"The Shack"
by William P. Young
reviewed by Josh Meares
The Author
William P. Young was born May 11th, 1955, in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, but he spent the majority of his young life living with his missionary parents in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. He lived among the Dani, a technologically stone age tribal people. They became his family, and he was the first white child who ever spoke their language.
By the time William was flown away to boarding school at age 6, he was in most respects a white Dani. William was sexually abused as a child by some of his parent's converts. When his parents moved back to the west, William earned a degree in religion, started working at a church, and attended seminary. William Young says that these experiences gave birth to "The Shack."
"The journey has been both incredible and unbearable, a desperate grasping after grace and wholeness. These facts don't tell you about the pain of trying to adjust to different cultures, of life losses that were almost too staggering to bear, of walking down railroad tracks at night in the middle of winter screaming into the windstorm, of living with an underlying volume of shame so deep and loud that it constantly threatened any sense of sanity, of dreams not only destroyed but obliterated by personal failure, of hope so tenuous that only the trigger seemed to offer a solution. These few facts also do not speak to the potency of love and forgiveness, the arduous road of reconciliation, the surprises of grace and community, of transformational healing and the unexpected emergence of joy."
The Book
"The Shack" is a #1 New York Times Bestseller with over a million copies in print and a movie adaptation on the way. It is endorsed by celebrities and some Christian teachers and scholars. But it has also by labeled as heresy by other well-respected pastors and writers. "The Shack" may be the most controversial book since "The Da Vinci Code."
The story goes like this. Mac is the father of three young children. But his youngest daughter, Missy, was abducted, raped, and murdered on a family camping trip. Four years later, Mac is a walking shell of a man, disconnected from the world by his grief. But then Mac gets a note from God. In that note, God asks Mac to meet Him in the shack where his daughter was murdered.
Mac is given the opportunity to talk to God face to face in the form of three physical appearances. God the Father is pictured as a large black woman named Papa. God the Son, Jesus, is pictured as a Jewish man. God the Holy Spirit appears as an Asian woman. Mac asks God all of his hardest questions and God answers him in a variety of surprising ways.
The Verdict
I sat down to start "The Shack" on my couch on a Sunday afternoon right after church. The ideal time for a nap and a nice book to get me there, I thought. But I never moved, and I never got sleepy. The story was powerful and captivating for me. "The Shack" includes many tough, emotionally draining moments, but it also provides room for healing. It's not surprising that those who have experienced tragedy identify very deeply with the main character, Mac.
Young is a solid writer, and much of this story is the outgrowth of his own experience. The emotions he describes and the characters he creates have a ring of truth. Young does occasionally use awkward literary devices but never in a way that interrupted my enjoyment of the story.
The Worldview
So why is such an emotional and well-told story about the pain of loss and connection with God such a controversial book? Because "The Shack" is more than just a story. Young wants to change the way people look at God and the church. In attempting to do so, he pictures God in ways that don't always line up with a conservative view of theology. (See below for a list of links to some of the different points of view on the theology and value of "The Shack.")
One of the things that almost everyone likes about "The Shack," though, is that it shows us a God who loves us deeply. But how do we reconcile a God who loves us so deeply with the tragic world we live in?
Theologians call this "the problem of pain." Let's face it, our planet is full of evil people doing evil things. It is full of natural disasters and tragedy. How can a loving God allow such things? Couldn't He end all this pain and suffering?
The answer is, "Yes, He could, but He has chosen not to." Why not? We may never know. Young writes it this way in "The Shack:" "You really don't understand yet. You try to make sense of the world in which you live based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality. It is like looking at a parade through the tiny knothole of hurt, pain, self-centeredness, and power, and believing you are on your own and insignificant."
When we are hurt or we see others get hurt, there are several ways we can go. We can make ourselves like God by judging God's actions and declaring Him evil for allowing such a thing to happen. That is just a repetition of Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden. Or we can say to ourselves, "There is no God." We can believe that God is not powerful enough to stop such a thing. Or we can trust Him.
That final path is by far the most difficult. It contains few answers and few justifications. We may never know why God allowed something. But it is still the right path. Why? Because of what we do know about God.
Let's look at a few passages of Scripture that talk about God's goodness, love, and power.
"For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son." (John 3:16)
"But if you are suffering according to God's will, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for He will never fail you." (1 Peter 4:19)
"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God... since God, who did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else." (Romans 8:28)
"For our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever!" (2 Corinthians 4:17)
We know that God is good. We know that God is in control. We know that God loves us so much He gave up His only Son. Jesus says that God loves US as much as God loves His own Son!
But how often do we trust in God's love? "The Shack" offers this profound quote: "The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don't think that I am good. If you knew I was good, and that everything -- the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives -- is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me." (p.126)
That is the real call of the gospel message. Do you trust God enough to follow Him absolutely? Do you believe God loved you enough to send His Son to die for You? Do you believe that God loves us enough to do exactly what is right for us? There is still no easy answer to "the problem of pain," but Young's controversial book suggests that God's proven character, power, and relentless love for us are the best answer we could hope for.
What Others Are Saying
"The Shack" is such a hot topic, and it covers so many hot-button issues, that we wanted to point you to what some other Christian teachers and writers are saying about the book. We hope these links provide a springboard for good discussion in the forum and insights into this much-discussed story.
William P. Young - "A Look Inside The Shack"
Ben Witherington - "Shacking Up with God"
Dr. Al Mohler - "A Look at The Shack"
Greg Boyd - "The Shack: A Review"
Glenn Kreider - "Book Review of The Shack"
Mark Driscoll - "If you haven't read The Shack, DON'T!"
Tim Challies - "The Shack by William P. Young"
CAVEAT:
This book was written for people who are familiar with Christian terms and Christian ideas. If you are a young believer (in either a physical or spiritual sense) and you don't feel like you have the basics of the faith down, this book may not be a good fit for you right now.
Questions:
- What did you like the most about the book?
- What did you like least?
- What character did you identify with?
- Was there anything that you thought was totally false?
- Was there anything that you thought was totally true?
- Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
