I just finished reading The Shack by William Young. It has been a New York Times Bestseller, an Amazon.com chart topper, and a book that has received a great deal of buzz, both in the Christian and mainstream markets, but it has also been a source of controversy among many people in the Church. Let me give you a brief summary of the book before I tell you what I think.
Mackenzie Phillips is a loving father of five whose life is completely desecrated when his youngest daughter, Missy, is tragically kidnapped and murdered by a serial killer. Mack carries his pain (which he calls "The Great Sadness") around with him for three years. He is constantly living in a dark, abysmal state of being, just going through the daily grind, always commiserating with his constant companion, the pain and isolation he feels from his tragic loss. One day Mack receives a letter in his mailbox from God, inviting him to come back to the place his daughter was murdered (the Shack) for a meeting.
Mack drives to the Shack and meets with the Trinity. God the Father is a large, older African American woman who calls herself "Papa". God the Son is an average-looking Arab man with a beard. God the Spirit manifests itself as a young, free-spirited Asian woman named Sarayu.
Mack spends time individually and collectively with each person of the Trinity. He gets to know them intimately and learns and grows from his experiences with God. God helps Mack to work through his pain and to find some answers to the questions he has been asking since his daughter was taken from him.
Let me start with the points of contention I have with the book:
First, I guess I should mention that when I read a book, I read EVERYTHING in the book. I read the foreword, the afterword, the acknowledgments, the table of contents...I'll even scan through an index if there is one. And so before I read a word of the text of this book, I read the foreword.
In the foreword Young sets up the story by telling us that Mack is actually a friend of his, a real person. And that Mack has never been an accomplished writer, so he asked his friend Willie (the author of the book) to ghost-write his story for him. But the author maintains that this is a true account of exactly what Mack remembers from his trip to the Shack. The afterword is filled with the same assurance that Willie wrote the book for Mack based on Mack's memories of the events that took place.
In actuality, the story is not factual in any sense of the word, and Mack is a made-up character.
I suppose there is not a real problem here, except that the author is vehemently trying to persuade his readers that what he's writing is the truth. If this was just a story about a guy and his family, I wouldn't mind so much. But when you're dealing with a physical encounter with God, it's a different story. I think it was a little deceptive and desperate for Young to try to trick the reader into thinking this was a factual account of events in an attempt to convince his reader of the validity of his story. The bottom line for the reader is this: it's a novel, and it's a fictional, made-up story. The reader should not devour this book as truth in any sense.
Next, I'm a little wary of some of the theology presented in the book. I am always concerned when a popular Christian fad is adopted by believers. The Left Behind series that was popular about ten years ago has been taken as truth by many people, it was almost received as a prophecy for what would take place in the future. The Prayer of Jabez was another book Christian's couldn't seem to get their hands on quickly enough. It was a book declaring that God wants you to "name it and claim it" and all of your wildest dreams will come true. Taking a piece of literature scribed by human hands and making it into something holy is dangerous and I daresay deadly ground to tread. And I'm afraid The Shack is on its way to this cult status, and it could could potentially steer some people in the wrong direction. The Shack is one person's fictional account of what it might be like if a man tangibly and physically met God. This does not mean that people should take this account as Gospel, or as some great theological masterpiece because it is neither. There are all sorts of liberties taken in the author's representation of God and of various spiritual issues. Included in these, are the theology of the Trinity, the nature of God, the human vs. God nature of Jesus, the role of the Holy Spirit, the reality of hell, and the role of man in Creation. I'm not going to provide a list of all of the spiritual inaccuracies I found in the book because that would be counter to the point, and really, that would completely undermine the author's purpose in writing the book.
The Shack is a book about freedom, healing and forgiveness. It is not a theological admonition.
However, I do believe that an author should stand behind the theological implications he conveys in his works...even if they are fictional. I think Young took some very unbiblical stances on some very clear theological truths, and I'm afraid that it's for that reason that I cannot recommend this book to anyone.
Yes, it's possible to take the story for what it is and merely enjoy it for entertainment value. But I really don't see much value in it at all if what you're reading is false doctrine that is being absorbed by Christians around the world as some new vision of the truth. It is certainly not an entertaining or amusing story.
I understand that I'm being vague about exactly which heresies I found in the book, but please know that I am rewriting this portion of the blog over a year after I first read it.
 | Currently reading: The Shack By William P. Young |
