My grandmother recommended
the Shack to me a few weeks ago. She had read it and wanted someone to discuss it with her. Here are some of my thoughts about this popular novel...
The Shack
William Young
Overview
The Shack is a fictional story about an average man named Mackenzie. “Mack” as he is called is a successful businessmen, happily married, and has five children. While on a camping trip the youngest, Missy is kidnapped and brutally killed by a serial killer. Mack and his wife Nan try to adjust, but Mack specifically finds it difficult to accept this from God. He receives a note in the mail box one day inviting him too “the Shack” where Missy’s blood stained dress was found. The note is signed by Papa, an endearing name for God that Nan used. Mack hesitated, but finally decides to go to the shack. There at the Shack Mack spends a weekend with God. God the Father first appears as an African American woman, Jesus as an flannel wearing Middle Eastern carpenter, and the Holy Spirit as a Far Eastern woman whom fades in and out of sight.
During that time Mack interacts with all three members of the Trinity on questions ranging from God’s purpose in evil, the need for Christ, and the necessary act of forgiveness. Mack comes to the point where he quits blaming God for allowing Missy to be killed, he forgives his father who was an alcoholic and beat him and his mom. He also forgives the man who killed Missy. Mack also gains a greater understanding of God’s desire for his children to think in terms of a relationship with Him, and not see it as a list of rights and wrongs, or religion. The book concludes with Mack returning home with a new view of life and God. Mack is able to locate the body of Missy, which eventually leads to the arrest of the killer. Mack’s desire is to meet with him, and share God’s love with Him.
Positives
• As a new parent, the grief of losing a child is much more imaginable. Frankly, I’m scared of what I would become if something ever happened to Hudson. Many of the questions Mack asks about the nature and allowance of evil by God are honest and understandable. At the climax of the story, in Mack’s court session where God is on trial the question is posed,
“Isn’t your just complaint, Mackenzie? That God has failed you, that he
failed Missy? That before the Creation, God knew that one day your
Missy would be brutalized, and still he created? And then he allowed that
twisted soul to snatch her from your loving arms when he had the power to
stop him. Isn’t God to blame, Mackenzie?
These questions are heart-felt and in many ways reflect the pain and sorrow that we all feel when we experience tragedy in this life. The answers to these questions and others seem to balance God’s sovereign reign and man’s free will rather nicely as God points to man’s choice as the cause of evil (this going all the way back to the Tree of knowledge of good and evil) and God working through our inferiorities to bring about His will.
• I can’t imagine trying to write a fictitious book including Trinity in characters. As has been mentioned above all three members of Trinity are present with Mack at the Shack. I found this pleasantly surprising, as much of our culture seems to view God from a Unitarian perspective. I also did not have as hard a time with God as an African American woman as some reviews I have read. God even states, “Mackenzie, I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you.” He goes on to say that Mack could not picture him as a father because of the negative experience he had with his own father. Later, after Mack and his father reconcile, God appears as an older man.
• The details of the book and Mack’s experience with God at the shack were well written and presented in a way that captivated my imagination. In many ways the book was a reminder of the greatness of God, and the future home we have in heaven. This home is not a place of clouds, harps, and pillow fights, but will be real and is beyond our comprehension or imagination.
Negatives
• I appreciated the author’s desire to communicate that our faith should be about a relationship, not a system of do’s and don’ts, of right’s and wrong’s. I felt at times the idea was rather vague, as we are just supposed to please Him, and somehow we will have a feeling about it. I thought he could have expounded on that.
• At times the Trinitarianism was a little unclear. This would be difficult to communicate clearly, but at times its as if he is saying they are one, just expressed differently, instead of three distinct persons. For example, Papa (God the Father) has scars on her hands from the cross, just as Jesus did.
• There was certainly a hint of Eastern Mysticism especially with any conversation or experience Mack had with the Holy Spirit. This is extremely concerning and should be tread upon carefully.
Final Analysis
The Shack serves as a wonderful reminder for us when we experience tragedy, that God more than anyone else understands the pain and the sorrow we are experiencing. For it was Christ Jesus who unfairly hung on the cross as a result of our sin. He was our Substitute. It also reminds us that we must trust God in those circumstances, knowing that He allows them not because He is not good, but because we as human beings chose independence over unity with Him. That independence has caused this fallen world, and all the evils that take place.
The book also serves to remind us that forgiveness is necessary first of all for us. I can’t imagine forgiving someone who would harm Hudson, yet it was Christ Himself who declared from the cross, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Overall, I would recommend this book to those who would be interested in it. Warning them not to base one’s theology on the teachings of it particularly in the Trinitarian area, but rather to focus on the sovereign plan of God in trials and the message of forgiveness.
