Critical Review of William P. Young's The Shack

The Shack is a novel by William P. Young which sets out to metaphorically represent the Trinity as They help a fictional character work through his anger and sadness at the problem of pain and suffering in the world. The Shack has become a bestseller, and is now being pushed as an apologetic in the vein of Lewis' Mere Christianity and Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, while at the same time being criticized for being heretical and unwelcome in many conservative circles.

About the Author
William P. Young graduated summa cum laude from Warner Pacific College, and has worked in many commercial realms throughout his life. His younger years had him traveling with his missionary parents in Papua, New Guinea, a technologically virgin people, before he was eventually sent off to boarding school. Today, Young is the father of 6, and the author of this New York Times Bestseller which, as he tells USA Today, he wrote as an expression of his growth in coming to grips with deep-seated sexual abuse as a child and his own struggle with adultery.

The Story of The Shack
The story of The Shack centers around a father named Mack who lost his daughter in a horrifying incident that culminated in him finding only her bloody dress in an old shack 4 years earlier. Mack has lived since with deep depression and anger at God for allowing such a terrible act to claim the life of his daughter.

Things change one day when someone claiming his family's intimate name for God, Papa, invites Mack back to the shack. Skeptically and secretly Mack sneaks away to investigate, and ends up spending a weekend at the shack when he discovers the Triune God present and waiting for him there.

What follows at the shack is a weekend full of face-to-face conversations with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who are represented as the large African-American woman called Papa (the Father), a small Asian woman named Sarayu (the Holy Spirit), and a Middle Eastern man named Jesus (the Son). The three absorb Mack's rage against them, and proceed to instruct him in their understanding of the matter. Within this context, Young deals with issues like the divine communion of the Trinity with each other, the problem of pain and suffering in the world, the Fall, forgiveness, and others.

Textual Problems
While many find a huge issue with Young's portrayal of God and the Holy Spirit as female, this does not strike the same chord with me. Young is not portraying God and the Holy Spirit as female, but rather he is portraying them as beings which chose to appear to the character Mack as female for the purpose of interacting with him. This is evident as one of the characters even comments on his appearance in female form so that the character Mack will not "fall back into your religious conditioning." However, Young's assertion that the world would be better if women ruled coupled with his personification of two members of the Trinity seemed to lend itself to feminist theology, and was unnecessary to make his points, especially given the care he gave to point out that God is neither male nor female.

An apparent problem appears in the scars on Papa's wrists, which are obviously linked to Jesus' scars from the crucifixion. This seems to insinuate that God the Father and God the Son underwent the same event. This amounts to patripassionism, an early Christian heresy which held that God the Father incarnated and suffered on the cross in the form of Jesus, but that there is no distinction between the two persons.

More troubling is the fact Young seems at points to dismiss the importance of Scripture. This is seen most clearly in his comment that "nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that 'guilt' edges." Suddenly Scripture is presented as a fallible book in that it serves primarily to produce guilt. A book like The Shack that purports to carry truth with it and yet diminishes the validity of the Truth of the Word has an issue to address at the very least, and is heresy at the very worst.

Perhaps what is most disappointing about this otherwise thought-provoking book is that it is being pushed as an apologetics book, or as something more than a work of fiction. The Shack is at its heart a creative endeavor to put the author's own understanding of the Trinity and Their role in human suffering and growth into a readable form. Much as no one truly "has it all right" in our own minds and emotional prejudice, Young's interpretation is born out of his experience and desire to connect with the Trinity in a specific way, characterizing God with informality and a lack of awe and fear. In effect, if people are not careful, they are in danger of making Young's trinity into an idol, and failing to remain open to the unfathomable reality of the one true Trinity.

A Useful Book
However, if we view The Shack as merely a work of fiction (which it is) and remove from it its increasingly growing sense of being an instructional book, then there appears a good bit of use to it. The book is incredibly engaging, and could easily be read in a sitting because of its fascinating content and accessible pace. It is a very unified piece of fiction, and intentionally provokes deep thought concerning the love and communion of the Triune God; books of this type are few and far between. In truth, it is about time we had more allegory and fiction that attempts to represent our understanding of the Trinity.

As to its flaws: it is a work of fiction. Before conservative Christianity seeks to burn Young at the stake, that fact must be remembered. Young is attempting to take one of the most complex and inaccessible truths of Scripture and bring it down to a level that can be more easily be understood by the church and others. This is an endeavor that those who have extensive and deep understanding of Scripture and theology should be taking to task, and yet Young is not a pastor or seminary professor. In effect, he is on trial for attempting to make the Trinity more understandable for his 6 kids.

Bottom Line:
Despite all its problems, The Shack does much that should be considered honorable. For many he has started a conversation that would never have been started otherwise. There are errors, unwise decisions about his fictional work, and flaws in his theology, but that could be said about any who claim Jesus as Savior and worship Him as Lord. Overall, his work should be considered with a critical eye and a pause to check his facts, but it should still be considered as a wonderful work of fiction and thought-provoking allegory.