So your concern is propriety and respect? I think that's appropriate. There is often a lacking sense of awe and majesty concerning God in some pop-Christian spirituality.
Yes, but I'm also concerned about the theology of it all. People seem to drift toward an "everything goes" position.
What do you think of C.S. Lewis where he creates a thinly veiled allusion to God through a talking lion? Is this different from what the Shack is doing? It seems to me imagination to some extent has always been an important part of western spirituality, going back to at least the middle ages.
Not that I agree with everything Lewis wrote, but I have great respect for him. He had Luther's ability to understand theology in great depth, and yet could express it in simple, concise terms.
From a theological perspective, I'm OK with Aslan because the connection was allegorical. I would be OK with a female character in fiction displaying Christ-like qualities if, again, the connection were allegorical. You could say Katniss Everdeen from
The Hunger Games fits that mold. Some will say I'm splitting hairs, but to me there is a
huge difference between saying a character is Christ-like and saying they
are Christ.
The Shack tries to address that with the car accident at the end of the book, thereby implying the whole thing was just the MC's imagination - that it wasn't really God ... if you prefer to think of it that way. IMO that's a cop out and bad writing.
In that regard, even though I respect Lewis, I don't think he was very good as a fiction writer. So, while I'm OK with the device from a theological perspective, I'm not a fan of
Narnia.
Another issue with
The Shack is it's poor resolution of the problem. Young obviously knows the pain of loss, and he expresses it beautifully in the first half of the book. That is what drew me to read the book. I was going through a loss of my own at the time. But his resolution is just pathetic - reminiscent of the hippies I so despised in the 1970s - nonsense that doesn't resolve real pain. If you want to read books based on religious themes from great writers that know about pain and deal with it honestly, try
Ahab's Wife or
The Poisonwood Bible. If you think my issue is misogynistic, I'll note that both of those books were written by women and have female MCs. If you think I want to ban "bad" theology, both of those books express very unconventional theologies (and as such I would only recommend them to mature Christians who are secure in their faith). But I still think they are excellent books that deal with deep pain in a very honest way.