The Shack

I make a modest attempt to keep up with popular spirituality, which means, among other things, reading New York Times best sellers once in a while. Of course a best seller is just a book that, for whatever reason, is selling like crazy, so I wasn’t particularly surprised to find that The Shack, by William P Young, is not a great book. But I’m still inclined to recommend it.

I don’t really like the style. It feels overwritten in places and, like too many Evangelical novels, tends toward drippy sentimentality. And it’s really mystifying to me that Young would begin the book with a Larry Norman quote that’s actually a very unpoetic reworking of a well known verse by Robert Frost. I feared for a moment that he was avoiding non-Christian references, but he later quoted Rousseau, Kahlil Gibran, and Albert Einstein. Go figure.

Apart from these style matters the only thing that seriously bothered me was The Missy Project outlined at the end of the book. This is a pretentious, self indulgent, marketing scheme in which readers who’ve “been touched by the wonder of this book” are asked to flog it as widely as possible, buying copies to give to family, friends and even total strangers. It seems to be working, however, so what do I know? One of the reviewers I read said he’s been buying them by the case. Hmmm, so that’s how you produce a best seller. Perhaps the Gideons could start placing it in hotel rooms alongside that other best seller. Come to think of it, maybe it’s naïve to imagine that good books can make it on their own.

All this being said, there are some things about The Shack I did enjoy. For example, the presentation of God in three persons was creative, and the Father appearing as a black woman was an interesting way to challenge the traditional, unbiblical stereotype. It was also fun to see Her cooking and cleaning and listening to heavy metal, secular music just for enjoyment and because She loves the artists. – Works for me. If we are to believe John 3:16 God loves Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin just as much as The Gaithers and Casting Crowns. – And She steadfastly insists that She’s “especially fond” of all of them.

The discussion of suffering and God’s purposes is also very worthwhile, as are the discussions of heaven, the church, God’s relationship with non-believers, and the importance and nature of forgiveness. These are matters we need to reflect on more thoughtfully than we often do, and this book gets the wheels turning. And I particularly appreciated the Father’s insistence that She never, for a moment, turned Her back on Jesus when he was dying on the cross; a view I've been promoting for many years. – And doesn’t this gender thing mess with your mind?

Of course, I have some theological disagreements with this book, as I do with almost everything, but who cares? it’s well worth reading. It won’t change the world, but if it manages to change our minds about a few things that’s more than enough to ask.

So many contemporary Christian books are dogmatic and narrow, answering questions no one’s asking. This one is open and inquisitive, questioning answers too many have accepted for too long. And it’s also kinda fun.