Several of our church’s members have asked me for my thoughts on The Shack (penned by William P. Young).  The fact that folks are asking about this book is not surprising.  The sucker is selling like hotcakes.  Most evangelicals have given it rave reviews.  The author of the biblical translation known as The Message compared The Shack to Pilgrim’s Progress.  Given the hoopla, I thought I should give it a read.  Below are my general impressions of The Shack.

  

I’ll begin with a quick summary of the plot.  The Shack’s main character Mack has been living with the sadness of a recent tragedy.  His youngest daughter Missy had been taken and brutally murdered by a serial killer.  Mack is, of course, dealing with several issues in relation to this: his inability to rescue her, his rage at her killer, and his anger at God for letting such a terrible thing happen.  Suddenly Mack’s sadness is confronted by a letter from God inviting Mack to a meeting at the very shack where Missy’s bloody dress was recovered.  Mack arrives at the shack and spends the next couple days in conversations with the three persons of the Trinity. In these conversations, Mack learns things about the world, about God, and about Himself that greatly change his life for the better.  So that’s the plot…really not that much to it.

 

Now let me say some good things about the book.  First of all, it certainly draws you in emotionally.  With such a tragedy, how could it not?  By the time Mack gets to the shack, the reader wants answers from God about Missy’s death almost as much as Mack does.  In addition, The Shack has some great things to say about forgiveness and reconciliation, all the while reminding the reader that bitterness only consumes, never brining any real healing.  Young’s work also calls us parents to remember that our children are not our own.  They belong to God; and He might choose to use them in shocking ways that, though horrifying to us at first, ultimately result in good.  This is a helpful reminder.  More positive things could certainly be said about The Shack; but in the interest of space, I now turn to the negative.

 

Where do I begin?  There are so many things wrong with this book’s content; it’s hard to even find a starting point.  And it’s almost just as hard to know when to quit.  I’ll do my best to be brief and to focus on the major issues that make The Shack so bad.  Hold on to your hats.

 

For starters, I was absolutely horrified with the way the persons of the Trinity are depicted.  God the Father, or “Papa” as the book calls Him, appears to Mack as a large black woman – I kept picturing Aunt Jemima from the syrup bottle.  The Holy Spirit appears throughout Young’s work as a good looking Asian woman.  (Thankfully, The Shack isn’t too crazy with its depiction of Jesus; he is described as a plain looking, Middle Eastern man.)   It should be clear that The Shack portrays a very feminine God.  Even when Papa-Jemima drops his female persona, he still presents himself to Mack in a very matronly way.  The Spirit is always referred to as a “she”, a “she” who can make you tingly all over when “she” fills you.  (Honestly, I’m not making this stuff up.  If you think that’s crass, at one point in the book Jesus even gives Papa-Jemima a foot rub; and Papa-Jemima says, “Ooh, that feels so good.”) 

 

What’s wrong with Young’s portrayal of God, besides the fact that it is so shockingly crass?  What is wrong with The Shack’s portrayal of God is that it is not a portrayal of God at all.  The God of the Bible is not feminine.  This is not to say that God is a male, but it is to say that He is masculine.  Our Triune God is Yahweh – Lord of Armies – not Papa-Jemima with his hot Asian spirit.  It baffles me how much Young seems to ignore the Bible’s own descriptions of our Lord.

 

And it is Young’s handling of the Scriptures that makes up my second major concern with The Shack.  Several times throughout the narrative Mack confronts one of the members of the Trinity with something from that Bible that seems to contradict what he has just been told or shown.  On almost every occasion, the divine characters basically tell Mack to forget that Bible stuff and pay attention to what’s being said now.  Young’s theology of Biblical inspiration and Biblical authority appear questionable at best. 

 

Young’s theological fuzziness shows itself in other ways as well, particularly when it comes to the book’s basic question: If God is good, why is there evil?  Basically, Young ignores the Biblical passages concerning God’s exhaustive sovereignty over all things – including evil – and answers Mack’s painful wonderings with the standard, modern evangelical solution: God could’ve stopped Missy’s murder, but that would have been a violation of man’s free will, a violation that a loving God would never perpetrate.  Mack is then asked to trust that God can still bring good out of the free, evil choices of man. 

 

The problem with Young’s answer to the so called “problem of evil” is that it’s a non-Biblical answer.  However inexplicable tragic occurrences may be, the Bible does not allow us to believe God didn’t will those tragedies to take place.  Rather, God’s word calls us to trust that our sovereign God is powerful enough to use even the evil intentions of men and angels to bring about His perfectly good plans for our lives and His world.  As Joseph tells his brothers in Gen. 50:20 “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” 

 

The list of Young’s remaining theological problems could go on and on.  For example, The Shack seems to imply that no one will be ultimately punished by God.  In addition, Young rejects the notion of an institutional church, with authoritative leaders and rules.  Unfortunately for Young, a church with authoritative leaders and rules is exactly the kind of church described in the New Testament.  Again, more could be said about Young’s errors; but I’ll stop here. 

 

Let me conclude by saying I don’t know a thing about William Young’s motives.  I can’t imagine that Young intentionally set out to write a book that is so deceptive.  I honestly believe he wrote The Shack to comfort folks who have experienced tragedy and are questioning God because of it.  However, it has to be said that Young’s attempt at comfort will only confuse his trusting readers and actually take them even farther away from our God, the one who describes Himself as the God of all comfort.  If you find yourself today in pain and in need of divine healing, please entrust yourself to Him, not to the words of The Shack.

 

For additinal thoughts about The Shack, please follow the links below:

 

http://byfaithonline.com/page/arts-culture/the-shack-what-god-should-have-said

 

http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=5989