have a coffee

When I first opened William Paul Young's The Shack, I was fully aware of the controversy and discussions surrounding this new Christian best-seller. I had read some strong arguments for and against its depiction of God (and a lot of nit-picking, too). So I determined from the beginning not to read a theology book, but accept its form as a novel in order to avoid getting caught up in theological details and miss the main message (a concept that somehow sounds familiar from another major Christian work, if you know what I mean :-)). However, I quickly found out that this is impossible: The Shack is a theology book -- just in disguise.

1. The Shack is narrative theology at its best! I haven't read a lot of books that manage to engage the postmodern mind with a multitude of profound theological themes the way The Shack does. As the plot turns and twists, the book and it's main character (God) continue to surprise me in ways I would never have expected. Old theological truths come to light again -- but not only in the mind. The book engages me as a person as I'm surprised, I laugh and cry with Mack. It makes me ask questions and reflect about God and his relationship to the world (and to me in particular) in a way a systematic theology could never do. In its story form, it successfully avoids becoming an intellectual exercise only and, at the end, leaves me amazed and deeply moved by God's continuing presence. This is what theology is supposed to be like!
2. The Shack is not abstract systematic theology. It is just when I try to dissect the text in my mind in a classic modernist way, when I try to deduce all of its individual theological statements about the nature of God, that I might possibly disagree with the author's position. I'm quick to write "might", though, because really, I don't. Two reasons: (a) First of all, this totally misses the point of the book. This is not a collection of propositional statements about God. Rather, it is an attempt to convey the experience of meeting God in the midst of tragedy. (b) Second, The Shack is way too well written for such an exercise to even work. Trying to analyze the author's theological position just shows how much care and reflection went into the crafting of the story. Take his depiction of the trinity, for example. Not only can I not find it faulty, but I have seldom found such a complete explanation of the trinity that is understandable (within our obvious limits) at that.
3. The Shack in its own framework redeems itself. Let's assume for a moment you disagree. You haven't gotten beyond the shock of God the father being portrayed as an African-American woman and the Spirit making a mess in the garden. You think this is bad theology, heresy and maybe even blasphemy. Then, maybe, you have overlooked a couple of important points: (a) It's a novel. (b) It's a novel! (c) Even within the novel, the narrative framework with its surprise ending leaves enough room to doubt the reality (much more the correctness) of Mack's experience. (d) Assuming Mack's account of his "week-end" is correct (within the novel), it still contains so many moments where the various persons of the trinity explain that their nature is much more complex than what Mack sees; that it is beyond human understanding; and that God deliberately "limits himself" in some ways (even disguising himself) to meet Mack on a level that he is able to at least relate with. Now, if you take all of this into account and you still want to throw out the book for being bad theology, I wonder whether we read the same work at all.

So, in short: I love it. The paperback edition I bought has Eugene Peterson saying on the front cover that "this book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good." And, even though in our short-lived world, I'm not too sure about the "generation" thing, if you replace "this book" by "this genre", I think he just may be right.

Conclusion: Read it. Enjoy it. And get your own impression -- which is why I deliberately won't give you any links to the discussions I read. Hopefully: Be blessed by the experience.

One of the basic tenets of the Protestant Reformation, particularly of Martin Luther is ecclesia semper reformanda, the position that the church always has to keep reforming itself. In many areas where tradition and institutionalization have done their work, this has become a dire need. I greatly appreciate the many good questions raised by a lot of my postmodern friends, writers, and the emerging church. We cannot close our eyes to the need to be the Church of Christ in a way that communicates our faith appropriately in our times. The church does need to be reformed -- always!

Yet, in reading books, blogs, facebook comments and status lines, I keep noticing a trend that disturbs me: I find that many people who ask all the right questions and strive to live and be the church in a meaningful way have adopted a stance toward the church at large that basically says this: Everything's wrong! Fortunately, we are here now to set things right and make the Church what it is supposed to be.

Dear Friends: You cannot make the Church what it is supposed to be. It already is. It is and always has been the Church of Christ. The beloved bride, which he has cherished, protected and carried through the centuries. The ecclesia semper reformanda is first of all ecclesia semper [lat. always the church]-- and nothing has ever changed about that. You are not about to invent the wheel, nor the church. Christ has founded this church many centuries ago and he said the gates of hell would not prevail against it -- much less the currents of time, tradition and philosophy.

You are asking the right questions. You are criticizing habits, traditions and ways of life in the Church of Christ that are not right in our times. You are pointing out areas where the wrong priorities have been set. You are rebuking people who have led the church without regard for its environment. But the methods you criticize may have been a blessing in their time -- and Christ has used them to save and bless people. The priorities may have been correct for their context -- and Christ was present within that context, too. The people you look down at have done great things for God. 

You are correct in seeking reformation for the church. But, please, don't do it by despising the precious church that is and has always been the Church of Christ. 

Should Evangelicals Embrace or Resist Postmodernism?I can't believe that people still see this as an either/or question. After all, postmodernism is here, which doesn't really make it an option if you want to reach the world. Which is not to say we should uncritically adopt any postmodern claim, but, at the end, there's no way around at least engaging postmodernism on its terms.

After the Emerging Church tried to "reinvent" the church (McLaren), theologians take a critical look at the new emergent ecclesiology (if there really is such a thing). The Knox Centre's freshly installed Kevin Ward did exaclty that in his recent inaugural lecture entitled, "IT MIGHT BE EMERGING: BUT IS IT CHURCH?." The bulk of the paper does pose the question as to what exactly constitutes a church according to orthodox belief (more specifically, the Nicene Creed) and comparing the answer to emergent positions. While the whole paper (put online by Jason Goroncy) is worth a read, here's his conclusion.

When is a church a church? I would probably in the end agree with Miroslav Volf’s conclusion, that “where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, not only is Christ present among them, but a Christian church is there as well, perhaps a bad church, a church that may well transgress against love and truth, but a church nonetheless.” Many in the emerging movement prefer to talk about the emerging conversation than emerging church. My plea would be for those within the movement to include in the conversation all of those who with them are members of the “one holy catholic apostolic church”, so they might come to more adequately share those marks. And to those sure they are members of that church, but suspicious as to whether these new comers qualify, to reach out in conversation with them and so help us all to more fully demonstrate the transforming presence of the risen Christ in our life together.

Link: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1847053,00.html

Time.com has an interesting article on the relation between prosperity gospel and the economic crisis. Although their title blows it way out of proportions by suggesting that God might be to blame for the whole mess, the article is an interesting read with sources like the UC Riverside's John Walton and Rochester's Anthea Butler. HT to Willem Ouweneel.