THE BOOK IS FICTION! I have read The Shack…twice…once when it was first published & now, again, to participate in DISCUSSION about the book. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the image of God as female…and our discussion leader did a wonderful job of pointing out scripture and keeping the focus on what is and is not acceptable where the Word is concerned. I’ve no doubt that anyone in our discussion group believes for a minute that God is female.

With that said, I didn’t once think of God as female as I read this book. I am very careful to not put God in a box. We as His children should be very, very careful of limiting God with what WE think is right or wrong.

Fast forward to me seeing The Shack in their church book store. I cautioned the store manager about in a non-confrontational way, yet she became extremely defensive and dismissive. Shocked me. Because I had the pastor’s ear (we were in touch via email because I was about to do some collaboration on their website; I’m a freelance writer), I mentioned it to him thinking that he surely would not want such a false, destructive book in God’s house, available to his flock. He read it after my email and gave me his verdict; which was, it was theologically sound and he should know, having a master’s in theology. (!!) He mentioned two other mega churches, that their church partnered with, who also praised the book.

Now, believe me, I respect the role of a pastor in God’s eyes. I wrote him back, thanking him for taking the time to investigate and write me back. I also told him that while I respected his position and background greatly, I would have to respectfully disagree with his assessment because of the very discernment that God called me to. That almost right certainly wasn’t right when it comes to putting words in God’s mouth, like this book does. It has to line up with the gospel perfectly in that case.

I sent the email two hours before I attended church service. What happened next was shocking. He got up in the pulpit, obviously agitated, and basically called me a Pharisee for an hour. The reason I knew he was directing it at me, as did my husband, was that he used the same language from his email; same phrases. So…we did not go back.

But I was shaken by what exactly all “this” was. I spent the next 3 weeks in major research mode, trying to pin down this undercurrent that we sensed beforehand and saw rear its ugly head right before our eyes. That’s when I learned what the “Emergent Church” was. I was not familiar with the term previously. This church was a seeker church with a hidden emergent philosophy. Those 2 churches that they collaborated with? Very emergent, it turns out.

And guess what? The following year the pastor hosted the author of The Shack at his church for a huge speaking engagement. I have prayed for him and his congregation; to “come out from among them” & get back into the Word. I learned just recently that he had a major stroke this year. Again, I pray for him. That God would open his eyes. My heart grieves to think of him standing before His Heavenly Father explaining why he saw fit to lead his flock down this dead-end road.

And:
“This isn’t an ordinary story book. It’s a book that seeks to transform people’s ideas about God. The fiction is merely a vehicle for the theology.”

However I was surprised by this comment:
“God instructed his people to reject female goddess images and images of God as a bi-sexual or a dual-sexual Baal/Ashtoreth-type collaboration. God hated this imagery so much that he had his people destroy it and all those who promoted it.”

God forbids the worship of ANY image, whether male or female or transgender, or even whether the “god” is a human figure or an animal figure. It is all idolatry, and abhorrent! God does not single out female images as especially detestable in the Ten Commandments. See Exodus 20:4-5

Certainly God wanted to make a clear distinction between himself and the “great mother” goddess that was the most common deity of the Ancient Near East. However God is a Spirit and genderless. God is not male. Furthermore, he is described in the Bible as having (what WE would call) masculine and feminine qualities.

I certainly do not perceive God to be either female or male despite using masculine pronouns when referring to him, and calling him “Father”. Moreover, Jesus Christ most definitely came to earth as a male human being, and the figure on the cross in the picture is reprehensible and perverse.

I do find the image of “Christa” offensive, but I would like to point out something that you English-only speakers are missing.

In most languages, everything has a gender, not just people. “Father” and “Son” are male in all languages. The Hebrew word for Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh, is female. Father, Ruach and Son are three attributes or members of the ONE God which cannot be separated. Just as a man is composed of body, soul and spirit, so is YHVH.
God (Elohim, a plural word in Hebrew) is one God, not three. Jewish people still sing, “Shma Israel, Adonai Elohaaynu, Adonai Echad”, meanin, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one.”

God did create humanity, both male and female, in His (their) image, so God is inherently without gender, or has attributes of both. So it’s silly to image three people in a room being God. It polytheism.

That being said, God came on earth in physical form as a man, so we think of God as a man. The first sin came through woman, so the first sin-bearer was born through woman. We see here that woman plays a central role in the story of mankind- this doesn’t make the Bible “patriarchial”- no man was ever as close to God as Mary (except for Jesus, who was God incarnate!).

Jesus also had to be a man for genetic reasons. Man has XY chromosomes, so that a woman with XX could come from him. (You can make a woman from a man, but you can’t make a man from a woman…. she has no Y chromosome). Jesus, as the “second adam”, a perfect man without sin who is one with God, had to come to ransom humanity. A woman would not have done.

Regarding the book, since the events in the book are apparently a dream or vision, it could be seen as an allegory. I personally have a problem with God being depicted by a person at all. God being depicted by a woman has been done before, in the film “Dogma”, and God has often been depicted as an old white man (He was once played by George Burns), etc. My problem is that God is infinite and holy, and these images do not convey the greatness, majesty and holiness of God, they belittle the awe-inspiring, infinite aspect of God, turning Him into some nice, innoculous guy who you can sit down and “have a chat with”. It’s the treacly, cuddly, “precious moments” version of Christianity that I so dislike.

That being said, if the book helps some people to re-connect with God, I’m happy for them. There are so many violent, “feel bad” books out there, that if there is something even slightly positive out there, it’s better than nothing. So long as people don’t use it as a substitute for getting to know the God of the Bible.