The dangers of finding God in The Shack

The Shack, by William P. Young, 2007 by Windblown Media: Los Angeles, CA.

I have heard a great deal about a book that came out in 2007 called The Shack. I understand that it has brought some comfort to many who have suffered great tragedy in their lives. And while I do not want to take away from some level of comfort or consoling that may come from a work, I feel a need to respond to this book for a number of reasons. These reasons stem from being a pastor, a parent, a student of the Word of God, and as someone who ministers to families that sometimes suffer great and tragic loss.

Being a pastor and teacher I want to offer a simple review of this book and critique the areas where it falls short, and sometime gravely short.

While I am not a literary critic and to be completely honest I do not read a great deal of fiction as a personal habit, I did not really enjoy this book. I am willing to confess my presuppositions that I often have a negative outlook on “Christian Fiction” because it so often offers a highly subjective look at the tenets of the Christian faith. These subjective and fictional experiences very often do not measure up to the Word of God, and unfortunately do not match the real Christian experience that many of us live day by day.

Secondly I readily confess that I read with a thought to the Scriptures and perhaps my presupposition is one of stricter judgment on the dialogue, story line and character development that what would normally be allowable in a fiction story. However, when three of your main characters in a story are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, I think it behooves the Christian thinker to ensure that the story accurately reflects the biblical text.

Disclaimers aside, I did not find this a book that I could get involved in, I was not sold on the story. The story line is simple enough to follow and certainly the pain and suffering of the central figure Mac is very real. Unfortunately, the story did not seem to have a focused direction nor an adequate conclusion to the conflict of the story. Many, many people suffer the loss of a loved one in some tragic manner, whether is be as this story tells or through another horrific turn of events like an accident. Simply knowing the location of the body, while that does offer comfort and closer, it does not make the great pain disappear.

Secondly, the character development was indeed fanciful and elegant, but from a biblical perspective it was also heretical. I know that I use a very strong word but the nature of the triune God and each person of the Trinity is a far from the biblical truth as one can get.

First the way each person of the Trinity relates to humanity is skewed. Neither God the Father nor God the Spirit ever in the biblical text appear in an incarnate, that is in human flesh, form to humanity.

The direct interaction with each person of the Trinity is particularly disturbing. When Isaiah saw God high and lifted up in the throne room of Heaven, Isaiah 6:1-8) he fell to his face in shame and repentance. When John saw Jesus in Revelation 1:17, he fell as dead. When men were filled with the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts the spoke new languages, they raised the dead and healed the sick, they spoke with great power and boldness, they laid their lives down for their faith and they died a martyr’s death.

In The Shack when Mac meets God the Father he gets his cheeks squeezed and a bear hug like your aunts used to do at the annual family reunion and it greeted with, “Here you are, and so grown up.” God, a large black woman named Papa then assures Mac that everything will work out on his “terms and time.” (83)

In The Shack when Mac meets God the Spirit she floats in like an apparition to collect his tears, which is what she “values enough to collect.” (84)

When Mac meets God the Son he appears as though he has just stepped out of a farming movie and is leaning up against the door, a pleasant man to look at but “not particularly handsome.”

Mac’s response to meeting the Trinity in a shack in the woods, “Are there any more of you?”

No worship, no reverence, no repentance, no awe, no humility.

My first major critique of the book is that there is no, none, not a single act of worship to the Creator God. Mac spends time and talks to them like we would an old friend. While it is important to understand that we can have a close relationship with God through the Son in the power of the Spirit, God is not our bud, He is not our homeboy, or pal. He is God, and He deserves our undivided worship. We do not sit at a table and eat biscuits with God like we would our grandpa. We worship His at His throne. There is no reverence of the deity and greatness of God.

Secondly the book is explicitly unchristian. On page 182, words attributed to Jesus are as follows: “Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptist or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don’t vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, American 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.”

To this proclamation of Jesus, Mac asks, “Does that mean that all roads will lead to you?”

“Not at all,” smiled Jesus…”most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”

While I whole-hearted agree with the maxim that a religious system, political affiliation, a job or a past is what get one into a relationship with Christ, I emphatically disagree that Christ does not seek to make us Christians.
I do not know a passage in the Bible where Jesus says, “I want to make you Christians,” there are many, many passages that teach the exclusivity of Christ as the only, the only means of salvation.

And yes Jesus did and does come to us where we are, but what is not present in Jesus’ above dialogue is any need to repent, any need to place our faith and trust in Christ. There is no call to discipleship and conformity to Christ.

There is however biblical texts that point to us as Christians and as Christians followers of Christ. Acts 11:26 is only a starting point. “And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” Yes, Jesus does desire to make us Christians.

Furthermore all roads do lead somewhere. There is one way or road that leads to eternal life, and all other roads lead to eternal death. (Matthew 7:13-14)

This is getting very long, but there is one other critique I feel that must be offered. That is how we deal with the problem of evil. In other words why do bad things happen to good people or innocent people like children?

That seemed to be the major theme throughout The Shack, yet there was never a biblical answer given. While it is impossible to give an answer to any specific event, Why was Missy abducted and murdered, there are some general understanding for why there is evil present.

First, and this is nowhere mentioned in the novel, man is sinful. We are sinners my choice and by nature. We do evil deeds. And most of the time the victims of our evil are not at fault. They did nothing specific to warrant a death sentence. There is evil in the world because we are not yet redeemed to a world separated from sin. That world is the eternal presence of God.

Secondly, in reality we are not as innocent as we may think. No there may not be a specific sin that we committed that causes us tragedy, but because we are sinners we are still under death. Death is the result of our willful rebellion against God. I would never assume that a child dies to punish her nor her parents, but the Bible is still very clear, the wages of sin is death. Every time those deaths are difficult to handle, and sometimes they are extremely tragic.

Thirdly, the solution to evil is not some cosmic unity with God. It is placing our faith and trust in the sovereignty and goodness of God. It is trusting God always, even when we do not understand, even when it hurts and hurts a lot. I do not intend to sound superficial in the face of great pain, but the reality is we are dying and our only hope is found in the Biblical Christ.

I cannot give The Shack a positive review. I really wish there were something positive I could close with but it lacks so much in being biblically accurate in describing God, The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It lacks in describing how God relates to humanity through the Trinity. It fails to offer a biblical plan of salvation to lost humanity. And finally it offers no real solution to the problem it addresses.

It is a travesty that this book is being sold in Christian bookstores or in the Christian section of other bookstores. It is unchristian, it is unbiblical and it has the potential to be very dangerous.

Here is a valuable resource for your continued study in regard to The Shack.

Dr. Michael Youssef

Dr. Michael Youssef detailed