Correction appended
Despite what critics have said about his highly popular and hotly debated best-seller, The Shack, author William Paul Young remains convinced that his book “is a God thing.”
“I absolutely am convinced that this is a God-thing that God is the One stirring this all up, challenging us to rethink and entertain growing deeper in a relationship with Him rather than pursuing our independence,” Young said during a live chat with book lovers last week.
Though Young had not originally intended the novel to be for public consumption, since its debut on the market last year, The Shack has reaped in a surprising amount of success, generating a large amount of buzz – both positive and negative – within Christian circles.
“This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his,” stated Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus Of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, in a published endorsement for the book. “It’s that good!”
Young’s No. 1 New York Times best-selling book tells the fictional redemptive story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips, whose daughter is tragically abducted and murdered during a family vacation.
Four years after the tragedy, Phillips receives a note, supposedly from “God,” inviting him back to the abandoned shack where evidence of his daughter’s murder had been found. When Phillips accepts the offer and returns to the shack, he enters into a kind of spiritual therapy session with “God,” who appears in the form of a jolly African-American woman and calls herself “Papa;” Jesus, who appears as a Jewish workman; and Sarayu, an indeterminately Asian woman who incarnates the Holy Spirit.
“This is a story of one believer’s brokenness and how God reached into that pain and pulled him out and as such is a compelling story of God’s redemption,” explained author and former pastor Wayne Jacobson, who was part of a team that worked with Young on the manuscript for over a year and also is part of Windblown Media, the company he and Young formed to print and distribute The Shack.
“The pain and healing come straight from a life that was broken by guilt and shame at an incredibly deep level,” Jacobson wrote in his personal blog, “and he (Young) compresses into a weekend the lessons that helped him walk out of that pain and find life in Jesus again.”
Young says he had suffered sexual abuse in New Guinea as the child of Canadian missionaries and spent a decade in therapy trying to earn back his wife’s and family’s trust after an extramarital affair 15 years ago.
In 2005, Young started writing what would eventually be The Shack to show how he had healed by forging a new relationship with God.
“It wasn’t an intended thing,” Young said during an interview earlier this year on The Drew Marshall Show. “It wasn’t saying ‘Well, this is the new formula for touching the hearts of the people,’ but people are – they’re just starving for authenticity. They’re just starving for someone to stand up and say, ‘You know what? God loves the worst of us – the losers, the screw ups.”
“I’m an example of what grace looks like,” he added.
Young says he receives up to a couple hundreds of e-mail each day in which people communicate to him the “transformational” impact of the story.
“I know of three 'avowed atheists' who have embarked on a relationship with God because of this story,” Young said during last Wednesday’s weekly “Authors at Abunga” chat at Abunga.com. “This is a God thing and I am just thankful to be a part of this.” Continue >>
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The Shack has sold over 6 million copies to date. I think its success is a clear indication of the deep spiritual questions people are asking like, "Why does God allow tragedy to happen to good people? Does God really care about me? Who is God really?" etc. I think, rather than attacking the author's theology, we should assist people who are asking these questions by pointing them to Scripture. That's what I'm trying to do at http://shackstudyguide.blogspot.com. Please help by posting your questions and insights. Thanks.
yes
god is one there is know other
Hello all. I have read the book, and, I have read The Book. Any time that Jesus Himself told a story, it seems that many religious people would miss the point, particularly those in 'authority.' The point, as I see it, was the basic theological ground of theodicy, that God is good, no matter what happens in our everyday lives. God is good, loves us with an everlasting love, and wants to live with and within us... an indwelling apart from which we cannot attain or maintain righteousness. Sure, theology has been stretched somewhat... but any attempt to describe the Trinity is going to be heretical at some point, as it just cannot be done completely and accurately with human words (Remember, it took the Church over 300 years of meetings and councils to hammer it out in a form that most could agree upon). But back to the point of Young's story... God is good, loves you more than you'll ever know, and has a wonderful plan for your life (even though it does not look like it sometimes), and particularly for the life to come! Enter the rest.
I have read The Shack, and I enjoyed it immensely, especially as our son died of cancer 6 years ago. I could identify with Mackenzie. May we portray God the Father as He appears to a grieving father as a loving, Afro-American woman; God the Son as a loving, Jewish workman; and God the Holy Spirit as a loving, spiritual woman? I suppose we should also consider C S Lewis' Narnia series, when we answer this question. I must admit that I loved reading those books as well, although the link between Aslan (God) and a lion has somehow made me feel uncomfortable. God portrays Himself as a spurned, hurting husband in the prophesy of Hosea. Jesus is portrayed as a bridegroom, a shepherd and a lamb. The Holy Spirit as a wind (e.g. Gen 1:2 and John 3:1f). We stand on holy ground, especially as we do as uninspired people what the Biblical writers did as inspired men. Was the Triune God blasphemed in The Shack? After all, 'Papa' did not do or say anything un-Biblical about what the Scriptures tell us about God, does he (she)?
I agree with throughitall. I got about 2/3 of the way through this book and couldn't stomach any more of it. It may be fiction, but the portrayal of the Trinity is not just quaint, it's so far off reality and biblical truth that it is harmful. People will read this and believe this is indeed how the Trinity is to be perceived. There are dozens of segments in the story that just made me cringe. 'Emergents' are indeed setting us up to begin believing in an apostate gospel. I encourage everyone to read "Faith Undone" by Roger Oakland as he spells out just how serious this problem is in the church today.
I am a man of my God, I love Him with all of my heart and I tell my children about His Love every single day! There is no excuse for those who wish to miss the message in this gift to a dad's children. I am truly grateful for and deeply moved by this piece of literature. Never allow your relationship to devolve to a religion. If this book in any way offends your sense of God's dignified character then perhaps you should spend some more time playing with your children and watch the joy in their eyes at a Father who loves them.
“[B]ut in the process,†he continued, “what they have written have actually told us much more about them than about the book.â€Â
Typical. Typical. Criticizing false theology always, "says something about the critic."
Here is what it says about Challies:
"I believe the Bible has more authority than William Young"
Here is what it says about Driscoll:
"I am too busy fighting heretics off that try to destroy the faiths of people in my church, that I won't waste my time reading every raving lunatic's ideas."
God is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the
creator of all things. To say "it is a god thing"
is real close to using His name in vain. Emergents
cheapen God and His grace.
The portrayal of the Father and the Spirit in human form are un-Scriptural. Young's explanations of free will and of the Trinity may be counter to current theological teaching, but not without some Scriptural support.
I personally found the emphasis on relationship to be just what I needed, and some descriptions of free will were intriguing, causing me to think long into the night.
All in all, IMHO The Shack is a marvelous work. Just remember: It is a tale of tragedy transformed, NOT a theological treatise.
that is because, there are those in christiandom who rely on a very specific form to represent god. yet god isnt about form, but instead spirit.
john4 says that god is spirit and the true worsippers will worship in spirit and truth.
paul in romans says, in the new covenant, we serve of and are led by the spirit.
what spirit or what truth is expressed in "the shack" that comes against the spirit of christ?
Yet another example of pragmatic "results" justifying unbiblical truth. Anymore in Christendom, if something engenders good feelings about "God," then it must be of Him. Someone broken from tragedy would be much better served reading the one Book that really "is a God thing"--the BIBLE (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16)!