The Shack

This book was a healing journey. Sure Young turns things I have imagined about God on it's head - but good grief Charlie Brown - it's fiction. I loved the part when Mac is asking Papa (God the Father) if Macs mess-ups are disappointing to God. My paraphrase - of course not, I'm especially fond of you. I know the beginning and the end. I know it will take 35 times for you to learn this and every time you mess up you are that much closer to getting it. Amen. I invited the author to speak at our family camp this sumer. He's coming. Join us [...]

After I started reading and got into the spiritual aspects of the book I had to throw it away! This book does not match up to scripture on so many different levels. It grieves me that it is so popular!!! My prayers are said for the author who seems to be out of touch with who God is.

I was just blown away by this book. I knew it was fiction, but the author made me stop and think............... and think. Every Christian and non Christian alike should read this book. I read it and then ordered 6 to give to friends.

I will probably update these brief comments later...

Pluses:

I think it does a good job bringing the point in that God is a "Person" and that His ablity to relate to people is based upon the fact of the Trinity itself. This point alone can be beneficial in apologetics of the God of the Bible vs. other gods.

That God is "deeper than rules" is related to this and I think is brought forth in a thought provoking manner.

Suffering and injustice being seen from a perspective outside of our temporal vision is another big plus.

Minuses:

The book leans too much on having a "relationship" with God as if we as fallen humans can just somehow learn to "stop and listen to the Holy Spirit" at any time. Only One did and His doing so perfectly all of His Life is the basis of any hope we have of a "relationship" with God. As fallen beings are not able to hear so clearly and there is no mention of using the Bible as a guide to those issues of morality that we often get murky on and need to be challanged about.

No real need for the Community of the Saints is mentioned especially about such things as Historic Christianity hammered out to separate itself from cultish belief systems (yes, the creeds of old which some consider to be a "religious, dirty, thing"). Kind of a "you hear from the Christian God and I'll hear from the Christian God" and we should just be able to get along fine.


I would recommend the Lutheran work of fiction, "The Hammer of God" as an illustration as to why holding to doctrinal beliefs can be important.

At the risk of sounding sensationalistic, I would like to have returned to me the hours of my life I spent reading this book. I will give the author two stars for creativity. However, the rest of the book can best be described as . . . unusual. If you are a person with strong Christian beliefs you may find this book offensive. In The Shack, God the Father is a stereotypical large woman, the Holy Spirit is a fairy flying around the room, etc. Perhaps for some individuals, this comes across as a well written book. To me it seemed contrived.