There are a dazzling number of ways to divide humanity into two groups.
There are men and women; morning people and night people; Coke drinkers and Pepsi drinkers; introverts and extroverts; IU fans and Purdue fans; risk-takers and play-it-safers; and those who unroll the toilet paper from the bottom vs. those who unroll it from the top (as God always intended).
This year we can add a brand new way of dividing American readers: There are those who think that The Shack is a dangerous little book that distorts classically mainstream means of understanding God, and those who think that The Shack is a refreshingly imaginative way of introducing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to those who are confused, bored, or outright angry with God.
I count myself a member of the second group.
The Shack, by William P. Young, is a work of “Christian fiction” – two words that don’t all that often come together in a particularly creative or transforming way. Regardless, The Shack has become a phenomenon that cannot easily be ignored. It has rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Bookstores can hardly keep it on their shelves.
The story spotlights a middle-aged dad named Mack who lives in the Pacific Northwest. Mack suffers a terrible loss – an event so painful that he describes the aftermath as the Great Sadness, an all-consuming heartache that dogs his every step and every thought for several years.
Mack is resigned to the fact that life will never feel safe again. He will never again experience true happiness. At a more subterranean level, Mack is deeply angry with God. Of what value is a deity who claims to be all-powerful and all loving, if in the face of the worst thing that has ever happened to him, God seems abjectly silent and unresponsive?
Within the first few pages Mack gets an invitation. It seems ludicrous. It appears to be from God. “I’ll be at the shack next weekend if you want to get together.” I don’t believe it will spoil the book for you to learn that Mack does indeed venture to the shack – curiously, cynically, and bitterly all at the same time – and receives an unexpected opportunity to rethink his entire life.
I have listened to a smattering of pastors and critics express their fear that the theological twists and turns of The Shack will lead people astray. I disagree. Given dozens of opportunities to venture into the deep weeds of confusing contemporary doubletalk about God (something which characterizes all too many recent bestsellers), Young stays within the boundaries of classic theistic orthodoxy, albeit with amazing daring and inventiveness.
My primary reason for recommending The Shack is simple: Here at last is a book that helps make sense of God for those who are so angry with him that they want to shake their fists at heaven. Mack learns something that has escaped a good many of us: God can handle our darkest feelings. Church can be infuriating for many people, especially if there is implied or explicit teaching that being mad at God is a terrible thing, and may actually prevent us from knowing God at all. It’s truer to say that God is far bigger than our wounds and our smoldering resentments.
This couldn’t be plainer than in the lives and the prayers of many of the Old Testament’s key characters. Moses becomes so exasperated with God at one point that he begs, “Lord, if this is the way you’re going to treat me, then just kill me right now.” Job goes toe to toe with God for three-dozen chapters, demanding that the Lord explain why his life has spiraled into non-stop suffering. Elijah, the prototypical prophet, descends into a suicidal depression that is fueled by resentment of God’s apparently flawed management of national affairs. David screams in one of the Bible’s most poignant psalms, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
In every case, God can handle the anger. He isn’t offended by human exasperation. It’s not an exaggeration to say that God picks a fight with both Moses and Job. “Come on,” he seems to say, “is that the best you’ve got?” The overwhelmingly message of the Bible is that we can dump a mountain of damaged emotions into God’s lap, only to discover that God’s intention to bless us will not be frustrated, and we ourselves will not be destroyed.
Is The Shack for you? I think it’s worth a try. Warning: If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t have read the last 40 pages in a public place. Young makes an earnest effort to connect our fragile emotions and our deepest hopes with God’s amazing provision.
But then, that’s just the opinion of a male, Pepsi-drinking, extroverted night person.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Loyalty Worth Hanging On To
What’s the biggest change our culture has experienced over the past 40 years?
You can make a case for the explosion of technology, the decline of civility, the collapse of communism, the ascent of terrorism, the rise and fall of Britney Spears, or the spread of a pervasive “me-first” attitude in a majority of society’s members.
From my perspective as a church leader, I think the most compelling change since 1978 is the death of institutional loyalty. The church, in fact, happens to be a prime example.
Generations of Americans churchgoers were guided by a few simple principles. Worship locally. Virtually everyone lived within three miles of the local church (which happened to be roughly the distance they were willing to walk on a rainy Sunday morning). Brand loyalty. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Born a Methodist, die a Methodist. Hang in there. Even if you could barely stand your current priest or pastor, another one would probably come along before the next presidential election. Commitment was more important than comfort.
How things have changed! Loyalty to local congregations has now become negotiable – as has loyalty to the local hardware store, beauty shop, restaurant, and movie theater. The freedom provided by General Motors has gradually eliminated what used to be called the neighborhood church.
A “good sermon” is now 100% the responsibility of the preacher. We can thank television for that. Pastors had an unspoken covenant with the congregation: “I will do my very best to keep your attention. You do your best to listen.” That arrangement was shattered by the convenience of holding a remote control capable of changing anything remotely uninteresting at home, and by exposing church members to nationally known preachers who make their local pastor seem…well…not ready for prime time. It’s safe to say that most clergy don’t have hair as amazing as Joel Osteen’s.
Twenty-first century churches are expected to follow the path blazed by shopping malls, museums, and network news shows: We should be entertaining. Actually, the word is edu-taining. “Please entertain me while you teach me something I need to know.”
Ecclesiastical brand loyalty has relentlessly slipped away. Today’s churchgoers are far more interested in being spiritually fed, or enjoying outstanding programming for their children or teenagers, than signing off on a denominational creed. “Church shopping,” once comparatively rare, is now the preoccupation of up to 20% of American worshippers.
I don’t find such observations discouraging. The audience for God’s good news, after all, has always been a moving target. Contemporary culture waits for no one. But deep inside the human heart there are hopes and dreams that never change. People want to know Truth with a capital T. They yearn to be part of a movement that cares, and that will call out their very best efforts to make a difference. In a world that veers toward cynicism, young people especially seek some unmoving basis for hope.
During the 40 years that I’ve hung around church, I’ve noticed a growing hunger for spiritual vitality. “Challenge me to be a 24/7 disciple of Jesus, not just a two-hour-a-week student of religion.” Spiritually inquiring minds want to know: Is there life before death? How can an ordinary person change the world, right here and right now?
Institutional loyalty may be fading. But it’s impossible to overlook an incurable interest in Christ-loyalty. Church may seem boring, but Jesus is endlessly fascinating. Take him at his word: A practical commitment to Jesus’ agenda for life is something that in 40 years or 4,000 years will never go out of style. It’s a loyalty worth hanging on to.
You can make a case for the explosion of technology, the decline of civility, the collapse of communism, the ascent of terrorism, the rise and fall of Britney Spears, or the spread of a pervasive “me-first” attitude in a majority of society’s members.
From my perspective as a church leader, I think the most compelling change since 1978 is the death of institutional loyalty. The church, in fact, happens to be a prime example.
Generations of Americans churchgoers were guided by a few simple principles. Worship locally. Virtually everyone lived within three miles of the local church (which happened to be roughly the distance they were willing to walk on a rainy Sunday morning). Brand loyalty. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Born a Methodist, die a Methodist. Hang in there. Even if you could barely stand your current priest or pastor, another one would probably come along before the next presidential election. Commitment was more important than comfort.
How things have changed! Loyalty to local congregations has now become negotiable – as has loyalty to the local hardware store, beauty shop, restaurant, and movie theater. The freedom provided by General Motors has gradually eliminated what used to be called the neighborhood church.
A “good sermon” is now 100% the responsibility of the preacher. We can thank television for that. Pastors had an unspoken covenant with the congregation: “I will do my very best to keep your attention. You do your best to listen.” That arrangement was shattered by the convenience of holding a remote control capable of changing anything remotely uninteresting at home, and by exposing church members to nationally known preachers who make their local pastor seem…well…not ready for prime time. It’s safe to say that most clergy don’t have hair as amazing as Joel Osteen’s.
Twenty-first century churches are expected to follow the path blazed by shopping malls, museums, and network news shows: We should be entertaining. Actually, the word is edu-taining. “Please entertain me while you teach me something I need to know.”
Ecclesiastical brand loyalty has relentlessly slipped away. Today’s churchgoers are far more interested in being spiritually fed, or enjoying outstanding programming for their children or teenagers, than signing off on a denominational creed. “Church shopping,” once comparatively rare, is now the preoccupation of up to 20% of American worshippers.
I don’t find such observations discouraging. The audience for God’s good news, after all, has always been a moving target. Contemporary culture waits for no one. But deep inside the human heart there are hopes and dreams that never change. People want to know Truth with a capital T. They yearn to be part of a movement that cares, and that will call out their very best efforts to make a difference. In a world that veers toward cynicism, young people especially seek some unmoving basis for hope.
During the 40 years that I’ve hung around church, I’ve noticed a growing hunger for spiritual vitality. “Challenge me to be a 24/7 disciple of Jesus, not just a two-hour-a-week student of religion.” Spiritually inquiring minds want to know: Is there life before death? How can an ordinary person change the world, right here and right now?
Institutional loyalty may be fading. But it’s impossible to overlook an incurable interest in Christ-loyalty. Church may seem boring, but Jesus is endlessly fascinating. Take him at his word: A practical commitment to Jesus’ agenda for life is something that in 40 years or 4,000 years will never go out of style. It’s a loyalty worth hanging on to.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Is There Only One Way?
Several years back I read excerpts of an interview with Sheila Larson, a young nurse. “I believe in God,” she said. “I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheliaism. Just my own little voice.”
Sheila Larson speaks for multitudes of Americans. Unlike other Western nations, which in recent decades have seemed to abandon religious impulses at every turn, America has seen an enthusiastic pursuit of personal spiritual experience. This is not to be confused, however, with the embrace of the traditional claims of religion, especially those of Christianity.
An increasingly number of people have jettisoned the idea that there is something objectively true out there for everyone to discover, and are instead coming to the conclusion that we all can, and should, maintain an inner truth that is ours alone, sealed off from the rest of the world.
That trend was confirmed by a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the results of which were published last month. It portrays America as a nation of believers. But the notion that my trust in God or Jesus or Moses is “the only way” to the fullness of life in this world, and to heaven in the next, is well on its way to becoming a minority opinion. Even evangelical Christians – those who are most often accused of Terminal Certainty when it comes to faith – are surrendering the concept of the “onlyness” of Jesus. Some 57% of the evangelical respondents believe that heaven can be accessed through other religions.
It’s hard to overstate what a dramatic shift this represents from past belief and practice. Forty years ago, Lutheran and Methodist parents might typically wring their hands if their children were dating Presbyterians or Baptists. Today it is more likely not only that church members will be ignorant about what “those other guys” believe, but to be fundamentally clueless about their own convictions. Interpreters of the Pew survey suggest that Americans are becoming not only more tolerant of other religious pathways, but more ignorant of their own.
Consider the watershed question of whether trusting Jesus is the only way to heaven. More than once I have been part of earnest conversations in which choosing a religious option has been likened to the kind of soul-searching that happens in Baskin & Robbins: Some people believe that Rocky Road is the One True Flavor, while others are prepared to give their lives in defense of Pralines and Cream. Wouldn’t it be wiser and better to acknowledge that spiritual choices are, in the end, just a matter of taste, and that different religions are essentially little more than different pathways up the same mountain of truth?
The implication is that all options are equal. Sheliaism is no better than Glennism which is no better than Jesusism.
The New Testament is a good deal edgier than that. Imagine a different illustration. A cardiologist has assured you that you are afflicted with a serious heart disease. You face numerous options. Some are foolish; you can choose to do nothing, for instance, and hope that your coronary arteries clear up by themselves. Some are dangerous; you can take a good deal of arsenic, which will guarantee that you won’t feel those chest pains (or anything else) within a matter of hours.
Gradually it becomes clear that there is one best way forward: Submit to heart surgery if you want to go on living. This illustration has limitations, naturally. Our technology of healing hearts continues to evolve over the years, while the Bible would say that you can’t improve on the remedy that Jesus of Nazareth proposed in the Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), I don’t believe he was closing the door on the possibility that he can save those who don’t know his name in this world. The God of the Bible seems to delight in introducing himself to those outside the boundaries of what his chosen people have expected at any given moment. Nor is tolerance something to be rejected. If by that we mean appreciation, kindness, respect, and open eyes and ears in our dialogue with those of different spiritual convictions, then tolerance is long overdue.
But if we are willing to examine with openness and honesty what Jesus said about himself, we will discover that he did not see spiritual truth as a matter of personal taste or as a preference of one path up the mountain over that one (because the view is so much better). We cannot deny that he saw himself as the uniquely competent surgeon for the human heart. The only question is whether we think that claim stands up, and are willing to act on it.
At the present moment in America, a majority of our neighbors seem to be saying, “He was sincerely mistaken.” Christians are those who are betting their lives that he wasn’t.
Sheila Larson speaks for multitudes of Americans. Unlike other Western nations, which in recent decades have seemed to abandon religious impulses at every turn, America has seen an enthusiastic pursuit of personal spiritual experience. This is not to be confused, however, with the embrace of the traditional claims of religion, especially those of Christianity.
An increasingly number of people have jettisoned the idea that there is something objectively true out there for everyone to discover, and are instead coming to the conclusion that we all can, and should, maintain an inner truth that is ours alone, sealed off from the rest of the world.
That trend was confirmed by a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the results of which were published last month. It portrays America as a nation of believers. But the notion that my trust in God or Jesus or Moses is “the only way” to the fullness of life in this world, and to heaven in the next, is well on its way to becoming a minority opinion. Even evangelical Christians – those who are most often accused of Terminal Certainty when it comes to faith – are surrendering the concept of the “onlyness” of Jesus. Some 57% of the evangelical respondents believe that heaven can be accessed through other religions.
It’s hard to overstate what a dramatic shift this represents from past belief and practice. Forty years ago, Lutheran and Methodist parents might typically wring their hands if their children were dating Presbyterians or Baptists. Today it is more likely not only that church members will be ignorant about what “those other guys” believe, but to be fundamentally clueless about their own convictions. Interpreters of the Pew survey suggest that Americans are becoming not only more tolerant of other religious pathways, but more ignorant of their own.
Consider the watershed question of whether trusting Jesus is the only way to heaven. More than once I have been part of earnest conversations in which choosing a religious option has been likened to the kind of soul-searching that happens in Baskin & Robbins: Some people believe that Rocky Road is the One True Flavor, while others are prepared to give their lives in defense of Pralines and Cream. Wouldn’t it be wiser and better to acknowledge that spiritual choices are, in the end, just a matter of taste, and that different religions are essentially little more than different pathways up the same mountain of truth?
The implication is that all options are equal. Sheliaism is no better than Glennism which is no better than Jesusism.
The New Testament is a good deal edgier than that. Imagine a different illustration. A cardiologist has assured you that you are afflicted with a serious heart disease. You face numerous options. Some are foolish; you can choose to do nothing, for instance, and hope that your coronary arteries clear up by themselves. Some are dangerous; you can take a good deal of arsenic, which will guarantee that you won’t feel those chest pains (or anything else) within a matter of hours.
Gradually it becomes clear that there is one best way forward: Submit to heart surgery if you want to go on living. This illustration has limitations, naturally. Our technology of healing hearts continues to evolve over the years, while the Bible would say that you can’t improve on the remedy that Jesus of Nazareth proposed in the Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), I don’t believe he was closing the door on the possibility that he can save those who don’t know his name in this world. The God of the Bible seems to delight in introducing himself to those outside the boundaries of what his chosen people have expected at any given moment. Nor is tolerance something to be rejected. If by that we mean appreciation, kindness, respect, and open eyes and ears in our dialogue with those of different spiritual convictions, then tolerance is long overdue.
But if we are willing to examine with openness and honesty what Jesus said about himself, we will discover that he did not see spiritual truth as a matter of personal taste or as a preference of one path up the mountain over that one (because the view is so much better). We cannot deny that he saw himself as the uniquely competent surgeon for the human heart. The only question is whether we think that claim stands up, and are willing to act on it.
At the present moment in America, a majority of our neighbors seem to be saying, “He was sincerely mistaken.” Christians are those who are betting their lives that he wasn’t.
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