The Shack -- the divide
My wife and I have this tradition: we like to watch a movie at the theatre when we're on vacation in the southern states. If memory serves, in the last few years, we've seen Ten Years a Slave, American Sniper and Silver Linings Playbook.
On our most recent trip, after having spent several days visiting family in Georgia and Florida, we eventually landed in North Myrtle Beach. We checked out the movie listing and, after consulting the ratings (a lot of 6.somithings), my wife wanted to watch... wait for it... Logan!? You know: X-Men, Wolverine? It was rated at 8.5. Being the excellent husband that I am, I asked, "Are you sure? You know it's a superhero movie, don't you? It's gonna have a bunch of that crazy action you hate. Are you sure you don't want to watch The Shack?"
She said, "No, it got bad ratings."
"Yeah, but your friends watched it and they really liked it."
"No, let's see Logan."
"Oh well, okay, if that's how you really feel about it ;)"
We arrived at the Carmike Colonial 12 Cinemas quite early. There were maybe a dozen people milling about in the lobby and only two other people at the ticket booth. We asked for two admissions to the 6:50 pm showing of Logan. The response came back: "We only have room at the 10 pm showing,"
"You have nothing for 6:50?"
"No, sorry."
"It's sold-out?"
"Yes -- would you like tickets to the 10 o'clock?"
It seemed unfathomable that a 6:50 pm showing on a Thursday night could be sold out after premiering almost a month earlier. My wife was not pleased. Reluctantly, we settled on The Shack. She was pretty sure after watching the film that a) there was no way given the amount of people in the theatre that Logan was really sold-out and b) it was divine intervention that we ended up at the 7:05 showing of The Shack.
Apart from some wonky casting, a wee bit of weak acting and questionable plot choices, I thought the film measured up to the book, which I loved. Like the novel, I found the movie to make more sense of the trinity, God's love, and tragedy than few sermons or books on said subjects ever have.
I know that I'm lacking specifics that, as an English teacher, I would've nailed my students for. But that's not really the point of this post. I'm not writing a movie review. I'm more interested in the reaction to the novel ten years ago, and now the movie.
I know that there are people out there in Christendom who hate the novel and now the film; and others who love both book and movie. When there's something which divides, I find it fascinating to look into what it is about this thing which so polarizes people.
Just a few days ago I was channel surfing. I have an antenna so I get some rather interesting religious programs. I stopped at one station and, lo and behold, they had an entire episode of their program dedicated to The Shack. It didn't take long to realize that they didn't like the movie (to say the least). Their objections were similar to the objections that were levied against the novel ten years ago: God is not a woman, it's too liberal, universalism, the Bible should be read literally, metaphor danger bad, and so on (please pardon the lack of parallelism).
Regarding the whole literal vs non-literal issue, I find the whole thing comical. To quote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means (don't forget the Spanish accent :) )." If people really meant that they take the Bible literally, then they'd have a really difficult time with God being a giant chicken who gathers his children beneath his wing (Psalm 91:4). Or, if you look at someone with lust in your heart, say bye-bye to those pretty little eye balls (Mark 9:47). Not to mention scores of troublesome Old Testament laws which we write off as, oh well, that was the Old Testament...
No, when people say that they read the Bible "literally", what they really mean is that they subscribe to a specific subset of Protestant interpretation with regards to hermeneutics (the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, specifically of the Bible). And even within that subset, there are differencing gradations of what is meant by "God breathed", "inerrant" and "infallible."
Again, as a former English teacher, I would never have dreamt of having 14 yr old, grade 9 students read Shakespeare without first introducing them to several things: historical context, /Shakespeare the person, Elizabethan England, etymology, genre, poetry and verse but to name a few. It's really not that different with the Bible. If, for example, you're not familiar with the conventions of Apocryphal literature, it's really difficult to know what to do with -- how to read -- John's Revelation. Another example: knowing something of ancient Middle Eastern culture, can make a pretty big difference on how you read much of the New Testament, especially the Gospels.
It seems that people who purport that the Bible should be read literally are often the same as those who are mistrustful of fiction. The argument goes something like this: the Bible is non-fiction and therefore factual; God wrote it; it can be entirely trusted. The opposite holds true of fiction. Literalist are extremely mistrustful of story.
So that's the first objection. A major strike against The Shack is that it fictionalizes something which should not be fictionalized and therefore it is inherently bad. I could go on and on about the wrongness of this argument, but suffice it to point out one argument. The parables. It's interesting that when the literalists of Jesus's day wanted to go toe to toe with him about the minutia of the law, he often countered with parables (aka fiction).
And then there's the content of the story that people object to. The one word you hear/read often in negative reviews is "universalism". The more I read people like Richard Rohr and Greg Boyd the more I'm convinced that Christians who are afraid of a "universal" Christ are often the same that are trying to protect something; they're the ones who demand clarity and agreement on a minutia of theological specifics which determines if one is in or one is out.
On a final note, I love the movie's emphasis on relationships. It's interesting that so many Christians skip over the beauty and power of Genesis Chapter One inasmuch as to say it's a brief lead up to the Fall -- and then things really sucked. Until Jesus came and made things right so we can believe in him... but things really still suck and always will until He returns.
But Genesis One -- like the Kingdom of God -- is so much more than that. In verse 28, the text uses the plural for God: "Let us make mankind in our likeness..." Orthodox Christianity would say that that's the trinity. And in some small way, The Shack lends beauty to this relationship and shows that they -- God -- have always wanted us to be part of and experience that same kind of love and unity.
On our most recent trip, after having spent several days visiting family in Georgia and Florida, we eventually landed in North Myrtle Beach. We checked out the movie listing and, after consulting the ratings (a lot of 6.somithings), my wife wanted to watch... wait for it... Logan!? You know: X-Men, Wolverine? It was rated at 8.5. Being the excellent husband that I am, I asked, "Are you sure? You know it's a superhero movie, don't you? It's gonna have a bunch of that crazy action you hate. Are you sure you don't want to watch The Shack?"She said, "No, it got bad ratings."
"Yeah, but your friends watched it and they really liked it."
"No, let's see Logan."
"Oh well, okay, if that's how you really feel about it ;)"
We arrived at the Carmike Colonial 12 Cinemas quite early. There were maybe a dozen people milling about in the lobby and only two other people at the ticket booth. We asked for two admissions to the 6:50 pm showing of Logan. The response came back: "We only have room at the 10 pm showing,"
"You have nothing for 6:50?"
"No, sorry."
"It's sold-out?"
"Yes -- would you like tickets to the 10 o'clock?"
It seemed unfathomable that a 6:50 pm showing on a Thursday night could be sold out after premiering almost a month earlier. My wife was not pleased. Reluctantly, we settled on The Shack. She was pretty sure after watching the film that a) there was no way given the amount of people in the theatre that Logan was really sold-out and b) it was divine intervention that we ended up at the 7:05 showing of The Shack.
Apart from some wonky casting, a wee bit of weak acting and questionable plot choices, I thought the film measured up to the book, which I loved. Like the novel, I found the movie to make more sense of the trinity, God's love, and tragedy than few sermons or books on said subjects ever have.
I know that I'm lacking specifics that, as an English teacher, I would've nailed my students for. But that's not really the point of this post. I'm not writing a movie review. I'm more interested in the reaction to the novel ten years ago, and now the movie.
I know that there are people out there in Christendom who hate the novel and now the film; and others who love both book and movie. When there's something which divides, I find it fascinating to look into what it is about this thing which so polarizes people.
Just a few days ago I was channel surfing. I have an antenna so I get some rather interesting religious programs. I stopped at one station and, lo and behold, they had an entire episode of their program dedicated to The Shack. It didn't take long to realize that they didn't like the movie (to say the least). Their objections were similar to the objections that were levied against the novel ten years ago: God is not a woman, it's too liberal, universalism, the Bible should be read literally, metaphor danger bad, and so on (please pardon the lack of parallelism).
Regarding the whole literal vs non-literal issue, I find the whole thing comical. To quote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means (don't forget the Spanish accent :) )." If people really meant that they take the Bible literally, then they'd have a really difficult time with God being a giant chicken who gathers his children beneath his wing (Psalm 91:4). Or, if you look at someone with lust in your heart, say bye-bye to those pretty little eye balls (Mark 9:47). Not to mention scores of troublesome Old Testament laws which we write off as, oh well, that was the Old Testament...
No, when people say that they read the Bible "literally", what they really mean is that they subscribe to a specific subset of Protestant interpretation with regards to hermeneutics (the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, specifically of the Bible). And even within that subset, there are differencing gradations of what is meant by "God breathed", "inerrant" and "infallible."
Again, as a former English teacher, I would never have dreamt of having 14 yr old, grade 9 students read Shakespeare without first introducing them to several things: historical context, /Shakespeare the person, Elizabethan England, etymology, genre, poetry and verse but to name a few. It's really not that different with the Bible. If, for example, you're not familiar with the conventions of Apocryphal literature, it's really difficult to know what to do with -- how to read -- John's Revelation. Another example: knowing something of ancient Middle Eastern culture, can make a pretty big difference on how you read much of the New Testament, especially the Gospels.
It seems that people who purport that the Bible should be read literally are often the same as those who are mistrustful of fiction. The argument goes something like this: the Bible is non-fiction and therefore factual; God wrote it; it can be entirely trusted. The opposite holds true of fiction. Literalist are extremely mistrustful of story.
So that's the first objection. A major strike against The Shack is that it fictionalizes something which should not be fictionalized and therefore it is inherently bad. I could go on and on about the wrongness of this argument, but suffice it to point out one argument. The parables. It's interesting that when the literalists of Jesus's day wanted to go toe to toe with him about the minutia of the law, he often countered with parables (aka fiction).
And then there's the content of the story that people object to. The one word you hear/read often in negative reviews is "universalism". The more I read people like Richard Rohr and Greg Boyd the more I'm convinced that Christians who are afraid of a "universal" Christ are often the same that are trying to protect something; they're the ones who demand clarity and agreement on a minutia of theological specifics which determines if one is in or one is out.
On a final note, I love the movie's emphasis on relationships. It's interesting that so many Christians skip over the beauty and power of Genesis Chapter One inasmuch as to say it's a brief lead up to the Fall -- and then things really sucked. Until Jesus came and made things right so we can believe in him... but things really still suck and always will until He returns.
But Genesis One -- like the Kingdom of God -- is so much more than that. In verse 28, the text uses the plural for God: "Let us make mankind in our likeness..." Orthodox Christianity would say that that's the trinity. And in some small way, The Shack lends beauty to this relationship and shows that they -- God -- have always wanted us to be part of and experience that same kind of love and unity.
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