Book Review: The Shack

A friend of mine recently sent me a Facebook message asking me about my thoughts concerning a book entitled The Shack, authored by William P. Young.  I’m happy to have been asked my opinion, and below is my best shot at it.

I have not read the book myself, but that is mainly because I don’t read a lot of fiction, particularly when it comes to ones that offer a faulty description of God and biblical theology.

Moreover, practically all the reviews, comments and opinions I’ve heard regarding The Shack have been primarily negative, solely because it provides a blasphemous view of God (or better yet, god).  So when it comes down to it, I can usually find 100 other books I’d rather spend my minutes and God-given sheckles on.

Although I can’t provide an objective critique of The Shack, since I haven’t read it personally, below are comments and links to two thorough reviews provided by well-respected Christian leaders that I both follow and admire.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. (www.albertmohler.com), serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary — the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.  Here is the link for the review he wrote back on January 27, 2010 and below is an excerpt from the review itself.

“In the shack, “Mack” meets the divine Trinity as “Papa,” an African-American woman; Jesus, a Jewish carpenter; and “Sarayu,” an Asian woman who is revealed to be the Holy Spirit. The book is mainly a series of dialogues between Mack, Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu. Those conversations reveal God to be very different than the God of the Bible. “Papa” is absolutely non-judgmental, and seems most determined to affirm that all humanity is already redeemed…In evaluating the book, it must be kept in mind that The Shack is a work of fiction. But it is also a sustained theological argument, and this simply cannot be denied. Any number of notable novels and works of literature have contained aberrant theology, and even heresy. The crucial question is whether the aberrant doctrines are features of the story or the message of the work. When it comes toThe Shack, the really troubling fact is that so many readers are drawn to the theological message of the book, and fail to see how it conflicts with the Bible at so many crucial points.”

The other review I would refer my friend to is one written by Tim Challies (www.challies.com), who is editor of Discerning Reader and a co-founder of Cruciform Press.  Tim’s blog is one that I follow and have gleaned great content from for quite some time.  Here is the link for the review he wrote back on January 15, 2008 and below that is an excerpt from the review itself.

“There are two things I would like to note about this type of book—theological fiction. First, because of the limitations of the genre, it is sometimes difficult to really know what an author means by what he says. There is often some question as to what comes from the author and what comes from the characters. The author cannot always adequately explain himself; nor can he provide footnotes or references to Scripture. It can be challenging, then, to turn to the Bible to ensure that what he teaches is true. This makes the task of discernment doubly difficult, for one must first interpret the fiction to understand what is being said and then seek to compare that to the Bible. We will do well to keep this in mind as we proceed.

Second, we must also realize that, because of the emotional impact of reading good fiction, it can be easy to allow it to become manipulative and to allow the emotion of a moment to bypass our ability to discern what is true and what is not. This is another thing the reader must keep in mind. We cannot trust our laughter or our tears but must allow our powers of discernment to be trained to distinguish good from evil (see Hebrews 5:14). Discernment is primarily a Spirit-empowered discipline of the mind rather than an emotional response.”

QUESTION:  If you read The Shack, what are your thoughts about the book?

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