Review of "The Shack"

I read The Shack by William Young about a month ago and have been wanting to blog about it but just wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say. I feel like no matter how hard I try that I won’t be able to adequately explain the premise or do it justice. Plus, a lot of times when books are rooted in elements of Christianity, much of the secular world is hesitant to read them. I really feel this is a book that anyone, regardless of his or her religious beliefs, could enjoy.

Despite being a Christian, I too am not really into all the Christian-based literature. I feel like oftentimes that the stories are wrapped up too neatly at the end. Most Christian based literature ends with the theme of "My life sucked because I disobeyed God. Then I decided to listen to him, turn my life over to Him and miraculously my life got better and everything then became perfect." Anyone who keeps at least one foot rooted firmly in reality knows that regardless of your religious beliefs there is no guarantee to a "perfect" or "happy" life. Fortunately, this book doesn’t really wrap things up to where everything makes sense at the end just because the main character re-establishes his relationship with God.

To a lot of Christians who read this you have to be willing to get over a lot of the preconceived notions and common perceptions that standard Christianity preaches about God and the Trinity. This book is not theology or rooted in biblical doctrine. It is fiction, a parable to try to explain the nature of one God as three separate people. It also aims to explain the relationship between the three. If you can get over the fact that in the book God is a black woman, which for me shattered all impressions I had of God but by the end found it strangely comforting in the sense that the author meant to show that God becomes for you what you need him to be, then the other spiritual aspects won’t seem so shocking. God also appears as the traditional father figure with an explanation that we commonly perceive and refer to God as our father because oftentimes a strong father figure is what most people are missing in their lives.

The story follows a father grappling with the loss of his 6-year-old daughter. She was kidnapped while camping and is presumed to be dead. Understandably the father is devastated; the family struggles to move on, the surviving daughter blames herself and is becoming more distant with her family. The father calls the role God plays in their lives into question. That is the crux of the book. It attempts to make sense of why God allows unspeakable tragedies occur. It also attempts to answer where God is in this world of pain and why He doesn’t step in and interfere when things like this are about to happen. It illustrates in simplistic terms God’s love for us and the relationship he desires with us. It made me look at the idea of the Trinity in a way I had never before thought of. To obviously buy into certain aspects of the book there is the presumption one is familiar with the fundamental basics of Christianity. Believing those basics isn’t a pre-requisite to understanding or enjoying the book though.

There has been both overwhelming praise and criticism for this book. It sits among the top on the best sellers’ list and has for some time. I think both the praise and the criticism are a bit extreme. Yes, it is a good book. Yes, it made God seem more caring and real as opposed to some invisible man who sits in the sky watching passively as bad things happen in the world around us. Is it based on Biblical doctrine? No. It takes the general premise and mixes it with quite a bit of liberal interpretation. The story is told in such a way to try to explain in the most simplistic of terms what is truly an issue of faith, something that really can’t be explained or rationalized. The ideas, concepts, and experiences described in the book are used to illustrate what he perceives to be the type of relationship God desires with each individual and to also explain and demonstrate the relationship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have with each other. He takes the concept of the Trinity in keeping with Christian theology and attempts to demonstrate how they can be both three persons and one God at the same time. I would not tout this book as doctrine meant to be taken as a literal depiction of God. It is clearly not meant to be taken literally, but figuratively.

I did find it to be interesting and enjoyable despite the fact that much could be reworked to make it clearer and more concise. I think it is a good book for anyone to read but maybe especially for those who seem to be struggling with their faith or for those who have lost faith as a result of a personal tragedy.

Has anyone else read this? If so, what did you think?