The Shack [Paperback]

It is a controversial book in a lot of ways, particularly in its depiction of God the Father appearing to Mack (the central character) as a black African-American woman.

"The Shack" is endorsed by leading evangelicals, including Eugene Peterson (The Message) and Michael W. Smith from the USA and the evangelist J. John in the UK. Equally, it has been derided as Heresy by others, including Mark Driscoll (Mars HILL Church, Seattle) who I count amongst my Christian heroes.

What did I think of it? Well, at the risk of offending somebody - here goes....

Without giving the whole story away, the plot follows Mack, whose daugther Missy is abducted and murdered. For the following few years Mack is enveloped by "The Great Sadness." One cold winters morning he receives a letter from God inviting him back to the shack where his daughter is believed to have been murdered, though her body was never found. At the shack, Mack meets God - Father Son and Holy Spirit, and over the course of a weekend, his encounter with them transforms his life.

First - lets get the difficult and dodgy stuff out of the way. I found the depiction of the Father (Papa) as a black woman more than difficult to deal with. The first person of the Trinity is depicted throughout Scripture as a Father. In "The Shack", God explains that He is Spirit, and that any depiction of Him in human terms is purely for our benefit. In Scripture, there are ocassions where God shows clear 'feminine' characteristics, such as Jesus using the image of a mother Hen protecting her chicks, and defining his heart for Jerusalem in that picture. In the Old Testament, God is depicted as a mother desiring to breast feed and nourish her children. In Creation we read that God created Male and Female in His image. There is no doubt that it is the 2 together - Male and Female, that give completion to the image. God is neither Male nor Female, but Spirit. However, we have no Biblical mandate to present Him as a woman, and I found the image in the book deeply troubling.

Mark Driscoll's comments are interesting, and can be found on You Tube. However, having rewatched his comments after reading the book, I dont believe that he had read the book when he critiqued it. For example, he accuses the author of the heresy of 'modalism' (look it up - come on - do some of the work yourself!) He uses 1 quote to support this claim. The charge is not verified by a reading of the book.

The 1 other area that did trouble me though, was the possible suggestion of Universalism (that all will be saved whatever.) This is by no means explicit, but could be implied in a number of places. Particularly in one section where Jesus tells Mack that his followers come from all walks, races, political parties and religions - Hindu, Muslim, Mormon, etc. I re-read the section, and it seems to be deliberately ambiguous. Certainly people will follow Jesus from every tribe, people, tongue and nation, but they will have to come to Him as the only Saviour. The section in question has Mack mention about people being Christians, and Jesus responds "I never mentioned becoming a Christian!" It is deliberately ambiguous. However, the rest of the book seems to clearly suggest that if people want to know God, they must enter into a relationship with Him through Christ.

However (and you cant ignore the dodgy stuff - that's why I mention it), I was deeply moved by the book. I have no doubt that at times I had fresh insights into my relationship with God.

A couple of examples. Young's potrayal of "The Great Sadness" is just brilliant. Anyone who has had a deep sad, life changing (Life-numbing) experience will identify with it. His depiction of this cloak of despair is true to life, and many will see themselves in it.

The way in which Young deals with "The Great Sadness" is also brilliant. In a "Judgement" scene, God invites Mack to be Judge and Jury on his own children. He is told to choose 2 to go to Heaven and the others to destine to hell. He pleads with God "Let me take their place - let me go instead of them!"
"Now you sound like Jesus - you have Judged well" comes the reply!

In the book, there is also a wonderful depiction of Jesus at the centre of all things, with Creation and the redeemed gathering to worship Him. The scene that follows moved me to tears as Young writes... "Everything that had breath sang out a song of love and unending thankfulness. Tonight the universe was as it was intended!"

The last thing that I will mention is that the book deals as well as any (fictional book) with the issues of forgiveness and anger and bitterness. There is much Biblical wisdom in the way Mack is led to address the brokeness and pain in his own heart and family.

"The Shack" was a good read, moving, inspiring, and ultimately I would recommend it with the proviso that you read it as a piece of fiction, and not a systematic theology.

How on earth do you articulate what it is like to know God? I'm not just referring to knowledge about God - but knowledge of God. And I mean, really articulate it? Preachers are quick to remind us it's all about relationship not religion, and rightly so. But what does that actually mean? We all know what we think it means, but what about in practice, in reality, in everyday life?

One problem is that God is God. That sounds dumb, but it's one of the great Godness things about God that he is beyond us, beyond the finite. But because we are not, everything we say about him is going to be limited to some degree by our human limitations - we are finite creatures whose very language is confined by our existence, not his. We simply do not have the words to encompass an infinite God, let alone describe the experience of knowing him. But that does not mean our words are pointless or empty. They can still paint pictures and evoke reality.

Of course, our predicament is transformed when God himself gives us the vocabulary. He alone can bridge the chasm between the infinite and finite. And that is what the Bible essentially is. He speaks in words that are both intelligible to us and that articulate divine reality; and the glory of the Incarnation is that God does this to perfection. By accommodating himself to our level, Christ made the invisible visible, the remote tangible and the infinite finite. So when we relate to human friends, we have intimations of our relationship with our divine friend.

And that I think is partly what's going on in William Young's THE SHACK. This book brings this divine relationship into breathtakingly vivid reality by bringing God the Trinity right down to earth in human relationships. That's a pretty daring thing to do; some would say it's even dangerous. For while that is precisely what the Incarnation of the 2nd person does, it's quite another thing to do this for the Trinity as a whole. So it's fair to say that I've never read anything quite like this book. And despite some personal quibbles and John Crace's cynical and bolshie precis in The Guardian, I still think it's hugely helpful and lendable.
Eating with God?

Without giving too much away, Mack (beset still by his `Great Sadness') encounters the Trinitarian God in a disused shack in the Oregon wilderness. 4 years before in that very shack, Mack's 5-year old daughter Missy had been abducted and probably killed. As the result of a weird letter, Mack returns and spends an extraordinary weekend with God. There they are, all 4 of them, chatting, laughing and eating round the kitchen table! Mack + Father, Son & Holy Spirit. It is utterly captivating. Mack, the flawed, agonized and uncomprehending man, is drawn into the wonderful dynamic of divine love. And where better to do this than over a meal.

This has clear biblical precedent. Some of the disciples' most life-changing encounters with Jesus happened over food (eg Jesus' anointing by the 'sinful woman', Zacchaeus, the Last Supper, the post-Resurrection beach BBQ). And heaven is frequently alluded to as a (wedding) feast (Isaiah 55, Matt 22, Rev 19).

But of course this is extremely risky ground. Words are placed into the mouth of each member of the Trinity, and each person is given some sort of form. Nothing in the narrative fits exactly with what one would expect. Which is where its power lies. For every chapter makes you THINK - about what you really believe and why, about what is actually biblical as opposed to what is culturally assumed.

Heresy hunters will assume this book offers them a field-day (and the fact that it reached the New York Times bestseller list will only confirm their worst fears). And there are certainly questions about the book (to which i'll return) and it doesn't always avoid elements of American schmaltz. But this is fictional narrative, don't forget, and i did feel it was right more often than it was wrong. It confronts, without trite or easy answers, the biggest theological problem for the contemporary mind: divine goodness and human suffering.

Mack's suffering is every parent's nightmare, particularly close to the bone after the media-frenzied horror of Madeleine McCann's disappearance. But as Mack is drawn back to God by the most sparkling intimacy and joy, so are we. This book is truly a tonic for a tired, cynical and faithless believer (which describes me more often than I'd like). In the course of its affecting narrative, biblical realities come across strongly:

* The Persons of the Trinity are in constant, dynamic relationship, which is one of profound mutual love and commitment. It is a love that draws in and never excludes. And as Mack is drawn in, so are we.
* But most importantly, God's Sovereignty is fundamental throughout the book - even in the face of terrible circumstances. And strikingly, the love of God is what underpins this sovereignty. This is a truth that seems in short supply in too many believers' theology matrix.
* Mack's reaction to his daughter's disappearance is not so much to reject God's sovereignty but his goodness. He finds it impossible to trust him. This is a book about having that trust renewed - and it is fascinating how the book shows Jesus being the one that Mack most easily relates to initially, because of his shared humanity. But because of that, he is drawn to the others. It is all about knowing him - not about being religious.
* At times, the book might appear universalist (not least because of how the Holy Spirit is initially described) and hardly seems to mention the atonement - but these fears are eventually allayed. While not spelled out, the wonder of what Jesus is and has done underpins everything.

But there are still some Eyebrow-raisers
* The Father is initially encountered as an African American woman - John Crace's precis bitingly assumes that this is because it is written by an American liberal (but at least's she's American, he states). At first all one's theological hackles are raised by this theological outrage (!)- but as the book goes on, it seems to me to be fully justified and explained, if one would just give it the initial benefit of the doubt. If she reminded me of anyone, it was the Oracle in the Matrix movies.
* A bit more worrying are the marks of the cross (stigmata) on the Father's body. Is this verging uncomfortably close to the old heresy of Patripassionism which states that the Father himself suffers on the cross. If the point is simply that the Father is fully committed to the Son's mission to make atonement on the cross (in defence against the charge of cosmic child abuse) then fair enough, I suppose.
* Where does the church fit? Religion and institutions are in the book's firing line, and rightly so, because in themselves, they always fail to help a person in the face of pain. But the book could have done more to show how God's intention is to build a community through which he can work and dwell on earth.
* But my biggest concern in all this is the almost total omission of the doctrine of God's holiness. It seems to fall into the classic error of assuming that divine love/forgiveness and divine holiness are mutually exclusive - and of course, we all know which one we'd prefer. This is to miss the fundamental coherence between the two brought about by the cross. And from an apologetic point of view in a suffering world, divine holiness is essential.

The bottom line, though, is that this book makes us want to know God better and deeper - or to be more precise, to know the Trinitarian God revealed through Christ, and as a result, to trust him in the face of whatever life flings at us. How many other best-selling novels do that? And I think that this is probably what lies behind Eugene Peterson's rather over-blown endorsement. Well, it's nothing like the biblical, allegorical genius of Bunyan - but it IS a book to deepen faith that is getting a much wider airing than most Christian books. I guess, as fiction, it is more like an extended sermon illustration, with all the benefits and limitations that implies. No illustration is perfect - but they do reveal truth - as does the Shack. So read it and make your own mind up.

I would normally stay far away from 'Christian fiction' genre. A friend lent me this book so I read it. It is incredible.

The story is simple Mack's young daughter is abducted and killed on a family camping trip. Obviously this changes his life and makes him very bitter to God. The book is about a weekend Mack spends with God at the invitation of God at the place where his daughter was killed. It seems a really risky subject matter particularly as fiction. The conversations between God in his three persons and Mack which form the main part of the book are hugely thought provoking and unsurprisingly rather moving.

I found a sense of understanding about some issues that have been doubts in my faith. The overwhelming message is about how incredibly God loves every one of his children - people of faith and no faith. It certainly blows away a lot of the way 'religion' is seen and I found that hugely refreshing.

As soon as I finished reading it I started reading certain sections all over again.

For the reviewer who suspects a conspiracy because the other reviewers who gave a 5* hadn't reviewed anything else - I have, if that somehow makes any difference to my opinion.

I don't know how a reader of other faiths or no faiths would find the book - I suspect fairly irritating, although I feel still a lot could be taken away from it.