The shack III--HERE BE SPOILERS

I don't have time to post a lengthy response to The shack. I may post such later when I get done with my work for today. But I can say briefly that it is something other than historic Christian theology. It is infected with just about all of the major Christological heresies from the first few centuries CE: Docetism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, Sabellianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, Gnosticism. The only one I didn't see what Arianism, which I suppose is a point in the novel's favor.

A point for later: the book attacks organized religion, which is equated with institutional Christianity, a separately questionable assumption. The attack is carried out from the standpoint of a Christian. The "about the author" blurb on the back cover brags that the author was raised by missionary parents "among a stone-age tribe." Incidentally, though he shares a name with the author, the implied narrator doesn't seem to have this in his background. So this is an attack upon Christianity from within Christianity, much like what one finds in Søren Kierkegaard (see esp. An attack upon Christendom). But at least Kierkegaard knew what he was doing.

And not only this, but from the standpoint of a writer it is filled with technical errors and general aesthetical unpleasantness. I can't imagine where front-cover blurbist Eugene Peterson--a writer of whose books I own at least six and respect very deeply--gets the idea that this book can be for this generation what The pilgrim's progress was for its time. To paraphrase the best line from the 1988 US Vice-Presidential debate (credit to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen): "I knew John Bunyan. John Bunyan was a friend of mine. Author, you're no John Bunyan!"