The Shack

Is it heretical or even irreverent to represent The Creator God, The Father, as a woman?

It’s not that Young makes The Father figure of the Trinity into a black woman that reeks of blasphemy, but that he makes Him into anything at all. We create graven images when we do such; we must allow God to show us His vision of Himself, not the other way ‘round. This He has done and His vision is Y’eshua Ha’Mashiach, Christ Jesus.

That was the short version (because some people just don’t like to read a lot)

This is the looong version: (because others just aren’t satisfied with plain, old “yes.”)
A friend of mine asked if I would share my thoughts on the book, “The Shack” by William P. Young. First, I want you to know that I haven’t actually read it save for a bit of the foreword, and as I cannot imagine anything more ridiculous than an “un-read book review,” I will just comment on that which I desultorily received from my friend’s quick explanation.

“The Shack” is an apparently allegorical story trying to encourage and explain the Christian idea of “relationship” rather than “religion,” particularly in a world where a righteous and good God allows unspeakable tragedy and pain. My friend sought my opinion because, though both she and her husband agree with the ends, she wasn’t quite sure of the means. In the book, the main character, “Mack,” goes through “The Great Sadness” (no spoilers here – though it’s on the back cover of the book) and is later invited (not surprisingly) to a shack where he (surprisingly) meets the Holy Trinity of God. Red flag number one.
Red flag number two goes up when my friend informs me that God, The Father is represented as a woman – a black woman if I remember correctly. It’s the second flag that solicited my view (whatever it may be worth), “Is it heretical or even irreverent to represent The Creator God, The Father, as a woman?”

We need to look at both flags to answer the one question.
First, is it wrong to portray God as a person? Certainly not, for He is a person – at least in the same sense that a cube is yet still a square. The Bible speaks in allegory and parable quite often. In fact, it seems this was Jesus’ favorite way of story-telling. Jesus knows, more than any of us, that to describe the indescribable Eternal, one must rely on flimsy human language.* Jesus gives us parable after parable, “Again, I tell you, the Kingdom of Heaven is like…” And in a very few of these, Jesus actually portrays God as a person, but (and this is an important point) always ambiguously.
“Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king” (Matt 18:23Matt 18:23
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
23 This story will show you what the kingdom of heaven is like: One day a king decided to call in his officials and ask them to give an account of what they owed him.

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or “a man who sowed good seed in his field” (Matt 13:24Matt 13:24
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
Weeds among the Wheat ²⁴ Jesus then told them this story: The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a farmer scattered good seed in a field.

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“…a merchant seeking fine pearls” (Matt 13:45Matt 13:45
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
A Valuable Pearl ⁴⁵ The kingdom of heaven is like what happens when a shop owner is looking for fine pearls.

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An “Anyman” so to speak, always nameless, faceless, and One who is known for His action or position rather than anything else. It’s on this point (one of many) that “Bruce Almighty” and the like fail. Every part of Jesus’ parables stand up to the strictest theological testing, as we would imagine; from every angle they hold water. They seem almost inhumanly thought out (I think they were) as though the objects described were created to describe that for which Christ uses them. But, interestingly, He usually is so ambiguous on the person of God that one cannot be certain if He speaks of God the Father, or Himself; occasionally, as in the merchant of fine pearls, we aren’t sure the merchant isn’t the believer rather than the Almighty.

Often however, He doesn’t even do that. “The Kingdom of Heaven like a treasure” (Matt 13:44Matt 13:44
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
A Hidden Treasure ⁴⁴ The kingdom of heaven is like what happens when someone finds treasure hidden in a field and buries it again. A person like that is happy and goes and sells everything in order to buy that field.

WP-Bible plugin) or “… is like yeast” （Matt 13:33Matt 13:33
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
33 Jesus also said: The kingdom of heaven is like what happens when a woman mixes a little yeast into three big batches of flour. Finally, all the dough rises.

WP-Bible plugin）– Yeast?! now if you want to talk about being irreverent! Remember, yeast (and mustard seed for that matter) was essentially something highly undesirable, a thing to be kept outside the house. It was a thing, during certain times of the year, “unclean.” Jesus spoke thusly mostly for shock value, I believe. Who He was shocking and why is another subject**
And it is to that extent that I think Young portrays The Father as a (black?) woman: shock value. I don’t think it is intentionally irreverent, as can be seen, so my friend says, from the book’s purpose. It is simply such a jolting image of God, one so contrary to the one formed by most people, that I get the impression, without having read the book mind you, that Young merely wishes to knock us out of our traditionally ingrained view of God as a physically old man and white beard – an image that speaks of Santa, Saturn, or Father Time, rather than the God of the Bible. This is evident in the book’s Foreword where Young subtly gives us a bit of Mack’s history with his own father. Anyway, it appears to me as nothing more than shock value; at least it’s shocking to the character Mack. I would rather though that Young be a bit more biblical however. How so? Well then, on to the point of “God as a black woman.”

Now, as once was put, “the longest way round is the quickest way home,” so, there are a few things we need to look at as “back-story” in order to better understand the whole. First, the word “god” is really sexless, at least in English. Saying that God is male or female really means that God has a certain “parts” that “He” doesn’t have. For instance, the only reason God would be “male” would be if there were another female god to complete the ‘set’. In many cultures, their working theory of the world’s creation, or at least of mankind, revolves on a sexual act. In some cases it is a destructive act as much as a constructive one; some god or the other made the world from his bodily fluids or the body of slain dragon, etc. These are vastly different from the Judeo-Christian God, who creates, out of nothing, through an act of His will, by merely speaking. These pagan, male, female, and dragon gods, mythical as they are, perhaps do point to the truth of Christian doctrine though in that God made all the Heavens and the Earth through Christ.

One could almost say that Christ is the truth behind many of the Sky Father / Earth Mother pagan religions and represents the “female” part of God, for it was through Him that Creation was made, as it is through woman that man is born. But we must be very careful, for here we see immediately the terrible deviation from the Christian doctrine of Creation. For God begot God: He did not “mate.” That is Norse or Greek mythology. The begotten Christ created the heavens and the earth. We are not of the same “stuff” as Christ and the Father, for though He became our Brother, He is yet our Captain.

Secondly, even though “Elohim” is technically plural, there really is no plural of the word, “God.” When people say ‘gods’, they speak of a pantheon, or of ghostly superheroes. God encompasses all things, He is not a part of them, nor is He defined by them. We may have to fall back to human relationships and terms in attempts to explain various aspects of God’s character, but we cannot define God in such simple terms (or any terms at all.) God is Father because Christ had a mother. He literally is Christ’s earthly Father, but to think of the Eternal Word, Christ, as being The Father’s actual Son is a mistake because we naturally think of a son as coming after a father. All allusions break down, even this one. One may think of Christ and His Father like a light-bulb that has forever been burning, like the Light streaming forth from the Source, for one did not come before the other (Its only called a “light-bulb” because it gives off light, otherwise it’s just a ball of blown glass and filament.) So The Son streams forth from The Father, and is of the same “substance” as the Father. But, as we see, this is clearly too weak as well and we must abandon it. As C.S. Lewis points out, “Biblical language is always that which best fits the relationship.” So, we see that God, The Father, “begets” God, The Son, and He, Who is Life itself even gives it away, and the very love and will and interaction between Them (Him?) has Life and a personality of His own, that of the Holy Spirit. The same ‘stuff.’ God begetter of God, however, creates man. Though images of the Eternal, we are different ‘stuffs.’

Genesis 101; in the Creation, “God created man. Male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27Genesis 1:27
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
27 . ; . So God created humans to be like himself; he made men and women.

WP-Bible plugin) God did not create man in His image only to create woman in man’s image. No, they are both created in the image of God. Indeed, there is a facet of God that men alone can never know, nor women alone. This is one reason why homosexual relationships cannot work, for they miss a vital part of displaying the glory of God. Think hard; this is the only part of the Creation that God did not call “good.” “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18Genesis 2:18
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
18 The Lord God said, “It isn't good for the man to live alone. I need to make a suitable partner for him.”

WP-Bible plugin). As men display one aspect of God, so women another.
Is the femininity of Young’s description wrong? I don’t think so. One part of the Bible even describes God as a hen gathering her chicks. Feminine and fowl. Is it irreverent to portray God as a chicken?

So, we see that it isn’t unchristian to discuss God in such terms, no. On the other hand, in each of Jesus’ parables, as we have pointed out, God is always ambiguous, never is He given a “face,” so to speak, as Young has done. “God is spirit” we are told in John 4:24John 4:24
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
24 God is Spirit, and those who worship God must be led by the Spirit to worship him according to the truth.

WP-Bible plugin and, I believe, it is for this reason, that we are not to make any graven image (of Him) for we idolize His “form” or insult Him by confining Him to some bounds of our own making. Who was it that once said, “God made man in His own image and man returned the favor?” He is the Eternal: beyond imagination, comprehension or direct reflection. He simply IS. This is another reason, an often overlooked one, for the Incarnation – that we might relate to Him not only in our hearts more directly, but in our imaginations as well. Jesus tells us plainly, “anyone who has seen Me has seen The Father” (John 14:9John 14:9
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
9 Jesus replied: Philip, I have been with you for a long time. Don't you know who I am? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. How can you ask me to show you the Father?

WP-Bible plugin) and, apparently, that should be enough to satisfy.

Here is the whole of it:

While many writers often say, “God is like…” and attempt a comparison, Christ’s parables, the ultimate earthly authority on describing God, says, “The Kingdom of God is like…” but Young says “God is …” when He is so much more. Christ Himself doesn’t even attempt to describe The Father in any certain terms; when Philip asks Jesus to show them The Father, Jesus says, “You have seen Me, You have seen The Father” – we cannot make God out to be anything in our own imagination, let God do that, and God’s vision of Himself is Christ. So it’s not that Young makes the Source into a black woman that reeks of blasphemy, but that he makes Him into anything at all.

To sum up my point, “The Shack” smacks us out of our comfortable or even depraved image of religion and encourages a relationship with the Eternal, The Father of Lights. Do we need to be shocked out of the image of God we so easily make for ourselves? Yes, but Jesus as we have seen should satisfy. Is it irreverent to talk about God as female? Not any more than it is to describe God as a chicken. However what IS irreverent is that Young has put a “face” on God, defining Him in terms that are ill-fitting our Creator. Young may as well have said that Mary, the mother of Christ, is herself, God. So, it seems, from what I have heard, that Young only shocks us out of one image to give us another. I will reserve harsher judgment for a time after I have read it, but certainly there is a better way to tell this, perhaps much needed, “parable.”

* C.S. Lewis’ “Transposition” and G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” cover that point nicely.
** I encourage you to read Shane Claiborne’s “Jesus for President”