The shack IV--HERE BE SPOILERS

Thinking about it some more, it is odd, as a student said to me today, that "one book could hit all those hands" of the different Christological heresies. So I'll back off that portion of my critique for now. I can come back to it and cite what I found for evidence of these things if anyone is interested. I'm not.

But here is the critique of organized religion. As I said in a previous post, the equation of organized religion with institutional Christianity is an assumption questionable for entirely different reasons, which I will leave aside for the moment. In literary theory, the 20th century Russian formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin did significant work in examining the distinction between two different kinds of narrative speech. These usually apply to works of fiction, but not always. On the one hand, Bakhtin defines "reporting speech" as what the narrator says to tell the story. For example, Mack (protagonist in The shack) receives an odd letter in his mailbox, slips and falls on the driveway, borrows his friend's jeep, etc. etc. etc. What Bakhtin calls "reported speech," on the other hand, is the narrator telling us what x or y said to a or b, and what a or b responded, and so on. Often, both the "reporting speech" and the "reported speech" betray the point of view/interests of the narrator (express or implied) and/or author much more than that of the characters themselves.

How does this come to play in The shack? First of all, I criticized the book for having far too much dialogue or reported speech and, consequently, far too little action or reporting speech. Secondly, the implied narrator's viewpoint comes through quite clearly in the following couple of passages put into the mouth of Jesus. For those who are not paying attention, ascribing these words to Jesus may well grant them a particular kind of authority, since, well...it's Jesus. Consider the following:

"Put simply, these terrors are tools that men use to prop up their illusions of security and control. People are afraid of uncertainty, afraid of the future. These institutions, these structures and ideologies, are all a vain effort to create some sense of certainty and security where there isn't any. It's all fake! Systems cannot provide you security, only I can." (179-80)

This statement put into the mouth of Jesus reminds me a lot more of Freud and Marx than St. Francis or Marcarius the Egyptian! And it gets worse. Again from "Jesus:"

"Mack, the world system is what it is. Institutions, systems, ideologies and all the vain, futile efforts of humanity that go with them are everywhere, and interaction with all of them is unavoidable. But I've given you freedom to overcome any system of power in which you find yourself, be it religious, economic, social or political. You will grow in the freedom to be inside or outside all kinds of systems and to move freely between and among them. Together, you an I can be in it and not of it." (181)

But the clearest example of all of this comes a few pages earlier. In this last example, there is a bit of reporting speech that demonstrates how the implied narrator wants us to read Jesus' words in a certain way:

"Marriage is not an institution. It's a relationship." Jesus paused, his voice steady and patient. "Like I said, I don't create institutions; that's an assumption from those who want to play God. So me, I'm not too big on religion," Jesus said a little sarcastically, "and not very fond of politics or economics either." Jesus' visage darkened considerably. "And why should I be? They are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about. What mental turmoul and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of these three?" (179, emphasis added)

And, now for the 50-kiloton bomb to be dropped on The shack. This last quote from "Jesus" is no better than the similar quote from the character "Leigh Teabing" in The DaVinci code! I do not own that horrid book either, filled with errors of historical fact as it is, and I was unable to find the quote to which I'm alluding in the movie version, but it essentially accuses Christianity of being the most murderous sect ever to arrive on the planet Earth, the cause of all manner of suffering and injustice, and Teabing wanted the lie on which Christianity was built--according to the plot of The DaVinci code--exposed so that the whole stinking edifice could be brought down onto itself. I have publicly illustrated my avoidance of The shack by reference to how long I avoided reading The DaVinci code, so it is interesting, and more than a little ironic, that I have boiled over in rage at The shack for essentially the same reasons as what generated that reaction in The DaVinci code--lies, innuendo, half-truth, rumor, sophistry, and cariacature of real historical Christianity for the author's own misguided ends. Cloaked in the veil of a well-written story--at least The DaVinci code had that in its favor; The shack does not--this seething attack on a straw figure "organized religion" is pathetic and trite. It is no better than Bertrand Russell in Why I am not a Christian. All of these people ought to know better and ought to be better abreast of the facts before they lash out in attack without really understanding the "enemy."

And this is not even to get to the racist undertones of the novel's presentation of God as a semi-inarticulate black woman (119) who is always cooking for everybody else. It bothers me tremendously that God is Aunt Jemima! Yet, later on p. 218, Aunt Jemima has become General Lee, or perhaps Colonel Sanders (complete with long white beard), for "This morning, you're going to need a Father" (219). This is the scene where God and Mack go off to see the remains of his little girl, which is what gets everything started at the beginning of the novel.

I could go on, but it's nearly 10:30 PM and I have to teach in the morning, so... Suffice it to say, that The shack, far from being the new Pilgrim's progress, should rather be assigned to a dark corner of a library somewhere, with a sign on the shelf like they used to put up in medieval monasteries: Hic sunt leones, "Here be monsters."