A Review of William Paul Young’s “The Shack”

I spent some time this summer reading The Shack after it was brought up in a sermon at our church then by my mother in law who was encouraged to read it. Before this I had never heard of it. But apparently it has spread like a flame among Christians. At the time of my writing this review it holds a 4 star rating at Amazon.com and can boast over 4,300 reviews. It can also glory in endorsements form celebrities ranging from Christian musician Michael W. Smith to Wynonna Judd.

I wound up spending more time reading this book than I wanted to, so I hope that this review will save some folks from wasting time in reading it. From the outset I want to say that I understand where the author, William Paul Young is coming from. He grew up as a missionary kid, so he has some grounding in theology. The aim of his book is a two pronged exploration into a relationship with God. The first prong is a theodicy, or in other words an explanation of how evil can exist in God’s universe. The second prong is an attempt at explaining the relationship people can have with the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Young gives us a theodicy through the experiences of a fictional character named Mack, who was physically abused by his Christian father and whose daughter was killed by a serial murderer. Due to these events, Mack had grown distant from God holding, grudges against Him. One day Mack gets a letter from God asking him to meet in the shack where his daughter’s murder took place. There he meets God, who goes by “Papa” (a derivation of the Biblical Abba [Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6]) and who is seen in the form of an African American motherly woman. He also meets Jesus who is a Jewish carpenter in jeans, and the Holy Spirit, who appears as a young Asian woman named Sarayu (which is Sanskrit for “fast moving” or “air,” “wind”). The purpose of the author in representing the three persons of God with these characters is due in art to Mack’s skewed image of “father.” So instead of presenting the Father as a male, He (or she in this case) is presented as a motherly figure. “Papa” being represented as African seems to lie in the author’s deconstructionist agenda which is seen throughout. Mack had seminary training, and so he must go through a series of encounters with the Trinity to deconstruct then reconstruct his theology. As far as the Theodicy goes, Mack sees that God allows pain and suffering, and still holds a great love for His creatures. But the ultimate reason for Mack’s particular suffering is not given, because he would not understand (p. 224). Mack sees his daughter in heaven and his father too, both in bliss. Thus he is able to drop his grudge against God, and even ultimately against the murderer of his daughter following God’s example of forgiveness.

The second prong of The Shack is to make the Trinity ore accessible to the reader through Mack’s weekend with God. The glaring issue with Young’s personification device is that not only is the Father and Spirit female, but that they are personified as humans at all. To do so with the Son is in keeping with Biblical truth, that He became truly man and remained truly and fully God. Mark Dever actually gives a good critique on this point, that Young is presenting goddess worship where God clearly throughout all of Scripture desires to be seen as male (occasionally as neuter in the case of the Holy Spirit).  I was very uncomfortable getting close to this character that was supposed to be the eternal Father, being called here “Papa” and referred to a “she.” All of the good feminine instincts that Women have are a refection of God's nature as equally as a man's. Even Jesus said that he desired to gather Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Nevertheless, when God wants to be called a "he" we ought to submit to Him and do so. Another big problem I had with this personification device is that it falls so far short of the actual Trinity, in that it reads as tritheism (or having three gods). This is in fact closer to the Islamic charge of having three gods that they hold against Christians. God is represented in Scripture as being spirit, not material (John 4:24). He is also said to not be a man (Numbers 23:19). God is not any race of humanity, nor does He prefer, for their is neither Jew nor Greek, but we are all equal in Christ. 

What the book is conspicuously missing is the means by which we are restored to a relationship with God. The book indicates that all of the characters are already believers, and thus only need to be realigned to God. Salvation thorough faith alone in Christ alone is not mentioned. An unbeliever coming to this book would walk away with warm feelings for God at best.

In the end, I did not understand the Trinity better, but instead I had to wade through a lot of glib and emotional theology which felt more than anything based on the subjective position of the author. I know that he was attempting to do us a service in bringing us closer to God, but what wound up happening was he gave us a strange surreal fantasy that at best echoed Biblical theology sometimes. C. S. Lewis in his Narnia series does a much better job at this. But even he fails and lacks the real beauty and truth presented in God’s Living Word. Go there for your understanding about God, not to this broken cistern.

-MKB