The Shack, by William P. Young

After hearing an annoying amount of people tell me that they absolutely loved this book, or that it changed their lives, after hearing too many accolades about what I decided was just the newest trendy book, I finally gave in to the hype and read The Shack by William Young.

Religious fiction is the appropriate gengre I believe for this book, and though it is extremely trendy, trendiness, contrary to my first assumption, is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather, after blazing through the 250 page dreamed divine encounter I must say our popular Christian culture could use more books like this.

Yes, I give my oh-so-coveted endorsement to this book, and the ground from which I give it is theological.

Mack is a husband and father, the out-doorsy type, whose youngest daughter is tragically murdered while on a family camping trip by a serial killer in an abandoned shack deep in the wilderness. Years later he returns to the shack searching for answers and encounters God in the form of three persons.

The book is heavily weighted with big theological questions, the biggest being Where is God in the midst of suffering? Worried that Young was writing from a theolgically mainline and conservative point of view I expected blaise answers to these questions to pop up offering little satisfaction to inquiring readers. Delightfully, Young challenges our narrow-minded views of God, and instead he presents God often in new ways and offeres fresh perspectives for understanding God's love for people.

The author covers a fair array of theological issues such as Trinitarian metaphors, theodicy, vengeful-God theory, God's love for all (yes everyone), salvation, atonement theories, and institutional religion. During his discussion of the Trinity I could clearly pick out a number of different theologians/theories being referenced such as Richard of St. Victor's Trinity of Love and the notion of Perichoresis. Being able to name these perspectives from which the book was drawing took away from it a little bit for me; but this was short lived and the read only got better.

What I take away from the book is an increased notion that God truly does delight in each of us regardless of what we do or do not. Each time the character "Papa," representing The Father, mentioned someone Mach knew, she would say, "Oh, I'm especially fond of that one." God is especially fond of you and of me.

Another section that challenges conventional conservative perspectives for the better is this little exchange:

(Mack) "Is that what it means to be a Christian?" (Jesus) "Who said anything about being Christian? I'm not a Christian...Those who love me come from every system that exisits. They were Buddhists or Mormons, baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don't vote or are not part of any Sunday morning religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my beloved."

The Shack is a recommended lesiurely read for Christians that will make you think and hopefully broaden your view of divine possibilities. For non-theists, my hope is that this book will present a non-judging, non-violent, all-loving God that is perhaps not so repulsive to many critics of Christianity.