Book Review:

As a caution for those who might be sensitive to traumatic circumstances involving children, this book involves the murder of a child. While it isn’t detailed or graphic and it has a beautiful ending, it does have some parts that might be hard to read in the first part of the book, especially in the chapter entitled, “The Great Sadness.” So if you decide to read it, please be sure to ask the Lord to give you a spirit of faith.

Although there are many interesting points in this novel, we’re not proposing any new doctrines by mentioning this book. If the points in it help you to understand some things in a deeper way, then that’s wonderful. Many people in the world, and already some in the Family, have found that the explanations of some issues in the story have helped them grasp principles that they had had difficulty grasping before.

This book is not light reading, even though it has a very interesting storyline. Many things that are brought out are quite deep and thought-provoking. So those of you who decide to read it might want to plan to read it in smaller segments, or at a time when you can do more than just skim over it.

P.S. This book is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans and Dutch, and translations are in the works in Danish, Japanese, Italian, Swedish, French and German, with other translations planned.

Since so many people in the world are reading this bestseller, you may want to be able to discuss it with your friends. These discussions could lead to people opening their heart very deeply.

Jesus said about this book and its author: “This man did open his heart in sincere desperation, and over the space of several years, step by step, I showed him many things in what he calls his conversations with Me. I’m ready to reveal whatever the heart is sincerely seeking, if it’s going to be good for the one who is asking.

“In this case, Will, as I like to call him, had come to the end of his rope. He was clinging in desperation to what little faith in Me he had left. He was open to anything I wanted to tell him, and I couldn’t deny such desperation.

“He didn’t face the circumstances that are laid out in the book, but many of the lessons he learned were the same in principle. He is a humble man, simple in spirit, and this is a message that I knew I could trust him to give. I have had many who simply did what they could do and let Me speak through them the best way they knew how.

“So many people turn hardships into bitterness, but through opening his heart to Me and letting Me speak to Him, he chose to turn his hardships into something wonderful.

“I’ll use anyone, anywhere, to pour out as much as they will allow Me to. Will just happens to have been an exceptionally hungry and open channel for My love to pour through.

“Not everyone likes this book. For some of those whom you minister to, it will be too deep, too unsettling, or just too much work to try to understand. But for those who are willing or interested in finding these answers, it has some very deep truths that can be a help to them.”

Here's an interesting article on "The Shack"

By Gordon MacDonald, Leadership Journal

Soon after William Paul Young’s The Shack hit the bookstores, a friend handed me a copy and said, “You need to read this; it’s going to be the next bestseller.”

I put the book on my “to read” pile, and it remained there for several weeks. Then, in an idle moment, I picked it up and scanned the first few pages. Soon I stopped scanning and started reading.

The Shack got to me. Admittedly, Young seemed to stray across a few theological boundary lines, but I found myself less concerned about that and more captivated by the way he raised so many of the issues that spiritually devastated people have inside and outside Christianity. I’m thinking of issues like bitterness, guilt, powerlessness, and emotional paralysis that often originate from traumatic experiences in one’s past.

As I read, I heard Young saying, “Let’s fool with an out-of-the-box story that might offer us a fresh appreciation of some very old truths about who God actually is—and how far God might go to establish restorative relationships with broken people like us.”

After several chapters, I put the book down. I decided that I could go no further until my wife, Gail, was able to share the reading with me. That evening we lit some wood in the fireplace, and I started back at page one, this time reading The Shack aloud to her. As I read I found myself pausing several times to deal with strange surges of emotion that The Shack tends to elicit from all but the most resistant people.

Gail and I finished The Shack in two evenings and agreed that we’d never read a book quite like it. We spoke of the way the author had prodded us to think new thoughts about the three persons of the Trinity. We went back through the pages and identified places where we’d been startled by the author’s insights on the nature of evil and grace. We even laughed at some of the clever antics used by the Three-who-were-One to point out the way of salvation.

Some weeks later I met my first Shack critic. He and others I would later meet were deeply disturbed that Young had dared to portray the members of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as eccentric personalities with offbeat ways of communicating their message.

More than once I heard Young accused of blasphemy. I heard him labeled a post-modernist for whom “truth” meant nothing. I was told by one Shack-detractor that anyone refusing to denounce the author and his book could not be considered a sound evangelical.

I can admit to a sense of shock when I realized in the course of my reading that Young had chosen to portray God our Father as an absolutely enchanting, powerfully mothering, African-American woman. But I will also admit that it wasn’t too long in my reading before I found myself wanting to sit at her kitchen table and to enjoy her cooking, her conversation, and her maternal affection. The beauty of the fellowship generated by her presence was what many of us have sought for a lifetime and so rarely experienced.

So what does one do with The Shack? Throw it aside because of its theological liberties? Or let it speak into those places in our lives where we long for a closer walk with Him?

I wonder if those who are critical of Young’s fictional description of divinity have ever contemplated that David used a similar literary method when he wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd …”

Did Psalm 23 collect critics when it was released? Was anyone offended when Israel’s God was portrayed as a shepherd?

If I’ve got it right, shepherds in ancient times were not the clean, romantic figures that we cast in our Christmas pageants. As I understand it, shepherds in ancient times were, more often than not, skuzzy, unkempt people that one might prefer to avoid. My perception is that most shepherds did not own their sheep but were merely hirelings (temps, if you please) who did the messy work of flock-tending for sheep-owners who probably lived in town. Bottom line: Shepherds lived on the underside of society.

So how does one convey to ancient people the splendor of a redeeming God who is good, gracious, caring, and patient to a fault? How does one describe a God who is not aloof, not capricious, and not cruel or vindictive as most ancient divinities were perceived to be? In short, how does one celebrate a God who is ever-present, always guiding, constantly nurturing and restoring?

Well, I suppose one could just line up these nice words in the previous paragraph and say, “There you are. There’s God … theologically described.”

Then again, one might make the same point by reaching into everyday life and finding a figure, like a shepherd, for example, and say, “God is something like what you see in that person.”

Perhaps that was what David had in mind. He was confident that everyone had seen shepherds and could picture them leading their sheep toward green pastures and cool waters.

The picture of a simple shepherd in motion—grimy though he might be—was sheer genius when it came to forming impressions of who God is and how He connects with those who are the sheep of His pasture. Once the Psalm was read, anyone in the ancient world could possess a picture of an incredible God who provides “everything that I need.”

Then there’s The Shack. I think Young had the same idea the Psalmist had. Find a way, any way, that will open the heart of a broken person and point him toward Heaven and all of its redeeming love. Tell the old, old story in new and astonishing ways.

Gordon MacDonald is editor at large of Leadership and interim president of Denver Seminary.