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I Don’t Get The Shack and I Don’t Get the Fuss

Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 11:05 am Posted in Book Reviews, Media, Religion

Why is The Shack so bloody popular right now and why in the world did Eugene Peterson compare it to the classic allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress?  Why is it that whatever Oprah picks up it suddenly becomes gold and true, filled with inspiration and truth?  I have read some of the books in her book club and a lot of them frankly suck.

So I picked this one up like moth to flame and read the first chapter.  The prose of the narrative is unbearably amateurish and the premise is at first promising, then quickly trite.  It’s not even close to the masterpiece that John Bunyan wrote.  It’s not the same kind of narrative, it was written not with the same purpose (clearly), it is structurally different, and the prose is radically different.  It’s apples to oranges.

Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower or Thomas Disch’s The Word of God: or, Holy Writ Rewritten both seem to be more promising and enjoyable to read.

So why is The Shack so popular?  Is it all media hype and people suckling from the nectar of Oprah’s media megastore of popularity?

I just don’t get it.

Viewing 8 Comments

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    Hi Sonja,

    I hear ya, I do. I guess it seemed totally uninteresting to me. If it works for you and others it's all good. I guess I don't get why this has been so virally potent. I just picked up a copy of Philip K. Dick's novel The divine Invasion and it seems way more interesting to me.

    I like flawed theology too. All theology is flawed so if you can admit that it's flawed we then have something creative to work with there!

    I did see Driscoll's analysis of it. I lost interest when he started to say that The Shack was heresy because it made the Tinity an anthropological concept. As if father and son are suddenly not anthropological? Hello Mark, it's called fiction. God is not a lion named Aslan either but you would probably not finding him calling C.S. Lewis a heretic. But I think Driscoll is all hype and a theological dumbass as it is.

    I guess I am a literature snob as I am a music snob :-) So if it works for you, I honestly think that's great. I still don't get it though.
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    Hi Drew, I've read The Shack twice and am about to read it a third time (although that's for the purpose of writing book discussion questions and read it alongside my 14 year old daughter).

    Here are some things to bear in mind. First, read past the first three-ish chapters. I can't exactly remember where it gets compelling but it does. I agree, the first chapter and maybe even the second are boring. But they are important for the rest of the story. Second, Paul Young wrote this story for his kids and originally he photo-copied it at Kinkos (I believe). In it's original form it was a bedtime story for them. So ... nope ... it's not going to ever be classical literature. It's a story. A kids story; that aims to explain some of the more confusing ideas about God and the Trinity in ways that are easier to understand.

    Now as to why Peterson compared it to Pilgrim's Progress. Here's the thing that most people miss about that comparison. Peterson is no dummy. He knows it's no PP. Read the comparison carefully. What he said was that The Shack has the potential to do for it's generation what PP did in it's time. He made an analogy. He was not saying that The Shack is equal to PP. He was saying that it has the potential to reach alot of people and speak to them about God in the same way that Pilgrim's Progress did in whenever Bunyan wrote. Very few people can understand PP nowadays unless they are fully enculturated Christians. But almost anyone can pick up and understand The Shack. Even people who would rather die than ever pick up a Bible.

    Is there flawed theology contained in its pages? You'd better believe it. It's not a theology book. It's a story. Paul did not set out to write a story about theology, he was writing a story about the God who he has a relationship with. So if you read it expecting to meet up with God, then you'll find Him. But if you read it expecting to find perfect theology, you'll be disappointed. Perfect theology is a manmade construct. God is far too wild, too enormous and too mysterious to be contained in something that small.

    Why is it so popular? Who knows ... some people say it's a God thing. Others, like you, think it's an interesting viral marketing scheme. Could be it's a combination of things. It's more likely that it's a thing called sway ( http://www.subversiveinfluence.com/wordpress/?p... ). Or it's reached it's tipping point. There are any number of reasons that have not been adequately explored as to why the book is becoming so popular ... but, to date, Oprah is assuredly not one of them. Although, she will be in the weeks to come ... and that is a crying shame.

    Now, I shall have to find The Parable of the Sower ... you've piqued my interest.
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    I guess I am more of a skeptic than to say it's a God thing rather than really interesting viral marketing.
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    The news that Oprah is reading the book just broke late last week. She hasn't done ANY promotion of it (yet). The book has spread wildly by word of mouth, and some (like me) would also say by the Holy Spirit's prompting. The success of the book (which was never even intended to be published -- he wrote it for his kids) is really a "God thing." That's how I'd answer your question.
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    I didn't find Pilgrim's Progress compelling, actually I found it boring. But I loved Harry Potter. I picked up the Shack for reading while on vacation. I don't have really high expectations though. I'll post my thoughts on my blog.
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    Bryan, I understand that part. Of course Harry Potter was written with a younger "tween" audience in mind too!

    I guess the point with the writing is that if I had the choice of reading The Shack once or Pilgrim's Progress (or C.S. Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress for that matter) 10 times consecutively, I would totally go for the second option. That I could not get past even the first chapter of The Shack means it just had no connection to anything for me at all.
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    Maybe the story is just really good (even if the writing is not all that grand) and maybe it just connects with people. Isn't that all a book needs? I know a lot of people criticized Harry Potter for having amateurish writing but the people who read it still seemed to love the story and were engrossed in that whole world (my wife loves the series).

    I've been wanting to read this book because it deals with the issue of theodicy in an interesting way. I didn't know it was on Oprah's book club though which may explain why I can't find it at Half Price Books. Maybe I'll get the audio book since iTunes has it for like 6 bucks.

    Bryan
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    The Parable of the Sower is an awesome, awesome read. I'm just sorry more people don't sit and read it. The Xenogenesis triology was excellent as well.
 

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