The Shack by Wm. Paul Young - A Book Review

As a general rule, I tend to stringently avoid books in the mainstream Christian realm, which have gained either secular acceptance or are touted as something that is akin to an addendum to the Bible. Sometimes, my curiosity gets the better of me and I will reluctantly pop down a few bucks to buy a used or at worse, extremely cheap-priced copy of the book. It happened with the whole "Purpose Driven Life" phenomenon a number of years back, and I thoroughly regretted dropping even a dollar for that utterly theologically-devoid tome. I have since come across people who consider that book a treastise of great theology, and I simply conclude that they obviously have not had much formal theological training to appreciate substance. While it is beyond the scope of this review to comment on Purpose Driven Life, I will simply say that it re-inforces my long-held belief that if a Christian book is popular in the mainstream market, something has gone wrong. Fact is, the Bible has always had opposition from the secular world, but that is to be expected, just like how the Bible teaches that the Christian life is not easy and that Christians will (not may, but will) be persecuted.

Fast forward years later and once again, I hear of a massive promotion of the latest Christian cross-cultural book phenomenon, "The Shack." Heck, our church is in on the action, as is many churches, both promoting the book for study, reflection, or personal enjoyment. The book is selling at Costco, Chapters, and anywhere else that sells best-selling paperbacks and hardcovers. Christian media is discussing this book as a fresh, much welcome inclusion for any believer's library. And both Christians and non-Christians are commending the books on its inherent ability to make one think deeper about faith, if not actually promote life-changing behaviour. Based on all this, and the fact that I am an occasional sucker for hype, I thought I'd drop ten bucks or whatever it was to snatch a copy of the book, despite the fact that it is recommended by Eugene Peterson, who is, on my list of Christian writers, near the very bottom, in terms of theological consistency and doctrinal objectivity. I first gave it to my wife, who tends to devour books much more quickly than myself. Ensuring that she was not to give anything away, I asked her for her opinion of the book, and to my surprise, she rated it as so-so. So last Friday, I decided to crack open the book and check it out for myself.

Now, setting some context here, without going into painstaking detail. Two Thursdays ago, my wife and I experienced our second miscarriage. We have two beautiful little kids, but the loss of another child was both disappointing and devastating to us, particularly when the second miscarriage occurred exactly two years to the day the last one happened (October 30, 2006). I was a complete mess the first time, and didn't fare much better this time, especially given the fact that my wife experienced a lot of complications which required multiple hospital visits.

In all of this, I experienced raw pain and all of the frustration with not understanding why God allowed this to happen to us, all came to the surface once again. So I thought it was somewhat of a strange coincidence that the book that I had planned to read dealt with a father who lost a child as a result of a gruesome murder, and who is now angry and deliberately distant with God. Hey, I could relate, and since I had some time at night to reflect, on these things, I thought I'd give the book a whirl.

Well, I am not one to beat around the bush, so here is my candid opinion of the book, and I will deviate from the standard review format (noting positive elements first, followed by negative elements - I am deliberately not doing it this way because of structure and flow of how I want to present my opinion). The first 80 pages were fabulous. I thought it was well written (for a Christian book - what a shocker!) and the rising action and pace of the story kept me turning the pages, well into the night. I really felt the main character, Mack Philip's, pain, despite the fact that he lost a six-and-a-half-year-old girl to what turns out to be a serial killer. I was pleasantly surprised by the vividness of the descriptive language of scenery, people, etc., and was enjoying the plot. At around page 80, I thought to myself, "OK, I can see why this book is so highly regarded by a number of different Christian folks".

Then everything started going downhill. I have never read a book like this before, that starts with such a high degree of promise, only to descend to the depths of utter lameness and cheesy dialogue. Where to begin... First, I started recognizing that this book is really not that much of a far cry from Purpose Driven Life. In trying really hard not to given anything away, all I can say is that the book probably resonates with so many people, because it takes the ever-popular "safe" approach to sprituality, emphasizing only part of the nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, while ignoring the other parts. Here's a quick illustration to demonstrate what I'm getting at here. Remember when Jesus caught that woman in adultery? The vast majority of people will conveniently quote Jesus' words "let who is without sin cast the first stone." Of course, these same people seemingly glide over the fact that Jesus, in addressing the woman, tells her "go and sin no more". These folks who promote such touchy-feely theology tend to focus more on the loving nature of God, without looking at the righteous side of God as well. And, furthermore, in many of these books, you will never hear any discussion of the nature of sin (it's important, since it's sin that separated us from God to begin with) or repentance (turning away from sin). Instead, what we get is a mish-mash of God as our beer drinking buddy, our friend who overlooks all our faults and will never point out our shortcomings, and a Jesus who just wants relationships, and will accept anyone's behaviour, even though He prescribes otherwise elsewhere in Scripture.

OK, so I'm being a bit vague here by not referring to the book, so I'll provide some specifics here, without revealing main plot points. First, I will come right out and say that this book is about as politically correct as they come. God is a big black woman (his words, not mine), the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman, and Jesus is some middle-eastern guy (at least that's closer than the other two). Now, this is addressed somewhat in the book through the lengthy discourses and conversations that the main character, Mack, has with each of these three characters (think of this book as the Christian version of the David Chilton best-seller "The Wealthy Barber" in which the characters impact financial advice, under the guise of a character conversation in a fictitious environment). The author, Wm. Paul Young, through the characters, indicate that this visible minority focus is supposed to dispel stereotypes, namely that God is an old white man. I personally have never held that view, but I'll play along, just for fun. The problem is, while Young goes out of his way to play up these characters (and a hispanic woman shows up much later as another character), he reinforces his own stereotypes of how each of these minority members act (ie. the smattering of awkwardly-timed ebonics from the black woman, supposedly in the role of God), the submissive, always bowing Asian woman, portrayed as the Holy Spirit, and the exotic beauty of the hispanic.

Now, one may think that this was what Young was trying to accomplish - to get people to stop thinking of God as a man. Problem is, God is not a woman either, so it would have been better to simply make God appear as a voice rather than assign a gender - now, Young later does gender-switch the black woman to be an old white man with a ponytail, but I don't get why he needs to specifically personnify God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. It certainly did not make it more believeable to me.

Some other observations: there are several points where men are slammed in the book, with the suggestion among the characters that women would be better to run our world, etc. There is the characterisation of the God (as a male) character and the Jesus (male) character kissing each other on the mouth, as a supposed sign of affection. And then there is the expected schpeel about the environment. If you didn't leave the book thinking that Young is trying to pander to special interests groups, then you are either part of those groups or you didn't pick up on those parts of the description.

While the above aspects already lower my opinion of the book, I have saved the best for last: my main beef with this book is that, theologically, it is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches. Now, I know what you are saying - I either have no imagination, or I am part of the structured religious establishment, for which Young indirectly chastises throughout the book. I don't agree with either assessment, since I write a lot of material, so certainly I must have some imagination in order to write excessive blog entries and other stuff, and while I am formally theologically trained, I believe I am one of those people who have taken a closer look at what I have been taught and systematically compare it to what the Bible says, under controlled conditions. Why is this important? Because without proper controls in Bible study, one can make the Bible say whatever they want. And hence, you get a book like this one, which obviously caters to people who are turned off by Christianity or who are angry at God. How attractive is the prospect that God can be whoever or whatever you want him to be? Don't believe me? It is striking that near the end when Mack gets ready to leave the shack, that the God character already packs his car up and Mack starts to think "God - my servant" (no, I am not taking that out of context - check the bottom of page 236 and the top of page 237).

(TO BE CONTINUED)