In his best-selling book, The Shack, author William Paul Young deliberately uses a fictitious story with a high degree of literary imagery concerning the Trinity and how each person within the Godhead might appear to a man drowning in a whirlpool of personal grief and pain. Did I mention that The Shack is fictitious? If not, please hear me, “The Shack is a work of fiction. The story is completely made up by the author.” While many people have found this a comforting way to portray and understand God’s love and grace, the appearance of God the Father as a large African-American woman bothers a lot of pastors and theologians, particularly some prominent and powerful men like R. Albert Mohler, Mark Driscoll, and Chuck Colson. But remember, God really didn’t appear to anyone as a woman…because it’s a work of fiction. I hope we got that straight.


Mackenzie Allen Phillips, the main character of The Shack, is also troubled by these things. Shortly after his arrival at the shack where his daughter had been brutally murdered by a serial killer, Mack expresses his surprise—even his discomfort—at relating to God the Father (Papa) as a woman:

Mack: “I think it’d be easier to have this conversation if you weren’t wearing a dress,” he suggested and attempted a smile, as weak as it was.

“If it were easier, then I wouldn’t be,” she said with a slight giggle. “I’m not trying to make this harder for either of us. But this is a good place to start. I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later…when you’re ready.”

She picked up the wooden spoon again, dripping with some sort of batter. “Mackenzie, I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help keep you from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.”

She leaned forward as if to share a secret. “To reveal myself to you as a very large, white grandfather figure with flowing beard, like Gandalf, would simply reinforce your religious stereotypes, and this weekend is not about reinforcing your religious stereotypes.”

Mack almost laughed out loud and wanted to say, “You think? I’m over here barely believing that I’m not stark raving mad!” Instead, he focused on what she had just said and regained his composure. He believed, in his head at least, that God was a Spirit, neither male nor female, but in spite of that, he was embarrassed to admit to himself that all his visuals for God were very white and very male.

She stopped talking, but only long enough to put away some seasonings into a spice rack on a ledge by the window and then turned to face him again. She looked at Mack intently, “Hasn’t it always been a problem for you to embrace me as your father? And after what you’ve been through, you couldn’t very well handle a father right now, could you?”

He knew she was right, and he realized the kindness and compassion in what she was doing. Somehow, the way she had approached him had skirted his resistance to her love. It was strange, and painful, and maybe a little bit wonderful. [pp. 93–94]

Genesis 1:27 states: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In some respects, the full meaning of this brief text of Holy Scripture is beyond our comprehension, but it seems clear to me that God created the human race as male and female to fully represent his image. If our internal visualization of God is strictly male—and I’m wondering how many of us would even be willing to confess that we sometimes picture God the Father in our minds—then we are missing an important element of his fullest essence.

Paul Young’s fictional character, Papa, who represents the member of the Trinity that we know as “God the Father,” appears as both male and female in The Shack. Yes, it’s true that Papa assumes a female visage in the beginning—fully explained to Mack in the above excerpt—but all that changes near the end of the book when Mack and his natural father have been gloriously reconciled to one another. Papa appears to Mack in a completely different form:

The man standing next to him looked a bit like Papa; dignified, older, and wiry and taller than Mack. He had silver-white hair pulled back into a ponytail, matched by a gray-splashed mustache and goatee.…”Papa?” Mack asked.

“Yes, son.”

Mack shook his head. “You’re still messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Always,” he said with a warm smile, and then answered Mack’s next question before it was asked. “This morning you’re going to need a father. C’mon now and let’s get going. I have everything you need on the chair and table at the end of your bed. I’ll meet you out in the kitchen where you can grab a bite to eat before we head out.” [pp. 218–219]

Those who miss the amazing story of The Shack by theological nitpicking are like those who try to fit every aspect of a biblical parable into their systematic theology textbook. They will never make all the pieces fit together. It seems to me that the predominantly white male critics of The Shack—especially those with Reformed theology running through their veins—may owe Paul Young an apology and the rest of us…well, we’re just really thankful for a literary portrait of the God who crawls into our deepest sadness and brings us through the darkest night from brokenness to wholeness once again.

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RELATED POSTS (on this blog):

I Dare You to Read THE SHACK

THE SHACK: The Power of the Story

Surprise! Three In-Depth Interviews with Paul Young, Author of THE SHACK

Yesterday I gave one of the shortest speeches of my life, but it seemed like the longest and it turned me inside out. My youngest daughter got married and, here in Britain, it’s customary for the father of the bride to give a speech extolling the virtues of his daughter and welcoming the groom into the family.

I did alright with the humorous parts, but I quickly lost it when I began talking about my daughter and son-in-law. Quite a few people told me afterward that they cried right along with me. Several people asked if my tears were the result of giving away my last daughter in marriage; and I replied, “No, it’s the only daughter I have ever given away in marriage!” It’s complicated (and personal) but my other two daughters chose to walk a different path than the one we taught them from childhood. While we love them unconditionally, the preciousness of yesterday’s event contributed to my sensitivity and profound thankfulness for the way my youngest daughter and son-in-law pursued their relationship over the past three years. Thankfully, I don’t have a recording—although one may surface in the future—so here’s the text of my speech.

Distinguished guests, those of lesser distinction and those of no distinction, family (in-laws and outlaws), friends, and friends of friends—on behalf of Mark & Sarah Wiltshire, Sheri and myself, we extend a warm welcome to Jen and Dan’s wedding reception.

I’d like to begin by offering my sincere appreciation to all those who have worked so hard to help put this day together: a day, I am sure, Jen and Dan will cherish for the rest of their lives. It’s amazing how many bits and pieces have to be arranged in just the right order, for the right number of people!

Some of you have come a great distance to be with us today, especially those from the valleys who needed directions to Cardiff. Thank you for coming! You are making a valuable investment in the life of these newlyweds and I hope you see yourself as a positive influence, not just for their wedding ceremony, but also for their marriage which has only just begun.

If we have any regrets today, it’s only that most of our family and friends from America are not here to join in this celebration. Jen has two older sisters: one just had a baby in Florida and the other has three children under the age of five. They would love to be here. Also Sheri’s father, as well as my own, must send their sincere congratulations from 4,000 miles away, but they rejoice nonetheless with us.

I must share a couple of unique things about our youngest daughter, “Jenny Poo” as she was known for many years. With three older siblings, she was always very impressionable as a child. Someone in the family (I can’t remember who) told Jennifer that she was born into this world as a fluffy little kitten that we rescued one day along the side of the road and that, because she had been a good kitty, God had turned her into a little girl. You may think this strange, but every one of our children has been lovingly victimized by a similar untruth in their early years. Being the only boy, my son asked us one day, “When am I going to turn into a girl?” And our second oldest was convinced that we got her from the cabbage patch while driving along a rural stretch of road one afternoon.

Jennifer has never lacked a vivid imagination. This we discovered about the age of five or six when she would make up the most amazing fantasies, sometimes going on “ad lib” for fifteen or twenty minutes, usually during a brief trip in the family automobile. It was as if she could see the story unfolding in her mind and she would often get so caught up in the moment that she would begin laughing as she ‘saw’ the various twists and turns of the plot only a split second before they came forth from her lips. Even if the whole family was out of sorts, Jen’s stories brought a smile or outright laughter from us all. She has been God’s gift to us in that way!

We moved to Wales just over four years ago, when Jennifer was only 17 years old. She willingly gave up her senior year of high school, one of the most important years of an American teenager’s life, without complaint because she trusted that the hand of God was leading our family to serve Him in this land. And rather than sit around and moan about being in a strange new land, she quickly pursued an apprenticeship in hair dressing and she now works in one of the most prestigious salons in Cardiff. We’re really proud of you, sweetheart.

Initially, we were concerned when we discovered few young men willing to follow the Lord Jesus Christ into their teens and twenties. Then we learned of a Christian conference in Aberystwyth, so we dragged Jennifer along for a one-day visit that resulted in her being invited to stay all week with a group she had just met earlier in the day. The following year she met Daniel Wiltshire, a rather tall and scruffy young man who began hanging around our house over the next few months, pretending (I think) to be just a casual friend of my son and daughter; and it wasn’t very long until I realised that something more sinister was afoot. My paternal radar system sounded the alarm, so I kept a keen eye on this Welshman from Whitchurch.

Amazingly, this young man eventually asked if he could have a word with me, after hanging out with our two kids for the remainder of that summer. I suspect that Jen had already given him a little advice, saying that they would need my permission to date. Actually, we have always preferred the old-fashioned term “courtship” to “dating” simply because the aim of courtship is marriage while dating is just too recreational for something so serious. Dan asked Jennifer, “And what if your dad says no?” To which my darling daughter replied, “If he says no, then he’ll have a good reason.” On his initial approach, Dan was quite forthright and articulate, except for the annoying sound of his knees knocking together and his teeth clacking like an old telegraph machine.

So we went for a little walk around the neighbourhood and Dan finally got around to the matter of courtship. At that point in the conversation we were crossing an elevated footbridge over the A470 dual carriageway near our home in the Trallwn community of Pontypridd. Taking advantage of the precipitous height and the mad rush of traffic below, I stopped in the middle of the bridge where I asked Dan, “So what are your intentions toward my daughter?” Believe me when I tell you that life and death hung in the balance at that moment, but thankfully Dan responded that his intentions were honourable and that he wanted to spend more time with Jen in order to see if they were compatible for marriage.

Well, I must say that I was impressed! Having had two older daughters snatched away by men who offered me (the father) no consideration at all, it was refreshing and thrilling to learn that Mark and Sarah Wiltshire had raised a true Welsh gentleman. Six months or so later, Dan politely asked for Jen’s hand in marriage, promising to provide for her and love her, as he has publicly vowed before all of us this day. Sheri and I welcome you to our family, Dan! Your parents should be proud of the fine Christian young man you have become and we are thrilled to know you now as our son-in-law.

I am an amateur genealogist who spends four to six weeks each year tracing the various lines of our family history: most of those lines point back to England, Ireland, and Scotland. As of today, however, I can declare with certainty and great pride that we have a new Welsh branch on the Lollar family tree!

So I would like to propose a toast to our wonderful daughter and our new son-in-law. Congratulations, Jen and Dan!

Now everyone’s going to think I’m really a “Shack fanboy” and that’s okay…’cause I really love the message of this little book and the impact it’s having around the world. A small work of fiction, The Shack was written by a fifty-year-old man at the insistence of his wife to explain his core convictions of God’s unconditional love and grace, after going through years of personal failure and the ensuing pain of feeling outside the reach of restoration. So he wrote it all down in an effort to spare them the pain of forty years of wrong-headed thinking about God; and he uses fiction as a metaphor to compress his lifetime into one weekend with God at a place that represents the greatest pain and sadness of his life.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the reason for this post is simply to identify a series of three in-depth interviews featuring William Paul Young by Dr. J. Michael Feazell, executive editor of “The Plain Truth” magazine and senior advisor to the president of The Worldwide Church of God. This three-part video magazine focus, “You’re Included,” can be accessed in the video archives of the WCG where you can watch the three videos, listen to the audio, download WMV’s (Windows Media Player), MP4’s for your iPod, or even ISO files to create DVD’s for playback on your home entertainment system. Pretty impressive array of choices: there’s even a written transcript for those who might like to borrow a few quotes. [ NOTE: If the above link does not work, please copy and paste the following URL into your browser: http://www.wcg.org/av/YI.htm ]

I think you will discover more about Paul Young in these three episodes—his humility and his love for truth—than you will ever get in reading the plethora of book reviews and even (if you can believe it) the warnings of the doctrine police. Sadly, I feel they are missing the whole point of Paul’s story and they are also bearing false witness against a dear brother in Christ. One of Paul’s friends commented to another person, “Your response to this book will tell me more about you than about the book.” Here’s an outline of the interviews:

Episode 1 (28 minutes): They talk about Paul’s book, how it came about, that the very nature of relationship is imbedded in the Trinitarian character and nature of God, how theologies of separation from God create performance-based religion, and the question of whether anything really did happen when Jesus Christ came to live inside of us.

Episode 2 (30 minutes): In this second interview they discuss the popular view of God as a Christianized Zeus or Gandalf-with-an-attitude as opposed to the loving Father portrayed by the “prodigal’s father” or Papa in The Shack, some of the objections people have raised to The Shack, the unity and diversity of the Trinity, the truth of the wrath of God, legalism’s expectations and some personal reflections.

Episode 3 (35 minutes): Paul Young points out the importance of knowing God’s character and nature to avoid the disconnect many people experience in trying to trust the “angry” God who requires his son’s death and to avoid the mistaken notion that while Jesus is “good,” God the Father is “mean.” They also note that God’s holiness existed before sin, so it is not a reaction to sin, and Jesus is the only road into the Father’s heart.

Hope you are blessed by these interviews!

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RELATED POSTS (on this blog):

I Dare You to Read THE SHACK

THE SHACK: The Power of the Story

THE SHACK: Does God Wear a Dress?

This past Sunday in Wales, a group of elders gathered at their church building to pray. The ancient stone chapel had been without heating since a group of construction workers shut off the gas supply to the building earlier in the week, then forgot to turn it back on for the weekend. It was judged to be too cold for the morning worship service—scheduled two hours later—so the local telephone lines began blazing with elders contacting members of the church leadership team, who contacted small group leaders, who contacted everyone within their house group. It was decided to meet at an older (and smaller, but warmer) chapel building nearby. I’m not sure if the elders got to pray or not.

Unfortunately, this change of venue caught a lot of people by surprise: especially the church’s musicians, sound engineers, computer operators and the preacher. His entire message was developed as a laptop-based, visually-oriented PowerPoint presentation. Upon arrival at the old building, it was abuzz with people frantically running wires and junction boxes and speakers and a massive sound board so that the keyboard, instruments, singers, and the preacher could be heard in a room that only measured eighteen hundred square feet.

Some of the greatest movements of God happened long before the discovery of electricity, much less the arrival of computer geniuses like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. While I certainly don’t advocate wearing camel’s hair and eating wild locusts and honey, I have to wonder how many worship gatherings this coming Sunday would fall flat if some natural disaster shut down the national grids of electric power in megawatt-hungry church buildings around the globe. Thankfully, these sorts of things don’t happen with frequency, but on those rare occasions it makes one stop and think and ask a few questions:

1. Are we more sensitive to the loss of electricity than the presence of the Holy Spirit in our meetings?
2. Have we grown so accustomed to amplified music that we find it difficult to engage in true worship without it, whether it’s a pipe organ, a keyboard, or a five-piece band?
3. What impact does technology have in a mega-church? A small, rural church? A house church? What about a contemporary church versus a more traditional church?
4. How important is technology in attracting newcomers?
5. Are there inherent dangers in such an attraction, like using music, lighting, and sound to draw people into a “church” where unhealthy or even heretical teaching is being promulgated?

Just a few points to ponder.

:: RELATED POSTS ::

Music: help or hindrance in worship?

Custom or Command? Christian Worship & Hebrews 10:25

Living in the United Kingdom for the past four years has been a wonderful experience, but I love Southern-style foods and I especially miss Southern breakfast fare! So with the proverbial American “can do” attitude, I thought to myself, “How hard can this be?”

One of my latest cravings has been “Jimmy Dean Sausage,” the original sage recipe that can be fried and served in the following ways: as sausage patties served alongside a couple of eggs and/or pancakes or stuffed inside a tasty buttermilk biscuit. Mmmmm! You can also crumble the fried sausage and scramble it with eggs and cheese, or add it as a vital ingredient in a sausage and egg breakfast casserole, or make sausage gravy so good it’ll make you slap your granny. It also makes an exciting pizza topping! So after a quick search on Google, I had a copycat recipe!

Here it is, step by step:

1 – Gather the following ingredients:

• 16 ounces ground pork (500 grams pork mince)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon dried parsley
• ¼ teaspoon rubbed sage
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
• ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
• ¼ teaspoon coriander
• ¼ teaspoon MSG (optional & almost impossible to find in the UK)

2 – Combine spices into a small dish and mix together

3 – Put the ground pork into a mixing bowl. You could simply increase your spice measurements very slightly, rounding the 1/4 teaspoons rather than level measures. After mixing your spices thoroughly, sprinkle it evenly over the top of the pork and blend it completely into the meat. I prefer to use one hand, squeezing it through my fingers over and over until it is thoroughly mixed. Most of us in the British culture weigh our bulk ingredients in grams or kilograms (1,000 grams), so form meatballs weighing about 50 grams each. Ground pork (called “mince” in the UK) is usually packaged in 500 gram parcels, so this recipe will make about a dozen portions of sausage.

4 – Flatten the meatballs into small patties or burgers. You should be able to get 10 sausage patties with a 500g package of pork: more if you make them smaller. These are quite large, so use your own judgment on the size. I put these on a metal tray and freeze them, then I put them in freezer bags. This way you will have individual portions without them sticking together in the freezer. You could freeze the entire 500g, but it would take significant time to defrost and I don’t like to risk pork sitting out for several hours.

5 – Fry until well done. This ASDA-label British pork mince is extremely lean (less than 7% fat), so I had to use a little cooking oil in the pan. I’m going to ask my local butcher if he can grind me a 20% fat mixture, which would make it easier to cook without oil. My mouth is watering at this point, because it’s the first time in years that I have smelled American-style pork sausage cooking in my house. Yippee!!

6 – Serve alongside two fried eggs. When anyone asks me how I like my eggs, I always say, “side by side!” I also had toast (not shown in the photo above), grumbling that I didn’t have some buttermilk biscuits to go with this wonderful meal.

[Note: Click on any of the thumbnail images to see them larger on my Flickr site.]

PS: You might enjoy reading about the culture shock we experienced when we began to shop for groceries in the United Kingdom. So many items we could not find on the shelves! Just because they have super Wal-Mart here (called ASDA in the UK) doesn’t mean you can get your fried pork rinds, beef jerky, shotgun shells, Hanes Red Label, and a quick oil/lube while you wait.

When I got up this morning, I began browsing my Flickr groups to see what others had posted over the last week or so, and I found this image (below) taken recently by a friend of mine. Jan and her husband love to go “trekking” or hill climbing all over Wales, which usually results in some stunning images; however, the caption on this one shook a few cobwebs loose from my “shepherd” paradigm.

I looked at this photograph and began thinking about how to describe this modern shepherd compared to my stereotypical perceptions. In terms of responsibilities, I doubt that the shepherd’s job description has changed much over the centuries: to look after the flock by leading them to good pasture, making sure they have a clean source of water, providing remedies for their sicknesses and ailments, and a place to roam without being in danger from predators. However, my image of a shepherd was completely blown apart by Jan’s photograph. Back in July, I posted a blog entry about sheep and shepherds, inspired by another blogger; but it never occurred to me that a shepherd might wear a full leather body suit and view his flock astride a bright blue Yamaha.

Seeing off-road motorcyclists around town is a common sight, but their presence has never once prompted the thought of “shepherd” in my mind. To me, I imagined them driving an old Range Rover or a small battered Jeep to visit their flocks on the hillsides. Obviously, I didn’t expect long flowing robes and a crooked staff like the shepherds in Bible storybooks or annual Christmas plays, but now my paradigm is completely shattered. I can no longer look at a motorcyclists protective clothing and think “he’s a bit over the top to get dressed up like that to pick up a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs.” Now it’s likely to be, “I wonder if he’s a shepherd?” Sure, there are many bikers that simply love “the look” and the thrill of riding these beautiful hills of South Wales for sport, but they might also be engaged in the more serious pursuit of tending a flock of sheep. You never know!

Being a follower of Jesus, my thoughts then turned toward the parallels related to pastoral ministry and looking after God’s people scattered across the world. And I wonder how many “modern shepherds” the church has failed to recognize because they don’t fit our rigid paradigms: i.e., they may not wear a suit and tie, they don’t need a pulpit to stand behind, they are increasingly mobile, they earn their living in the marketplace, they minister across a wider spectrum of believers, and they often have no theological degrees or titles or credentials.

And I think about the people we DO call “pastor” who have such a narrowly defined role that it makes me wonder if they truly qualify as God’s shepherds: their “ministry” primarily consists of preparing lengthy, detailed speeches to be delivered two or three times a week, like clockwork, to their “flock” (who, by the way, have to come to them to be fed). I’m thinking of a number of men in particular, though there are probably many more, who spend most, if not all, their time cloistered in a room filled with books, preparing sermons and writing books. They spend virtually no time with their flocks: they get others to do that sort of thing. They do not visit church members or visitors in their homes, workplaces, or hospital rooms. They do not offer pastoral counseling, marriage counseling, or perform weddings and funerals. If you telephone their office, they would probably treat it as an interruption of their time, and if you do manage to corner them after a Sunday morning meeting, they’re continually looking at their watches or staring across the room, as if they’re really quite uncomfortable and “out of their element” without a set of notes in front of them telling them what to say. They may be quite prominent as conference speakers and as published authors, and everyone introduces them as the “pastor” (meaning “shepherd”) of a local church.

And I’m thinking, “No, they’re not pastors!” A more apt mental picture (for me) would be more along the lines of someone who cooks your food at a hospital cafeteria; or a carvery chef at a buffet-style restaurant; or even a professional chef who gets paid serious money, like Jeff Smith (The Frugal Gourmet) or Wolfgang Puck or Gordon Ramsey (Hell’s Kitchen) or Emeril Lagasse. Whether it’s creating tasteless gruel or exquisite culinary delicacies, these chefs get paid to prepare food.

But you know what? Even if I spend a fortune as a weekly customer in one of Emeril’s restaurants and convince all my friends to do the same thing, it doesn’t mean he loves me or cares about me or rings me on my home phone if I miss a week. No, it’s all about creating unusual food combinations that rocket his celebrity status to the top of the charts. It’s not really about making friends and building life-long relationships, unless you happen to be his financial advisor. And he’s not going to visit me in the hospital or encourage me when life sucks: it’s just not his job.

But the pastor…that’s a different story isn’t it? Or is it? Is he really a shepherd, expected to spend lots of time with the sheep, or is it just his job to shovel food into the trough, expecting the scattered sheep to find their way to it? Does he know the sheep by name, like Jesus does? Does he care for them when they’re hurting or frightened or sick? Or is it someone else’s responsibility? Would he sacrifice himself to protect them from savage wolves, or is it their job to defend themselves based on a speech they vaguely remember hearing three years ago?