(By Brandon Showalter, The Christian Post). Debate continues to swirl around the new film “The Shack,” based on the best-selling novel, as notable Christian leaders contend it contains theological inaccuracies and Christians must be watchful.
In a Thursday interview with The Christian Post, Carmen Fowler LaBerge, host of “The Reconnect” radio program, believes that the book and movie proves biblically problematic on some important fronts.
“[Media company] Lionsgate has sought to address some of concerns about the book by framing the movie in the context of the unconscious,” LaBerge said of the controversy surrounding the film. “And so, we don’t theologically have the same expectations of the way the mind works in its unconscious state. “
But those efforts to respond in this manner were due to some of the strongest criticisms of the film, namely, the representation of God not only as Trinity, but the Father and Spirit shown in human form, she noted. Such physical representation “is contrary to the way the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments represent Father and the Spirit,” she said.
Yet some protest that people are making too big of a deal about the movie, particularly because it is explicitly a work of fiction and never claims to be the Bible. CP asked LaBerge what makes William Paul Young’s The Shack different from other works of fictitious allegorical literature that draw upon biblical themes like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
Aslan the lion is the Christ figure in Lewis’ book and is the only person of the Trinity that is physically represented but nowhere is he explicitly called “Christ” or “Jesus,” she said.
But “in The Shack, the characters identify themselves as the Trinity and they identify themselves specifically as individual members of the Trinity.”
The average American, she noted, probably would not even understand “how thin we’re trying to slice the theological pie here.”
“And so my concern really is that tens of millions of people are going to see this movie. And lots of people are going to identify with the depths and reality of pain and the infliction of evil in life” and the legitimate questions about God’s place in it all, LaBerge said.
The movie answers these things “in a way we should be in conversation with,” she continued. LaBerge herself has authored a backgrounder resource on how to do exactly that.
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The Shack is filled with the Fruits of the Spirit in its presentation of God. God is presented as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” throughout the movie. It is not weepy sentimentalism, but presenting God as the “Holy Other” with the most important power of all – the power to change lives. I feel sorry for people like Al Mohler who are so lost in their judgmental rigidity they fail to see it.
I saw the movie and again was reminded by the Holy Spirit, inside of me not in the movie lol, that God is kind. I was praying this morning and the Lord gave me His word to discern truth.
“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 4-8.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 1 John 4:8
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:17
I dont understand why our western culture has so much difficulty in embracing God’s mercy and kindness unless it is to perpetuate the sins from our past. Once it was common thought that all outsiders including Native Americans and Blacks are evil sinners so its okay to murder, rape, steal and enslave instead of what the Bible says how we are to treat others. Was that a grey area? It does not seem that way to us now, but it was back then to most until God brought light to hearts. Is He doing that now? Is the Shack the new outsider? What is the heart of the message in the shack? Is it really saying its okay to sin? Is it really saying ALL will go to heaven or could it be that we still can’t believe that Jeffrey Dahmer could really repent and go to heaven? That He truly desires that none perish…
I think those of us who are not afraid to believe God is radical love are the ones who really bless His heart. King David committed adultery and murder yet God calls him a man after his own heart. I am so glad God does not judge from our outside actions or moments of constant failure but just like our very own childen, taking their first steps and making all the mistakes of saying no, pooping and peeing their pants, lying, etc. and we look on them with compassion and mercy and discipline them when needed but never expect more than we should, especially from babies….Can we believe our heavenly father could be that way with us?
“Among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last ‘trick’, whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.
‘But how?’ we ask.
Then the voice says, ‘They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’
There they are. There *we* are – the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.”
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out