Movie Review: The Shack-Idolatry or Iconoclasm? - Divorce Minister

The Shack:

Idolatry or Iconoclasm?

Having read the book and personally met the author years ago, I was very interested in seeing how the book was translated into a movie. So, yesterday, I went to my local theater and watched it.

I was not disappointed in what I saw. The movie was a well executed piece of art and storytelling even if I did not agree with every message therein.

Some have taken exception at the movie (and book) depicting God as a black woman and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman. (I have not seen any objections to Jesus being depicted as a middle eastern, Jewish man as that is who he is.)

The charge leveled at the book and movie is one of idolatry. God–who is spirit–is being depicted as human, which God is not (with exception of Jesus).

I consider the idolatry charge a weak argument to dismiss the movie as heretical.

The same argument could be made for whitewashing the Sistine Chapel in Rome (as well as any numerous instances of humans attempting to express an understanding of God visually.)

Michelangelo did not paint the Sistine Chapel in order to create an idol. The point was not to worship the painted image but rather the God to whom the image–however imperfectly–was pointing.

A challenge to those theologically offended by the movie:

Is it any less idolatrous for us to allow people to continue imaging God as a white, Santa Claus like figure when God is not?

One could argue this movie does the important service of iconoclasm in addressing that especially popular, distorted image of God.

Also, the movie and book undermines the idea that God is only one gender as if God is limited to our sexual binary. God is beyond gender. With the exception of Jesus, God is neither male nor female.

So…

Isn’t insisting that God be confined to an elderly man depiction idolatry as well?

The movie and book certainly challenges that more culturally acceptable form of idolatry.

All that said, I did take issue with some messages in the movie:

1. In particular, I disagree with the idea that God is never wrathful. A person who cannot become angry is a person who cannot love, IMO. God is love. So, God must be filled with anger at times.

To be fair, the movie does hint at that anger in speaking about being angry with one’s kids. Yet I think it underplays righteous anger, which I consider important for healthy relationships including with God.

2. Also, I do not agree with how the movie depicted God referring to every human as God’s children. This is not how Jesus spoke about the Pharisees (John 8:44) or those who willfully rejected God and truth.

Yes, we are all children of God in the sense that God created us all. However, we do not enter God’s forever family until and unless we repent and accept Jesus’ atoning sacrifice upon our behalf naming Him our Lord (e.g. Acts 2:38, Romans 10:9-10, I John 4:7-8, etc).

The movie nailed the central struggle to forgive.

My favorite part of the movie was how it depicted the central struggle to forgive. The author and director correctly identified this struggle as a matter of trust.

Namely, we struggle to forgive when we lack trust–i.e. faith–that God is good and willing to deal with the painful injustice(s) we have experienced.

I know my struggle to forgive often comes down to my struggle to trust God with my pain and the injustices I have experienced. When I experienced God’s sovereignty as resulting in pain, my faith was shaken.

God allowed me to experience the  painful injustices, after all!

Like Mackenzie in the movie, I struggled to believe God is good after that. Further, I wrongly believed I cared more about my pain and the injustice than God does.

Really, I questioned whether God actually loves me, and I decide God does not when I choose not to forgive.

And this brings me back to my first objection to the movie:

God needs to have anger and wrath if God is to be trusted.

God must be moved to anger by injustice or I am right in believing that I care more about my personally experienced injustices than God.

After all, we are not indifferent to our loved one’s unjustly experienced pain, or they are not ones we love.

But the truth is God does care about our personally experienced injustices. Evil and injustice move God to anger and wrath (Psalm 7:11, Proverbs 6:16-19, etc).

Evil and injustice move God to anger and wrath, because God loves us and cares about righteousness and justice more than we ever could.

In conclusion, I believe the movie, like the book, does much good in helping those with a broken and unhealed image of God–the Father, especially–connect with God. The movie is an excellent corrective to an image of God as distant, displeasing, and disinterested.

So, I do not consider it idolatry. The movie is iconoclastic attacking the idea of God as the angry, evil, incompetent grandpa despot and replacing that image with the true God who is especially fond of you!