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.

So many people (well, OK, one or two, but that's unusual) have asked me about it I thought I should get a copy and read it. As usual I read it mainly on the bus to and from work. The loss of a child is a difficult subject to think about and read about. The emotional reaction that results is not really suitable for the bus. There are plenty of those too if you follow the story through.
The book attempts to provide personal answers to the problem of human suffering caused by other humans. To meet its purpose the author provides various characterisations of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and uses the parent-child relationship to explain what is going on. Humans have standard reactions to situations, so for example, when they are wronged they want revenge. God, it seems does not have the same reactions, but loves us all - all the time. (This is of course an unreasonably short summary - but it is precisely what I was struggling with as I arrived at work, 5 minutes after getting off the bus.)
Some of the images of God are helpful, some are not. There are a few other books where you can check the theology that The Shack proposes and provide some biblical comparison. Two longer reviews with more on this are:
http://www.challies.com/articles/the-shack-by-william-p-young
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001788.cfm

I nearly stopped at the start. The forward and early chapters are technically too difficult for a story. Things improve once we get to the centre of what's happening - the encounter with God. The ending is also difficult and the plot device used to 'cover up' God's intervention into his world is not dealt with particularity well. There is a lack of detail and the characterization pales in the last chapter as we try to understand the visible effects that the encounter has had on the main character and his relationships.

After reading it and reacting to it, remember that it is FICTION, and doesn't make a claim to be anything else. The god described in the pages bears a resemblance to the God that I know, but sometimes not a very close one. For me, at the end, it could never be transformational, but it is (mostly) a good, well written story, and very thought provoking.