[Roundtable] Anyone read The Shack?

[Jefferis Peterson]

I just got back from vacation and while I rarely read fiction, my wife
recommended to me The Shack.  I found a copy and dug in.  As I read it, I
was reminded that the Hebrew words for "breath" or "Spirit of God" are
feminine in gender, while in Greek, Spirit is neuter. But we don't translate
the Greek pronoun as "It" into English because it would make the Holy Spirit
an impersonal force rather than as a person, so we use "he" for the Holy
Spirit although that it not literally correct.

What I liked about the book was that it maintained what Karl Barth called,
the "Wholly Otherness" of God. While God in Christ assumed human flesh, God
is definitely beyond human nature and gender, not in the sense that he has
no gender, but that all human gender differentiation is somehow a reflection
of the image of God:
³So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;
male and female created he them.² Genesis 1:27, KJV. Both male and female
humans reflect the image of God, so whatever is essential and perfect in the
nature of male and female must have some correspondence with the nature of
God's good and perfect love.

While it is a work of fiction, it is filled with theology and most of it
comes right from classical Christianity. The license to appear in unexpected
form while still maintaining a Trinitarian confession was interesting and
creative. How God reaches out to the main character in the midst of his
sorrows reminds  me of Paul's saying:
 ³To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are
under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so
that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law,
as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of
Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.² 1 Corinthians 9:20,
21, NAS95.

Thoughts, anyone? 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Kent Peterson
http://www.scholarscorner.com

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Such is God's economy: "One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer;
another withholds what he should give, and only suffers lack." -  Proverbs
11:24 
³You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor
or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor."
- Lev 19:15