Leighs’ review of “The Shack” a novel by William P Young

I had been hearing a LOT about this book “The Shack” over the past year or so and the things I heard were never middle of the road… They were either singing high praises of this as a life changing book or condeming it as heresy and dangerous ground to tread on.
Since people I knew had weighed in on both sides of the argument I decided to buy a copy and see what all the fuss is about. I also read Tim Challies report and compared it to the book, I liked some of his content, he put it just like I would so some of this has been influenced here.

At first glance the book seemed to be just like any other mass market fictional novel – here is the synopsis from the back page…

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.
In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant “The Shack” wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?”
The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You’ll want everyone you know to read this book!

Having read it I agree that the “answers” Mack gets will astound you, but not in a pleasant way, hopefully it will not transform you as the latter condition would be much worse than your former. Man-made religious practices my be irrelevant but God and the Bible are ALWAYS relevant. If you read this and see the very, very real dangers of false teaching contained within you will want everyone you know to avoid it like the plague! My advice for anyone who ventures to read it; don’t just read it and take what it says at face value but be like the Bereans in Acts chapter 17:11 and search the scriptures to see if it is so!! And here is why:
This book firstly is a fictional work about a grisly kidnap and murder of a small child and immediately engages the emotions at the level of horror. Although it is fiction it is obviously intended and touted as teaching theological truths. It was not written only to share a story but to teach or share theology.
So starting with that point what exactly is theology? Is it just something stuffy intellectual professors sit around and argue about without an indwelling of the Holy Spirit to guide them? Nope. Theology is simply “talking about God”, theos (God) – ology (speaking words).
Whether we like it or not we all engage in theology every time we speak or think about anything to do with God. It has generally become accepted to think of theology as the study of God.
Of course seperating theology from an actual relationship with God produces relegious people, Christian in name but unregenerated in nature which can often put people off theology. It is a false conclusion to come to that “the study of scripture is bad because of the many religious hypocrites we see” as it throws the baby out with the bathwater. All real born-again believers love God and as such seek to know Him more and undertake to study His Word as the primary means of doing this.
We also know that faith without works is dead, but how can we know what works the Father requires if we don’t read His instruction manual – the Bible? Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
This book correctly identifies those religious people as hypocrites but sadly paints theology as a bad thing which is a lie. Those people who live most like Christ are those who know Him best. True Christians wish to know God intimately and deeply, the way to avoid being religious is not to avoid theology but to pursue it out of a love for God.
The authority of scripture is criticised on page 65 and I gave it poetic license that it may just be a demonstration of how the hero of the book “Mack” didn’t actually have a relationship with God but was religious “God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.”
However it was not to be so, the book pushes experiential encounter over scripture which is very, very dangerous. Especially as scripture teaches us to “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NASB)
On page 82 is where things go from just dangerous to sheer heretical. Here God the Father (as He has chosen to reveal Himself) is depicted as a woman (named Elouise, meaning Strong in Battle) who just rushes up and hugs Mack. Later on page 85 the Holy Spirit (called Sarayu, meaning flowing air or wind) is also depicted as a female and a mental eros love interaction between Mack and Sarayu occurs. It is more than a little inappropriate and the book continues on depicting unholy relationships and false teachings about the Trinity.
A careful Christian reader, familiar with Scripture would probably see what Young appears to be trying to do in response to the many dead religious institutions that operate still as a priest between man and God in the place of Jesus.
However this book has so much shallow theology and misrepresentation that it is a very real danger to a correct understanding of the Holiness of God. Mack lies directly to the face of God in bad attitude with no consequences. God is depicted as listening to music that is written in rebellion, enjoying and dancing to it and justifying the musicians anger as having “good reason” and then calling them “My kids”. But the Bible describes all humanity as children of wrath until they get born again of spirit , adopted into the family of God.

While I stuck with this book all the way to the end hoping for some redeeming chapter to set straight all the flaws in the theology and reveal them as part of Macks character and the reason he is so far from God, it never happened. The book continued irreverently depicting God as weak, apologetic for the bad things happening in the world and just plain wierd. Mack was able to lie and swear in the presence of God and get angry, which made God cry!

There is no clear presentation of the Gospel of God in this book and if a person was searching they most likely would come away more confused then when they picked this book up. The understanding of the depravity of man and the righteous judgement and punishment of sin is not taught but actively opposed with statements like “Sin is it’s own punishment”.
So where then is room for the eternity in Hell for the unregenerate that Jesus spoke so much about?
Where is the justice in a God who would cast these sinners into such a place when they have already been punished for their sin on earth if that is true?
Why did the Lord of all the Universe come and die on that cruel cross and take upon himself all the wrath and due punishment of a Holy, Righteous and Just God if the sin is punishment in itself for mankind?

In summary
The Shack although an engaging read in many ways belittles the might of God, the sacrifice of Jesus and the holiness of the Holy Spirit. It defiles the submission of Christ to the Father in it’s presentation of their relationship and it teaches a heretical and pagan view of our relationship with the Trinity and the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
If you decide to read it please take all precautions to protect yourself from absorbing the falsities, pray before and after reading any of this book. Commit yourself to check each concept against what the Bible says.

In answer to the “timeless” question: “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” I’ll quote John Piper from his book “Suffering and the Sovreignity of God” (available for free download at http://www.desiringgod.org) as he puts it so much better than I could.

“The ultimate reason that suffering exists in the universe is so that Christ might display the greatness of the glory of the grace of God by suffering in himself to overcome our suffering. The suffering of the utterly innocent and infinitely holy Son of God in the place of utterly undeserving sinners to bring us to everlasting joy is the greatest display of the glory of God’s grace that ever was, or ever could be.”“This was the moment–Good Friday–for which everything in the universe was planned. In conceiving a universe in which to display the glory of his grace, God did not choose Plan B. There could be no greater display of the glory of the Grace of God than what happened at Calvary. Everything leading to it and everything flowing from it is explained by it, including all the suffering in the world.”