
Within the freedom of prose, in my opinion his depiction does no harm to the nature of God – in fact, up to this point in the book, I think it has a liberating effect in trying to pull free the shackles of peoples mind’s of what they think God to be.
While God envelopes Himself in the language of male in the bible, He is neither Male nor Female, although both genders derive their essence from Him (in some mysterious way).
I’m not suggesting that it is o.k. in a theologically sense to refer to God as a woman, I think there is a purpose in God choosing to be identified as a “He” in the writings of the Bible, but again, God does sometimes choose to reveal Himself in many ways, whether it’s a storm or a whirlwind a pillar of clouds or fire, a burning bush, or a dove or even something as unobtrusive as a small whisper in a person’s heart – why not a large African American woman?.
So far, this book seems to have an amazing story to tell when addressing the problem of human suffering – I can’t wait to see if it gets better!