The Shack

I've read about this book over the past few years and about the considerable amount of controversy it stirred among evangelical Christians after its release. Young writes a work of fiction that is also a commentary on theology. He deals with the concepts of good and evil, the nature of the trinity, forgiveness, and Biblical love and relationship.

In sum, Young's allegory has the main character Mack, who is coping with his child's death, meet with the personified Holy Spirit, God, and Jesus in the shack where his child was murdered. God is an African-American woman, Jesus is a Middle-Eastern man, and the Holy Spirit is a petite Asian woman. He also meets Sophia (lady wisdom) and has other other-worldly experiences in his journey to reconcile with his daugther's death.

This is a poorly written book. Primarily this is because Young is not a writer by trade, self-published this book, and the book became popular through word-of-mouth within churches and was later sent through a more formal editorial process before mass print. If you judge this book as a novel, it generally fails to achieve its initial aims: that is to explain how tragedy (or evil) occurs despite the presence of a benevolent God, or alternatively how someone who has lost a child (especially through the heinous act of another) can come to terms. Young becomes lost down too many rabbit holes, some that are unrelated to his central aim (for example, long discussions between the trinity and "Mack" Mackenzie about creation) to explore grief and tragedy. Moreover, "Mack" seems like a fairly one-dimensional character who abruptly comes to forgive his daughter's killer only after God continually implores him that he "must" forgive the killer; ironic, considering that most of the book discusses how God doesn't want to "impose His will" on anyone. In any case, Mack has a sudden, 180 degree turn around when it comes to his depression, anger, and resentment that seems fairly unnatural and forced into the book.

On the other hand, many Christians have criticized Young's theology in The Shack as heretical. I'm not going to dig into that subject. I can't say that I'm an authority on this matter, and I'm honestly not sure if he is wholly wrong, right, or somewhere in between. I would say fairly that those who condemn The Shack as heresy and those who praise the Shack as "better than the Bible" are both exaggerating. I found it troubling that Young decided to personfiy God as a "big fat black woman" (to quote an African-American pastor I listened to on YouTube). It's not that depicting God as black is inherently problematic (and I suppose one could argue that trying to depict God as human, in the first place, is a problem). The problem is that Young uses various stereotypes from popular culture in the construction of the God character: (s)he says "Sho' Nuff" and "True Dat," cooks wonderful pancakes and collard greens, and warns Mack that eating too many greens will "give you the trots." Ugh. This is offensive, conforms to the "Aunt Jemima" stereotype of the black housemaid, and the dialogue is also rather unbecoming of the Godhead that Young desperately tries to depict. Similar problems with unnecessary, awkward, or weird dialogue persist throughout the book.

All that being said, it probably sounds like I hated this book. I actually found that it did some things very well: depicting an ideal of love and human relationship, and decrying the triumvirate evils of "organized religion, political systems, and economies" that have brought undue hardship on many people. Young certainly has an axe to grind with the organized Christian church, and often has Jesus remark that "I'm not a Christian" or "Many people do and say things in my name, and actually act contrary to my will." Unfortunately, just how Young sees politics and economics working toward the evil of the individual is left largely unspoken and undeveloped. Anyways, I'll probably read his new book "Eve" to see how some of his ideas have developed since he published The Shack.

C. S. Lewis's The Great Divorce is similar to The Shack in it's attempt to understand the afterlife through allegory. I'd highly recommend that work for those who enjoyed The Shack.

3/5 stars.