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As you read the story, we pray that God will touch your heart and open up places where you might be stuck, and help you see the way he loves you in richer and deeper tones and colors and sounds. We believe that this book is a gift to you. As words on a page, it has no power to do anything, but as you read don't be surprised when something happens inside that you were not expecting. That is so like Jesus.That, folks, would be the purpose of the book. And it achieved that for me. Like opening the curtains and the windows in my own shack of a heart, it breathed in new winds that I wasn't expecting. It was a gift to me, not just physically but spiritually as well. Even though I knew right from the beginning that it wasn't a true story (some people have apparently planned to travel to the location of the story's setting to meet Mack! Huh?), the biographical nature of the book was a tool that helped me keep reading. I actually became curious as to what else it might do to me. I didn't learn any new theology. I didn't learn anything new about God. But that is not its purpose. Which brings me to my final observation. This is a work of fiction! The author writes that its purpose is to awaken you, help you feel something, unlock your heart, surprise you, and so on. It isn't meant to be a theological text. It is, in other words, a piece of art. Whether good or bad, that is up to you to decide (I refuse to use those two categories for art). I am surrounded with art. I am an artist myself. I listen to all kinds of music. God save me if all I listen to is theologically correct music. (What does that sound like anyway?) I surround myself with paintings and photographs. What do they say? Be sure that they say all kinds of things. Some of it isn't "correct", but all of it is valid and has a right to be said. I watch lots of movies. I may not personally appreciate or agree with everything that they communicate. But I love how diverse and varietal films can be and how they can shed new light on old ideas or open new vistas of possibilities in the dull and boring routine I often find myself in. I have a library full of books. You would never be able to peg where I stand theologically from looking at my diverse collection. I expose myself to all kinds of art because I love diversity and what all art may have to say or contribute to my life. Young is a story-teller, and I think a decent one. I suspect he will improve too. He will refuse, I hope, to be labelled a theologian. But as I've said and as he himself has implied, this is not his calling. I don't care if God appears to me as a an old man, a Jamaican woman, a donkey, a cloud or a fire. I don't care if pronouncements are made from a stone crying out or the trees of the field clapping their hands or out of the mouth of babes. These are all incidental, but they are all theological. I agree: let's analyze what is being said. Let's critique the message. Let's evaluate the medium. But let's also remember, this is just a story that can be appreciated (or not) on its own merit. On those grounds I think it's worth a read.