The Shack

With 8 million copies already sold and still more still flying off the shelves, William Young's novel "The Shack" has clearly captured the imagination of a significant proportion of the Christian community.

The Shack is a novel about a man whose daughter was abducted by a serial killer at a holiday camping ground. As time draws on and the crime remains unsolved the man descends into depression. He receives a note inviting him to meet at the Shack with "Papa."  Aware that this is his wife's nickname for God, he wonders whether or not this is someone's idea of a sick joke.  

Yet still intrigued, he takes advantage of his wife's weekend away to investigate. There, at the Shack, he meets three apparitions who represent themselves as God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son.

The novel sets up what every Christian must secretly desire, the opportunity for a one-on-one interview with God, to ask any question that has ever puzzled the believer. It's in the answers to these questions that the book has its power.  

The book conveys a sense of God's all-encompassing and heartwarming love for mankind and leaves the reader with a greater sense of love for community and acceptance of diversity. Both are important things to consider in the Western world as society adapts to new technological modes of interaction which reduce face to face engagement and relaxed immigration policies have allowed new ethnic groups to grow in different societies. In this sense, the book goes some way towards breaking down racial and religious intolerance.

The Shack has fuelled considerable controversy because of its positions regarding the nature of God, Humanity, Sin, Salvation and the Bible.  

On God and Humanity, it takes an egalitarian view of the Trinity and rejects the hierarchical order of authority traditionally held by Orthodox Christians. In Young's Trinity, God the Father has no authority over God the Son. He goes further to say that the believer is meant to join the circle of relationship as an equal partner. The reader has to put aside the idea that "no one can see God, and live."  Some of the ideas seem very similar to the now discredited Agnostic teachings.

On Sin, he rejects the concept of God's punishment (p119). He likens sin to a disease which needs to be cured. Certainly sin brings its own calamity but that does not mean that God himself does not inflict punishment. The image of God as a judge who passes sentence for certain is a prominent concept.

On Salvation, Young gives the impression that everyone has already been saved through the work of Christ and God is but waiting for everyone to accept it.  A form of universalism.

On the Bible, Young rejects the idea that God has stopped overtly communicating with His people, leaving the Bible (p63) as the sole source of contemporary revelation. He is correct but does not then go on to add that the bible disciplines these communications by providing a standard by which they can be authenticated (1Th 5.7, 1Jn 4.1).  

There is a lot more in the book but this should be sufficient to suggest that The Shack should be read guardedly.  Few things or people are wholly good or bad.  This is one book that needs some sifting.

Don't let anyone try to deflect serious discussion of this book by saying its  a work of fiction.  Using a dialogue between fictional characters as a means to convey a treatise on philosophy or some other subject of academic study is an age-old format.  Plato, Aquinas and Abelard all used it.  The Shack deserves to be treated seriously.

In the end the Shack is a great book to challenge modern readers to check if the concepts conveyed in the Shack are authenticated by the Bible and open up a new way for Christians to engage with one another in discussion and debate.

Prov 18.17