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The Shack
Part I: A Preamble
Books become best-sellers when they connect with our deep questions and tragic/meaningful experiences. Some become classics, others may be left behind with the detritus of literary or theological history.
Wm. Paul Young's The Shack (2007) is a best-seller (it's knocked Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven books off a few perches) but probably won't be a classic. He's nowhere near the brilliance of apologists like Oxbridge don C S Lewis or Soren Kierkegaard.
But when we ask why so many ordinary folks tell their friends 'You gotta read this' I think they have two questions in mind which Young is trying to answer:
• 'Where is God when tragedy crashes in on us, when the innocent suffer, or when a "Great Sadness" overwhelms us?' (Theodicy) and
• 'What sense can we make of it all?' (Theology).
Addressing the second issue first, my 'conservative self' wants a coherent theological system where 'truth' is clear, and questions are answered to my satisfaction – a theory of EverythingImportant, which 'adds up'. Young tries to do this, but many fundamentalists/ conservatives take issue with some of his ideas.
More of that later.
My 'moderate/progressive/skeptical self' can live with some paradox, ambiguity, antinomy, and has real problems with a desire to wallow in 'simplicity this side of complexity'. I'm prepared to live with stuff happening which I can't explain, and believe that verifiable 'miracles' are very rare. I know humans can't easily live with cognitive dissonance, but some of my reservations about The Shack's approach is that too little is left to mystery. The Judeo-Christian God suffers with us, acts for us, speaks to us, but (as in Job, for example) doesn't always give us nifty answers to our deep and urgent questions.
Without revealing too much of the plot, Young takes us on a journey into another, fantastic (in both senses) world, complete with out-of-body experiences - a journey which, to say the least, stretches credulity. Liberals/progressives are rarely at home in realms-beyond-the-rational.
Many books have been written about evil/suffering: Philip Yancey's Where is God When it Hurts?, Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People, C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain come to mind.
The Shack tries to contemporize (and soften) C. S. Lewis's approach, especially the in-your-face question that Lewis asks if one objects to the notion of human freedom issuing in the possibility of our inflicting evil on others, and God's allowing rebellious humans to choose hell: 'Well, what are you asking God to do?' The Shack is an attempt to put into words God's response...
The Problem of Pain has these famous lines which might serve as commentary on Young's approach:
ALL YOUR LIFE AN UNATTAINABLE ECSTASY HAS HOVERED JUST BEYOND THE GRASP OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. THE DAY IS COMING WHEN YOU WILL WAKE TO FIND, BEYOND ALL HOPE, THAT YOU HAVE ATTAINED IT, OR ELSE, THAT IT WAS WITHIN YOUR REACH AND YOU HAVE LOST IT FOREVER.
Except that Young is not as prescriptive about hell as was C S Lewis. There's much more about the joyful certainty of a loving relationship with God in The Shack than in The Problem of Pain (which C S Lewis wrote before he fell in love, and married, Joy Davidman. You'll have to read A Grief Observed to get in touch with that side of Lewis).
Indeed Young is sometimes accused by fundamentalists of being a universalist. He isn't, unless you want to read that into this interesting exchange:
[Jesus]: 'Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans... Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian...' 'Does that mean,' asked Mack, 'that all roads will lead to you?' 'Not at all,' smiled Jesus... 'Most roads don't lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you'. [p. 182].
I would urge anyone to read this little page-turner, and suspend your simplistic fundamentalism or sophisticated skepticism, and allow yourself to be bathed in God's love - an experience beyond creeds or explicable rationalities, whether conservative or liberal. Of course, if you can offer a more coherent apologetic send it to me, and I'll put a selection on our website, but I for one applaud Young for, as we Australians say, 'having a go'...
In Part II we'll look in more detail at some of the facile-to-excellent answers Young offers to life's Big Questions.
Rowland Croucher
November 2008
Ten Reasons To Read Boreham's New Book 'A Packet of Surprises'
Have you got yourself a copy of the new F W Boreham book that has just been released?
I think it is one of the most important books to read for these ten reasons:
1. This is the first time the best sermons and essays of Dr F W Boreham have ever been brought together. Over the years commentators on preaching have selected one representative sermon from Boreham's preaching archive to put in their Best Preaching of the Twentieth Century books, which is testimony to his prominence. But A Packet of Surprises is the first selection of the Best of Boreham's sermons and essays.
2. For the many newcomers to the writings of F W Boreham, and there are a growing number in the younger generations, this is a wonderful starter as it draws thirty essays and sermons from more than twenty of the more than fifty-five books that he wrote.
There is an informative introduction in the book to the person and ministry of F W Boreham. This is written by Howard Crago who was Boreham's biographer.
3. New and old readers of Boreham books have great difficulty finding Boreham books and when they do, the price often puts it out of their reach (one of the best sermons comes out of Boreham's book, The Whisper of God which, when it is on sale through eBay fetches prices of well over US$500).
Mike Dalton and I, through John Broadbanks Publishing, have published five new Boreham books in the last three years to make the writings of Boreham accessible to a new generation of Boreham readers.
We have deliberately self-published (not drawing any money for ourselves) in order to keep the cost of these books as low as we can for our readers. We have not made a profit but in keeping with the wishes of the Boreham estate we send 10% of the income we receive to help fund the cost of training pastors and Christian workers throughout the world (two passions of Dr Boreham). When you buy a copy of this book you are investing in the important work of training Christian leaders and we thank you for this.
4. A Packet of Surprises is a must for homiletical scholars and students of the craft of preaching. The selection draws sermons from the first decade of Boreham's preaching ministry, some from the last decade of his life and many from in between, thus offering samples from the different stages of Boreham's career.
There are a great variety of sermon types represented, ranging from the textual sermon ('The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ…'), to doctrinal (The Meaning of Easter), a biblical exposition (on the book of Jonah), some Life Situational sermons (Handling interruptions and exploring the meaning of coincidences) through to Boreham's innovative biographical preaching (Abraham Lincoln's Text). A big part of Boreham's popularity then and his enduring significance is his preparedness to innovate and try out many different types of preaching.
5. This volume includes three sermons from the longest, most popular (judged by congregational response and sale of books) and most evangelistic series that Boreham ever delivered. There are valuable lessons in this trio for modern day Christian communicators.
6. A Packet of Surprises gives ample evidence of Boreham's creativity. Readers will see his brilliance as a marketer with his catchy titles that were printed on billboards and advertising leaflets—titles like 'Sermons and Sandwiches', 'I.O.U', 'Dominoes' 'Mind Your Own Business' and 'Please Shut the Gate'.
7. F W Boreham was the Rick Warren of his age as he was a much-loved preacher who wrote many books and magazine articles. Like Warren, Boreham was on the best sellers' list many times and over a million copies were sold causing the manager at Epworth Press to say that Boreham was their 'greatest catch' since John Wesley. Rick has about another 40 books to write before he can get near to Frank Boreham's number of published books.
Such was his influence that FWB was once introduced to a Pastor's Conference as "the man whose name is on all our lips, whose books are on all our shelves and whose illustrations are in all our sermons!" A Packet of Surprises is full of vivid illustrations and stories you can use to great effect.
8. Boreham has enriched many communicators and leaders down through the years through his writings. When Billy and Ruth Graham visited Australia in 1959 he said that the person he wanted to meet more than any other was F W Boreham because his books had so enriched his spiritual life and ministry. They did meet and they exchanged books. During his amazing campaign Billy got some time for pursuing another passion of his viz. golf. Out on the fairway when he was mulling over a sermon to preach at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (which incidentally became the largest gatherings ever to fill the huge MCG), Dr Graham said to his golfing mate and host, "Where can I find the amazing illustration by Dr Boreham about…?" I can give you the details if you're interested concerning this event but that sermon is included in The Best of Boreham's Essays and Sermons.
Contemporary leaders including Gordon Moyes and Ravi Zacharias have testified to their habit of reading one sermon a day from Boreham's books to feed their minds and kindle their spiritual devotion.
9. F W Boreham once wrote, "When a man has been fifty years in his grave it ought to be possible to review his work dispassionately. The sentiment that is born of human fondness has by that time evaporated; and the prejudices that arise from personal animosity have died down."
Next year (2009) it will be fifty years since the death of F W Boreham and for many reasons it will be an important year to reflect on his contribution and distil the insightful lessons from his life. The Packet of Surprises will therefore be a timely book to read, and
10. A wonderful gift to give.
*Purchase*
Check out Mike Dalton's site to discover how you can get your hands on these two books.
If you live in the southern hemisphere you may want to order your books from Peter and the COC Online Bookshop which is based in Brisbane.
Dr Geoff Pound
The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini).
If the first casualty of the War on Terror (as with any war) is truth, Hosseini’s best-sellers The Kite Runner (2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) are a terrific read if you want an insider’s view of the situation in Afghanistan. Remember the dictum ascribed to Zwi Werblowsky (Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem): ‘There are some things about a given religion which can only be understood from inside and some things about the same religion which can only be understood from outside.’ Hosseini gives us an insider’s insights into the lives of Muslim families in Afghanistan (and should help soften some of our bigotry about Islam).
Here we’ll look briefly at The Kite Runner. However, as the Chilean writer, Isabel Allende says, A Thousand Splendid Suns is ‘unforgettable’. For a review of that book visit here and for a summary of the Taliban’s less-than-creative (!) ways of taking the fun out of life start here.
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul (1965) and with his family sought political asylum 
in the U.S. in 1980. He is now a medico and an envoy for the UNHCR, deeply involved in the plight of refugees throughout the world.
Last time I looked there were 2348 customer reviews on Amazon.com for The Kite Runner. It was Hosseini’s debut novel, and offers dramatic insights into Afghanistan’s political turmoil, from the last days of the monarchy to the collapse of the Taliban regime. All that is backdrop to the story of two boys - Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant (who are ethnic Hazaras). The boys are inseparable; they compete in kite-running competitions, and share dreams and stories, until something unspeakable happens, severing the relationship. After Amir and his father flee to America, the guilt and shame of that event still haunts Amir, who later returns to his war-torn country to rescue Hassan’s son after the Taliban murdered his parents.
Many of the great themes of literature and life are here: guilt and redemption, character and country, betrayal and loyalty, courage and cowardice and hope, war and terror and tragedy, children who are motherless and/or fatherless, bullying, rape, and the persecution of minorities...
We have to remind ourselves that this is a (haunting) morality tale – a novel, not a memoir. The plot twists are quite amazing (if sometimes implausible). When we meet ordinary people like these who are swept up in the turmoil of history, it ‘gives pause’ to our simplistic views about (a) how to relate to refugees, and (b) the kaleidoscopic varieties of belief inhabiting all major religions, in this case Islam.
The Kite Runner was also produced as an audiobook read by the author, and was adapted into a film of the same name released in December, 2007. Hosseini’s official website is here.
Rowland Croucher
April 2008.
THINGS HIDDEN: Scripture as Spirituality, Richard Rohr (2008).
Franciscan prophet and teacher Richard Rohr is a mystic rather than a systematic theologian: indeed he believes ‘systematizing’ theology runs the risk of doing it violence and missing the point: theology is to be experienced in a life of faith, hope and love, not organized into creeds.
Is he ‘evangelical’? I would say ‘yes’ though he doesn’t use the term of himself: he has an unqualified commitment to Jesus as Lord and God’s special revelation of God’s character. Is he ‘progressive’? Yes: for example he likes Marcus Borg and reads the mainline liberal biblical scholars. Is he a dogmatist/ fundamentalist? Definitely not: any exclusionary system which divides humans made in God’s image into ‘our people’ and ‘those [heretics] not like us’ is alien to the will of God as experienced in the life and teaching of Jesus.
He writes in the Introduction: ‘Only when inner and outer authority come together do we have true spiritual wisdom. We have for too long insisted on outer authority alone, without any teaching of prayer, inner journey and maturing consciousness. The results for the world and for religion have been disastrous… I offer these reflections to again unite what should never have been separated: sacred Scripture and Christian spirituality.’
He quotes Eugene Ionesco with approval: ‘Overexplanation separates us from astonishment.’ Example: the humble recipient of God’s love in the Eucharist/communion, who gazes at Christ on the cross with awe and wonder and love, is far more likely to ‘get the point’ than a theologian who organizes dogma into theories of the atonement.
Here are some representative quotes:
• ‘Suffering seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering… as “whenever you are not in control”.’
• ‘If you are not trained in a trust of mystery and some degree of tolerance for ambiguity, frankly you will not proceed very far on the spiritual journey. Immature religion creates a high degree of “cognitively rigid” people. If you want to hate somebody… do it for religious reasons… do it thinking you’re following some verse from the Bible. It works quite well. Your untouched egocentricity can and will use religion to feel superior and “right”.’
• ‘It is painful but necessary to be critical of your own system, whatever it is. But do know it will never make you popular. As you know the prophets are always rejected by their own (see Luke 12:50-51)… Until you are excluded from any system, 
you are not able to recognize the idolatries, lies or shadow side of that system. It is the privileged “knowledge of the victim”. Insiders are by nature dualistic, because they divide themselves from the so-called outsiders.’
• ‘Law is the thesis; it lays the ground against which the Prophets develop a positive antithesis… the Wisdom books are a synthesis and integration of the first two. Transcendance to higher levels of consciousness always means inclusion of the previous levels. Walter Brueggeman finds [a similar progression] in the Psalms: Psalms of Orientation (confirming Tradition), Psalms of Disorientation (the prophetic recognition of things not working or not being true) and Psalms of Reorientation (the Wisdom level of a new faith-synthesis). All three levels are affirmed in the Psalms, and unlike today, one or the other level is not called heretical or faithless. (Although people trapped at stage one will normally call people at the other two levels “sinners” or “heretics”, which is what we see happening in the Gospels.) True transcendence always includes the previous stages and does not dismiss them.’
• ‘True orthodoxy (“right ideas”) is important, but in the Bible orthodoxy is never defined as something that happens only in the head… Jesus consistently declares people to be saved or healed who are in right relationship with him, and he never grills them on their belief or belonging systems… I observe that the people who find God are usually people who are very serious about their quest and their questions, more so than being absolutely certain about their answers.’
• ‘Prayer and suffering are the two primary paths of transformation. Only people who have first lived and loved, suffered and failed, and lived and loved again, are in a position to read the Scriptures in a humble, needy, inclusive and finally fruitful way.’
• ‘My lifetime of studying Jesus would lead me to summarize all of his teaching inside of two prime ideas: forgiveness and inclusion.’
It’s the best book I’ve read for a couple of years. And it’s best read devotionally, in small doses…
Rowland Croucher
April 2008
Remember 
Laughter: A Life of James Thurber (Paperback)
by Neil A. Grauer
I'm just back from a cheap P&O cruise (PS. if you buy a cheap ticket, your cabin is probably near a noisy exit-door, like ours was), and I read two books from the ship's library: this one, and Bill Bryson's memoirs of his childhood. Both terrific (and both about men brought up in the American mid-west).
Grauer, a former newspaper cartoonist and reporter, has given us an anecdotal, easy-to-read biography of Thurber - the sharpest humorist/cartoonist of his era.
Thurber (1894-1961), mostly had his bittersweet cartoons and stories published in The New Yorker. He had a wry sense of humor, but was a somewhat sad and tormented man, given to fits of depression 
(what's new among humorists?). His sometimes-friend Peter de Vries wrote of him: 'If in his art he told the truth, in his life he told it off.' In his later life he got angrier - alienating former friends and sometimes throwing things against the wall (like his eyeglasses or wine-glasses). He was a mysoginist, a misanthropist, and sometimes a racist. Two of his core beliefs were that animals are superior to humans, and technology is awful. His blindness was devastating to him, but he showed great courage in adversity.
*****
Here's one reviewer's helpful summary (from Amazon.com):
'American humorist James Thurber brought us Walter Mitty, and now freelance journalist Neil Grauer brings us James Thurber in all his comic and caustic complexity.
A native of Ohio and graduate of Ohio State University, Thurber began as a code clerk in the Department of State. After working as a journalist in Paris, he began a life-long association with New Yorker magazine, whose pages were brightened with Thurber's short stories and classic cartoons in which his misanthropy is often present as animals ape the behavior of humans and vice vera.
Always aware of the frailties and pratfalls of human beings as they faced life's predicaments, Thurber penned among others, "The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze" and "The Thurber Carnival." In 1940 he joined Eliot Nugent to write a drama of college life, "The Male Animal," which, along with other Thurber works, was made into a motion picture.
This funny man's last years were relentlessly bleak. Unable to cope with the loss of his sight, Thurber alienated many of his former colleagues with boring boasts of his past successes.
Grauer does not gloss over the humorist's flaws, instead presents a concise human portrait of one who brought laughter to the lives of many.'
*****
Thurber could scribble a cartoon in seconds - like this one:
or his most famous one (The Seal in the Bedroom):
'All right, have it your way - you heard a seal bark!'
Rowland Croucher
January 2008.
(General Editor: Alister McGrath, First hardback edition 2006; flexiback 2007)
Here's an excellent 350 page introduction to classic Christian thinking/doctrine.
It begins with a seven-page overview of Christian Church History (try doing that sometime!). Then we explore faith, including an introduction to the creeds, faith and philosophy, religious language, can God's existence be proved?, the place of tradition, interpreting the Bible, introduction to theology, modernity, postmodernity, and Islam.
Next we have chapters on God, Jesus, Salvation, the Church, and the Christian Hope.
At the end is a Concise Anthology of Christian Thought (actually 'church history' via some great Christian apologists and theologians, from Justin Martyr to Tillich, Moltmann and Pannenberg). Then we have a useful 22-page glossary and an index.
Now, a cautious caveat. Lion Hudson, as this publisher is now called, has generally a 'conservative evangelical' flavour. The editor of this volume - Alister McGrath - may be the UK's most prolific evangelical writer. And J. I. Packer, the associate editor, is probably - with John Stott - one of the two or three modern 'godfathers' of English-speaking evangelicalism. (So, of course, the index has 13 references to John Calvin!).
I wanted to test the integrity of this book in terms of its ecclesiological breadth. My quest began with two articles on women. Here are two representative quotes:
'It is sometimes difficult to appreciate how novel [Jesus'] attitudes were at the time. Jesus' ministry represents an attempt to reform the patriarchalism of his day, and permit women to hold a new kind of authority in religious matters' (p. 139).
'An increasing number of churches have decided that there is no biblical or theological reason against ordaining women... Yet many churches hold that the tradition of the church in this regard must not be changed, and they limit the ministerial roles of women accordingly.' (p. 249).
You get the idea: conservative generally, but also cautiously 'broad church'. But not too broad: Bishop N. T. Wright gets a mention, but not, I think, the Jesus Seminar: though there is a one-page summary of the Quest for the Historical Jesus; the NRSV is used, but also the NIV; and there's two pages (!!) for an article entitled 'Where was the Garden of Eden?'
It's well-illustrated, brilliantly laid-out, and very readable. I'm teaching an Introduction to Theology course at the moment, and I recommended this book as a basic text. It's now (after the Bible) the first resource I would give to a thoughtful young person or adult beginning the Christian journey.
Copies available from Ridley College Bookshop, Melbourne.
Rowland Croucher
(Zondervan, 2006).
Shane Claiborne looks, speaks, and dresses like an Old Testament prophet (or John the Baptist). And he makes the same sort of crazy sense. (But he's had a better formal education than most of them).
He's a young (my guess: 30s) idealistic American, who spent time with Mother Teresa's helpers in India, and went to Iraq with other peacemakers (there he was lucky to survive a car accident and other possible horrors). He's one of the founding members of The Simple Way community in very-downtown Philadelphia, and a prominent activist.
A couple of months ago I heard him speak at the Urban Neighbours of Hope conference in Melbourne, and was impressed. (My wife Jan's job at the conference was to provide hospitality - bedding and breakfast, for Shane - and his mother: he's never married - and other speakers, but that's by-the-way). He's a terrific raconteur. 
Who could forget his lines: 'Patriots you may bring your flags; we're washing feet and will need some rags'? Or his story about throwing $10,000 worth of small change around Wall Street. Or of his grandfather's setting fire to fields because he overloaded a new trailer with hay, which ignited from friction?
This book is a terrific read: those of us over 50-or-so mightn't get some of the modern lingo, but we'll certainly enjoy his humor (particularly 8 or 10 'Just kiddings!').
I have no other comments to make about the book, and would rather use the space here to cite a few representative 'quotable quotes' to whet your appetite:
* (When Roman Catholic authorities began the legal process of evicting homeless people from a deserted cathedral): 'We ran through campus hanging up flyers that read, "Jesus is getting kicked out of church in North Philly. Come hear about it. Kea Lounge. 10 pm. tonight".
* 'You guys are all into that born again thing, which is great. We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemas. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy too'.
* 'If you don't know what a eunuch is, see the diagram in the appendix. Just kidding. Check the phone book and call up a pastor and ask her or him: it should make for an interesting conversation'.
* 'Many spiritual seekers have not been able to hear the words of Christians because the lives of Christians have been making so much horrible noise. It can be hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom'.
* 'When people move beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get into trouble... Managing poverty is big business. Ending poverty is revolutionary'.
* 'There is one thing I will never forget - (Mother Teresa's) feet. Each morning in Mass, I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted leprosy. But I wasn't going to ask, of course... One day a sister said to us, "Have you noticed her feet?" We nodded, curious. She said, "Her feet are deformed because we get just enough donated shoes for everyone, and Mother does not want anyone to get stuck with the worst pair, so she digs through and finds them. And years of doing that have deformed her feet." Years of loving her neighbor as herself deformed her feet'.
* 'The stuff Jesus warned us to beware of, the yeast of the Pharisees, is so infectious today in the camps of both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives stand up and thank God that they're not like the homosexuals, the Muslims, the liberals. Liberals stand up and thank God that they are not like the war makers, the yuppies, the conservatives. It is a similar self-righteousness just with different definitions of evildoing. It can paralyze us in judgment and guilt and rob us of life'.
* 'Bono, the great theologian (and decent rock star) said in his introduction to a book of selections from the Psalms: "The fact that the Scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers, and mercenaries used to shock me. Now it is a source of great comfort".'
* 'The Catholic Workers used to say "The true atheist is the one who refuses to see God's image in the face of their neighbor".'
You get the idea... Every Westerner whose life is fairly comfortable should read a book like this at least once a year.
If you're Australian this book can be purchased from Ridley College Bookshop
Rowland Croucher
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