Review of the Shack

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was thought-provoking, intelligent, and hard to put down. It was in many ways, a sign of the times. A generation ago, people were communicating issues about how to deal with suffering and heartache and faith in books like Where is God When It Hurts? and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Now, true to our times, the message is communicated in narrative form.

Also, this book is in the forefront of books in "Christian Fiction" that go against the flow. Several atttempt to deal with theological questions in honest and authentic ways. Most notably, Brain McClaren with A New Kind of Christian, The Story We Find Ourselves In, and The Last Word and the Word After That as well as Venita Hampton Wright in Grace at Bender Springs, Velma Still Cooks At Leeway, and Dwelling Places. But also some very authentic, unconventional books about people struggling with their faith in the real world like Leaper and My Name is Russell Fink.

For those of you who do not know, The Shack is a self-published book by a father trying to relate his spiritual journey to his children in a fictional/mythical manner. It tells the story of a man named Mack, who is invited by "Papa" to meet God at The Shack. The Shack is a place that is the center of Mack's "Great Sadness", and is also symbolic of Mack's own soul. While at the Shack, God helps Mack deal with his sense and grief and loss from the kidnapping and presumed death of his daughter.

Unique to this novel is that God presents Godself as Trinity. Papa (Father), Jesus, and Sarayu (Hindi word for wind, which is the Greek Word for Spirit). Also, as a manifestation of Papa, we see God represented as Sophia (Wisdom). Admittedly, this is a difficult thing to understand through non-fictional writing, this understanding as God as three in one. It is more challenging when one encounters it in narrative form. I think the book suceeds in not embracing the heresy of "modalism" on one end, and the heresy of "oneness" theology on the other end. It also studiously avoids the heresy of subordinationism--a hersesy that has become increasingly present among evangelical Christians. What I appreciated about what Young did in this book is to present Trinity as self-sustaining community, and thus as a model for Christian community. This seems informed by some strong, recent theology such as In Our Likeness by Miroslav Volf. On the negative side of the issue, I wondered if The Shack did engage in the heresy of patripassionism.

What is most controversial thing about the book is its presentation of God as female. Papa is presented as an African-American woman who loves to bake (see Matthew 13), although later he is presented as a long-haired white male. Jesus is presented as a Middle-Eastern carpenter and outdoorsman, and the Holy Spirit is presented as a kaliedoscopic woman. After reading the book, I was not uncomfortable in presenting God as having both male and female characteristics. I believe God is beyond gender. I was uncomfortable with the over-feminizing of God. I especially thought Jesus was over-feminized in his personality--kind of a limp-wristed Jesus--even though he was presented completely as male. Also, following the thinking of Ben Witherington in Jesus the Sage, I see the personification of wisdom in Proverbs relating to Jesus in John 1, not to God the Father.

Having said this, I was not necessarily offended by Young's presentation of God. I just thought it was inbalanced. The presentation of Papa was there, right from the start, to mess with Mack's (and our) head. The narrative says as much, and thus the name is male and the visual is female. I also thought a lot of Young's presentation of God was based upon his own personal history, which includes sexually abuse and emotional abuse at the hands of males.

Young's goal was to present God as a God that loves us and is on our side. A God who is there to comfort and to guide, a God that longs to have us be reconciled to Him and to one another. The need to forgive and reconcile with others to be faithful and whole comes across especially clear. Young's presentation of God is of a God who wants us to do the hard things to be the person that God calls us to be, but that doesn't take away all the pain just to make us feel better.

I thought the book was well-written. Unlike other writers, who work for publishers, I did not think it needed the scrutiny of a publishing house to be a good book. I thought it was an entertaining read, and it made me think, although I did not find it to be as life changing as others did.

All in all, before you make a judgement, read it for yourself.