Reading Good Books

I thought I had successfully avoided this one. They come along every couple of years…the book that will change your life and the life of your congregation. A similar phenomenon appears as the seminar, or the campaign. Then there is the usual hype, promotional pieces, small group curriculum, and celebrity endorsements. Eventually the buzz fades, and the American Consumer Christian awaits the next greatest thing to come along. Well, like I said, I thought I had successfully avoided this one. I thought it had passed. But then one day, as I was in the checkout line at the grocery store, having a pleasant chat with the cashier, the question came…“Have you read The Shack?” In the course of our small talk, the cashier learned that I was a pastor, to which he excitedly responded that he too was a Christian. Come to find out, he hadn’t read the book, but had heard a lot about it. Then one of his co-workers, overhearing our conversation, enthusiastically piped in, “I read it! I loved it! I was very inspired!” Ok, so I guess it wasn’t gone yet, and for the sake of trying to understand my neighbor and the zeitgeist of the SGV in 2012, I thought I should read it. I have now read it. I didn’t love it. I was not inspired. In addition to being a theological train wreck, I found it pretentiously creative and emotionally manipulative. It is the emergent church writing fiction. But there has been a lot written about The Shack, so I will not go into great detail here. If you would like to read a good review of the book, I would direct you to an excellent review written by Tim Challies that is accurate, clear, and yet not vitriolic, which unfortunately is the tenor of many of the reviews. You can find Challies’ review here. However, I will say that life is too short to read bad books. There are too many good books to read, and we all are stewards of only 24 hours a day. So, when one popular Christian author in his gushing praise of the book makes the assertion—“This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”—my reaction is, “Whoa, settle down there Jethro! Let’s not get carried away.” Pilgrim’s Progress is a true Christian classic, which has withstood the test of time and is not just some flash-in-the-pan sensation. Bunyan’s allegory, was published in 1678 and has been translated into over 200 languages. It is considered one of the greatest pieces of English literature every produced. Charles Spurgeon claimed to have read the book over 100 times. If The Shack is even in print a hundred years from now, then maybe we can consider comparing it to Pilgrim’s Progress. Do yourself a favor dear reader, if you’ve been lucky enough to avoid reading The Shack thus far, don’t bother. If you’re looking for good fiction, pick up a true classic like Pilgrim’s Progress, or Screwtape Letters, or The Lord of the Rings, or The Brother’s Karamozov, or Jane Eyre. Of course, there are many more, too many, and that’s just the point. Yes, there are good new books too, but as we are looking for new books to read, we need to resist the urge to read whatever is popular and remember the wisdom of C.S. Lewis, when he said, “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.” Pastor Dave