The City and The City

I recently read a very intriguing book – The City & The City by China Mieville, published by Del Rey/Ballantine Books – which unfortunately I cannot freely recommend.

Basic premise: two physical cities occupy the same location, but due to reasons lost in the past the citizens of each city are ‘unable’ to see the other city. When a crime is committed that breaches that boundary between cities, our hero, Inspector Tyador Borlú, not only solves the crime, but also explores, at great cost to himself, what the actual boundary is and what it really means to breach that boundary.

This is a book about perceptions, about voluntary blindness, about what happens when we choose to create our own reality. It also explores the idea of us vs. them, and what happens when the boundaries separating us & them are breached. In recent months the Lord has had me meditating on perception vs. reality; this book was timely in prodding along my reluctant journey in that direction. It also provoked several great discussions with my dh about the roles – both legitimate and destructive – that boundaries serve in our lives.

My reservation in actually recommending The City and The City is due to Mieville’s extreme use of gratuitous swearing. Neither the author nor the characters are believers, and the book revolves around the seamy side of the crime world, so some swearing would perhaps not be unexpected. Because Mieville’s curse words of choice do not include taking the Lord’s name in vain (something I just can’t stomach!), I was able to gloss over the liberal cursing as I read. However, I deeply regret the excessive swearing, as it renders an intriguing and possibly valuable book into a near miss.

The Truman Show (movie)

The Truman Show produced in 1988 didn't get watched by me until about 2005. (I was a little late I guess.) It came recommended to me by a friend who loaned me a copy of the movie.

The film was an huge financial undertaking by Paramount Pictures who I read spent over 60 million dollars on it's production. It is rated PG, written by Andrew Niccoli, directed by Peter Weir and stars Jim Carey. In the film, Carey plays a character named as Truman Burbank, a major television star, and the catch is, even though he is so very famous, even though he is a so famous and the whole world watching his every move on TV, he does not even know it.

An unwanted pregnancy, his birth broadcast is on television and he is adopted by a corporation and then his whole life is aired to to the world, captured on film as his whole existence is lived out on a sort of Hollywood film set. Everything he has ever done, every emotion he has experiences as been done for "reality" TV, filmed by hidden cameras.

He lives out his life captive to a world created just for him by the creator/ director and it is as if everything is planned, scripted for him as the camera shows the watchful eye of a curious John Q. Public, his life. Even the weather is controlled by the director.

At the age of 30 though, Truman is catching on to the oddities of his captive life in his constructed world. Realizing things are just a bit weird and out of his control he begins to wonder and we watch as he begins the inward journey of discovering the world he has always known is not what he thought, in fact he strangely feels like he is always being watched. Meanwhile, outside his world, in the "real world of consumers" people are in fact watching him, on TV's. Producers are trying to keep him oblivious to reality, worried he night find them out and the show would be over and Truman fans are rallying for his escape.

My friend recommended the movie because of it's presentation of religion. The movie is an obvious commentary on television and how we view reality which is interesting to me too, but I must I too was impressed with the profoundly religious connotations that left me considering their 60 million dollar message to the viewing world.

For example the director of the Truman set is Christof, who by the way, lives in the "moon."
With a director named Christof... you have to wonder at the connotation... does the director and creator of Truman's world represent Christ, (God) or Anti Christ? Since this "God" figure lives in the "moon" you have to wonder how does this relate to perhaps a "moon God"?

And what reality is Truman escaping from? What reality is he escaping to? What is there really beyond his universe or the universe of television viewers everywhere? Is Truman rejecting God or Satan as he appears to walk on water and climb a stairway to the real world outside of his set which he finds at the edge of the universe, the only universe he has ever known. The analogies... spiritual, philosophical, psychological, cultural.. are nearly endless in this film and quite intriguing.

The Shack

The Shack by William P. Young

I guess I read more books that I think. Here is another book I have read recently.

When I first heard of this run-a-muck "bestseller" sweeping through the church, I had no interest in reading it. However, as time went by the book gained quite a following. A friend told me that everyone at her church was reading it, carrying it around like it was the Bible. It felt almost as popular as Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life, and it soon became a book I had to read, simply to converse about it via first hand, not second hand, or third hand with others. People seem to respect your opinion more if you have at least taken the time to read the book, so I read it.

I think that the thing that turned me off and made me not want to read it at first, was that the story seemed to be a sort of fictional murder mystery novel. Quite frankly, the story of a young girl abducted while on a camping trip with her family in the woods by a serial killer is not a tale that I WANTED to read. I actually prefer not to have visions of such things play before my mind, if I do not have to.

On a different note, I have a friend who was at the lake with her family and two men cam ep to them and asked to borrow a canoe from them. (This was years ago. ) They let them borrow their boat, only to soon realize that their 9 year old daughter was missing, nowhere to be found. It became obvious that there was a possibility that the men had taken her with them in the canoe.

The dad, went after the men, even caught them with his daughter in the canoe and the girl was returned safely. That is a true story. The Shack, as I was hearing, was fiction...

Or was it? I began reading to learn that the Shack was the true story of Mackenzie Allen Philips' real life experience of his daughters death, written by his good friend William P. Young. (The author)

Talk about confusing! It had me wondering if it was fact or fiction.

Well, I tell you, once you get to the end of the book, you read the final section of the book, titled “The Story behind THE SHACK,” where the author tells you the story is fiction. But then it's even more confusing because on top of that, the word on the street and the word of the endorsers of the book say that the book was teaching "theological lessons." You see besides the well-meaning friends who pull you aside and say, "Hey man, you have got to read this book!" there are some hearty endorsements by some well known names and prominent people in the churched community who say things like:

"Wrapped in creative brilliance, The Shack is spiritually profound, theologically enlightening and life impacting. It has my highest recommendation. We are joyfully giving copies away by the case." Steve Berger, Pastor, Grace Chapel

"Riveting, with twists that defy your expectations while teaching powerful theological lessons without patronizing. I was crying by page 100. You cannot read it without your heart becoming involved." Gayle Irwin, (someone whose teaching I have sat under in my chuirch.)

"When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!" Eugene Peterson, (author of The Message)


So, I found a copy of the book at the second hand store, spared the fifty cents and read it.
Like Gayle Erwin, after reading to page 100 I was crying too, but not because I thought it was such a fantastic book. It may be an engrossing story, it may even a person warm fuzzies as they think of how much God loves them, but it has some really strange ideas that sounded nothing like the Jesus I know. It perplexed and grieved me that so many people LOVED this book. Some said it was the greatest thing they had ever read.

I sat down and wrote a letter to Gayle Irwin asking him why he personally endorsed the book. It was one email he never answered. Another person I know emailed Gayle and did get an answer, which was really only a question. Gayle wanted to know what the specific objections to the book were. I am not certain what the objections my friend had or of any further conversation about it with Gayle but I know that my pastor did a write up on The Shack (talking about how the book was umbilical) at at his blog.

The Shack asserts things like:

"The true Church is the kingdom of God on earth...composed of all, regardless of race or creed, who live by the light within...."[p.11]

"...religions, to a large extent, became divisive rather than unifying forces. ... They became ideologies, belief systems people could identify with and so use them to enhance their false sense of self. Through them, they could make themselves 'right' and others 'wrong'..."[p.15]

"...heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness.... Earth, on the other hand, is the outer manifestation in form, which is always a reflection of the inner.... 'A new heaven' is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and 'a new earth' is its reflection in the physical realm."[p.23]

Papa speaking, (Papa is a black woman who is in the role of God) : “Honey, there’s no easy answer that will take your pain away. Believe me, if I had one, I’d use it now. I have no magic wand to wave over you and make it all better. Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship” (92)

“In seminary (Mack) had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God' is s voice had been reduced to paper, and even paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It's seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while Westerner's access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially in an expensive one, bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges? freedom is an incremental process."[p.95]

Do you see the passion of a theologian here? It may be the "passion" of a theologian coming through but it is not sound biblical theology. Not only that, in this story, Mack is a Christian already, one who has been to seminary school, believed the bible himself, and is now being taught by some fictional characters in a made up tale, (along with the reader,) that everything he knew and had learned was wrong. Papa, Sarayu and Jesus were teaching him correctly, and is was not the stuff in the leather book with "guilt edges" after all.

Do you feel like crying yet?

If the reader were to absorb into theier mind and heart, the theology of The Shack they would believe a lot of really strange things at the end of the book. Like how God (dear sweet feminine Papa) has no answer to the pain in our lives,( pg. 92) and biblical "heaven" (probably the opposite of hell and very much like it in theory) is not a real location, but merely the emergence of a "transformed state of human consciousness." (pg 23)

The really sad thing is that the book's theology doesn't get any better after page 100.

Papa says to Mack, “I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it. "(122)

(Is this good theology? What bible verse says that sin is it's own punishment? )

Mack asks "Papa," (the woman) what Jesus accomplished by dying. She tells him, “Through his death and resurrection, I am now fully reconciled to the world.” [pg. 192]

(Is this Good theology? What verse tells us that Jesus died and was raised again to life for God's benefit, and did this event take place so God could now be "fully reconciled to the world" or so man could be reconciled with God and his righteousness?" How does this "shack" theology compare to Rom.5:10, 2 Cor.5:20 1 Cor. 1:21?

Interestingly, some people have called this book "Christian fiction." This can only be beause in their miinds, when you talk about things like the Trinity, (God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit,) sin, heaven and bibles, it makes it "Christian."

Another term people have used to describe The Shack is "reality fiction." I understand the concept, because I have thought about it a lot before, but the shack is really a lot more fiction that reality. It would be better to call it fictioon reality, but in truth, fiction is what it is.

My advice is don't buy this book, and don't read it... unless you have to. If you already read it and like it, or if you need to read it, there are some very good helpful and informative resources to guide you in thinking about what this books say and what scripture teaches. Some good ones can be found at the Spiritual Resources Network on line.

Seduction of Eva Volk

Check out the book "Seduction of Eva Volk" ... AWESOME! ... http://www.cdbaker.com/www.cdbaker.com/Seduction_of_Eva/Seduction_of_Eva.html

Beverly Schmitt of Preston Speed Publications sent me a notice of this up and coming book. It looks very intriguing.