Here is the latest letter from James to Tim. Check out the others by clicking on The Shack Letters in Categories to the right.

Tim,

Great to hear from you so quickly. It is so hard to know how quickly we will hear back since all our mail comes through our captors. They are not mean about things, but they don’t seem to be willing to let us go. I am not sure how to even explain what this captivity looks like other than it is similar to when Paul was being held under house arrest. He was able to do so many things and even have visitors and yet he was being held prisoner. It is similar to that, but we are not allowed visitors. They obviously let us send mail, which seems strange to me, but we are thankful for it since there would be no other way to keep in contact with you. We are constantly reflecting on 1 Peter 2:23 where Peter talks about Jesus. Just like Jesus, Lily and I want to entrust ourselves to Him who judges justly. God is in control. We struggle to do this day-by-day, but we see how it can be done. God is so loving and inviting.

I am so sorry that I was not as clear about the whole Papa thing. I fear that is one of the limitations of writing letters like this and a good reason I prefer face-to-face communication. I cannot gauge where you are and what you understand or how clear I am being. Everything I write is so clear in my mind that even when I read it over again, it makes perfect sense. I don’t think you have to call God “Papa” or “Abba” in order to remember that He is that close. I think the issue is more about what is in your heart. When you think of God, do you think of Him as being that close? Most of us do not think of Him this way and need help along these lines. That is why words like this can be helpful. But this is not another rule to follow. We Christians are so good at making lists of things to do in order to be closer to God. How foolish this must seem from God’s perspective! We are already able to enter into His perfect presence because of Jesus’ death on the cross (check out Hebrews 4:16 and 10:19-22) and yet we feel like we are so far away from Him.

About the whole “myth” question… I too felt very uncomfortable with this idea—calling the Bible a myth. In our culture it is assumed that myths are fictional accounts of things to give weight to a lesson we want to teach. We want to be clear that the Bible is true and so often we stay away from this terminology. But C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used “myth” in a different way. They called God’s story “the one true myth.” The way they thought about it was that the Bible was the one story that was true behind all the other stories that we tell. I think they used the word “myth” to describe a grand story that sought to explain how things came to be. If this is the case, then the Bible could be called a myth, as long as we understand it is a true myth. This may be confusing, but it helps to clarify our terms. In the story, I think Mac was simply trying to capitalize on a story that his daughter already liked to help. Mac does say that the death of Jesus was true. He is not trying to back down. He just seems to raise the other story up to that same level. You can decide what you want about that.

Personally I am intrigued by myth. I am still not sure how to think about it, but I want to read more about the purpose of myth and how it works with the Bible. I tend to agree with Lewis and Tolkien about this myth stuff, even though there are some things by both of them that I struggle with.

I am not sure if the reason Christians have a problem with this book is Mac himself. It might be. I think Christians tend to select a few key problems (which are clearly there and need to be dealt with) and skip over some things we can learn from. It is unfortunate, but we all do it. I understand your struggle with Mac. I think we need to understand where he is in his life. He is on a path, but struggles with doubts and pain. He is flawed, that is sure, but so are we. Give him some grace right now as we get into the book and wait to see if there is a change in him as the book progresses. I love movies and one of the best things that I have learned from watching them is that stories, good stories, are enhanced when the main character has to learn and grow. He or she is changed by the end. I call this the character arc. See if that is the case with Mac and we can talk about it more later.

We are continuing to pray for you. Keep us updated on how you are doing.

We love you very much.

In Him the true Hero of every story,

James

Tags: character arc, myth, Papa