"A little novel written by an Oregon salesman and self-published by two former pastors with a $300 marketing budget is lighting up USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list with a wrenching parable about God's grace. First-time author William P. Young's book The Shack, in which the father of a murdered child encounters God the Father as a sarcastic black woman, Jesus as a Middle Eastern laborer and the Holy Spirit as an Asian girl, is No. 8 on the list. Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor for Publishers Weekly, calls the book's success "most unusual. It's every self-published author's dream to start out this way and sell at this level. People are not necessarily concerned with how orthodox the theology is. People are into the story and how the book strikes them emotionally," Garrett says."

 

Commentary

 
That this novel is popular is not surprising considering the spiritual but relativistic society we have become. What should be surprising, however, is the popularity the book has gained among Christians. Of course, that popularity highlights major problems in the church today.

 
When a novel freely alters biblical teaching on doctrines connected to salvation and the nature of God Himself and is not rejected outright, it is no wonder that we find ourselves in an “evangelicalism divided.” To say that “people are not necessarily concerned with how orthodox the theology is...and [that] people are into the story and how the book strikes them emotionally,” is to unwittingly put a finger on the problem. Large segments of the church have bought into a therapeutic, moralistic, deism to borrow a phrase. Such a position flows from a willingness to say that my experience trumps God’s revelation. Or, truth is not important if I feel good spiritually. As postmodernism slowly infects the church, more Christians are willing to allow story to trump propositional truth. Biblical discernment is the great need of the church in this desperate hour.

 
From a practical standpoint, too many works under the heading of Christian fiction have led too many astray. Because the bible is not that exciting to the typical church member, Christian fiction has gained a foothold in the hearts of the so-called faithful. The problem lies in the fact that for the vast majority of those individuals, rather than allowing a biblical theology to provide discernment in connection to their reading, it is the novel itself that shapes their theology. A committed believer shared with me that he believed Christ went to Hell and had a physical boxing match with Satan because he read it in a novel. When challenged, his response was, “How do you know that didn’t happen?” The problem with his question is obvious: truth is not determined by what may or may not have happened, not by what we would like it to be, not by what we read in a novel, but by the revelation of God. In the final analysis, when people are not satisfied with the truth, the truth is, they are not satisfied with God.