For those of you who do not know The Shack is a small paperback book that has an amazing story. It was a story written by a Father for his children. Two friends read it, formed a small publishing company and printed it with a $300 marketing budget, yes I said $300! The book has now sold over a million copies, a larger publisher has bought the rights and it will now be really big. A movie of it could be in the future.
I came to know about The Shack through my sister first, then our Administrative Assistant at church ordered the book. The church ordered a copy for use in our Library and it came just in time for me to take the book to Tampa during Amy’s surgery. Lots of reading time!
It was amazing that right after I started reading it I learned about the controversy surrounding it. I was hearing from people on both sides of the issue, “I love the Book!” or “The book has serious theological flaws”. So, I read it without reading anyone’s opinion so I could be objective.
I loved reading it. The story was captivating and then of course tragic beyond words. It grabbed my emotions in a significant way. I was fascinated by the creativity of the main character’s encounter with God using the whole Godhead (Trinity). I love to read how people try to deal with our really tough question of evil. The author takes it head on and trys to answer it.
I can understand where people had questions. The opening controversy in the book is probably God appearing as a woman! I find people don’t even give time for God to explain why HE decided to appear as a woman, which HE does in the book. You simply will do better with The Shack if you will not press it to high Theological standards, and read it for fiction that communicates some very positvie things about faith. The following are some I saw in the book.
Religion versus relationship. Knowing Jesus and being a Christian is not a religion but a relationship. This is the main theme of the whole book. Forgiveness is essential and possible, even for someone who murders your own family or who mistreated you severely. Heaven will be more glorious than we can imagine and its reality should help us as we deal with tragedy. The book will reach Lost people, by this I mean particularly people who have been disenchanted with the church or Christians. The main character had some bad experiences with “so called Christians” and God shows him the way back to “true relationship with God”. It will reach lost people but we may have to explain some things correctly when we disciple them. It is a great discussion starter for talking with a person about Jesus. The Trinity is portrayed in a way that reminds us that God believes in relationships. He has been in relationship with Himself (the Godhead) for all eternity.
So my conclusion… just read the book and you won’t lose your faith, you will have some questions for the author about “why did you include that”?, you will be deeply and emotionally drawn into the depth of human tragedy and that God is always ready to meet us at our deepest need.
I will respond to your comments in my next blog.
One more fact I learned recently. Lifeway publishers (SBC) initially sold the book, then pulled it for examination, then returned it to stores and now sells it with a note that says, “read with discernment”.
