The Shack

Having worked in the book biz my whole life (bookstores, libraries, publishers, writer) I was interested in finding out about THE SHACK, a purportedly Christian novel that's burning up the bestseller lists.

The answers I found were pretty much what I expected. Whenever anything becomes this popular, it’s usually because there’s something ‘off’ about it. Such was the case with this book.

The gist of the plot is that a man named Mac, who has lost his daughter at the hands of a serial rapist/murderer, gets a message from God to meet him in the shack, the possible location where his daughter was murdered.

When Mac arrives, he meets the Trinity -- but it’s a Trinity like you’ve never seen before. God the Father is a large black woman who asks to be called Papa. Jesus the son is an unattractive Middle Eastern man with a big nose. The Holy Spirit is also a woman, Asian this time, with a Sanskrit (!!) name which means ‘wind’.

And this is just the beginning of the blasphemous goings on in this story.

The questions author William P. Young wants answered are the same ones we all ask, with the main one being where is God in a world filled with unspeakable pain? But why run to a fictional book for the answers, especially when those answers have theological implications that are wrong in far too many ways.

The bottom line conclusion the author comes to is that the Christian faith has never had it right all along. I’m sure this would be news to Paul, Peter, and the rest of the Apostles never mind the millions of devoted Christians down through the ages. According to The Shack, the entire Trinity became human -- Papa has the scars on ‘her’ wrists to prove it. The author implies that the trinity is in a circular relationship, when it’s actually a hierarchy as Jesus unceasingly demonstrated in the Gospels. It doesn’t even mention Jesus as the Christ.

The doctrine of Universal Reconciliation lurks beneath the surface, meaning that God will reconcile all those who rejected Christ in their lifetimes. Young says Jesus is ‘the best way’ to salvation and not the only way as the Bible repeatedly states. This is typical of the emergent church and lots of other non-Biblical trends we’re seeing today.

Sure the book draws the reader in emotionally, but feelings are not the answer. We walk by faith, not experiences or feelings. This book is like so many other ‘uplifting’ new age titles with its pantheistic, universalist leanings. It’s certainly a mix of truth and error, a dangerous combination for those who can’t tell the difference.

Bottom line: the choice to read this book should be a no-brainer for Christians who read the Bible.