Review ofThe Shack: No Mysteries Here

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the following: The Shack by William P. Young was a decent enough read but I wouldn't call it a literary phenomenon. There I've said it and now I'll sit back and wait for the consequences of my actions.

Of course now, having made my opening statement, let me say that I don't think it's a bad book. It's actually a pretty good read. Obviously, a lot of people think it's a good read because as of this writing, it has spent 48 weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers-Paperback Trade Fiction list and it has been at the number one spot for several weeks.

The Shack is a story about a man named Mackenzie Allen Philips. "Mack" has suffered the loss of his youngest daughter, Missy, at the hands of a vicious murderer. There is proof that the killer, who is not the main focus of this story, may have murdered Missy in an abandoned shack out in the wilderness of Oregon, not far from where Mack and his kids were camping. Mack harbors guilt about not protecting his daughter and as time passes, begins to suffer from a deep depression he refers to as "The Great Sadness". Several years after Missy's murder, Mack receives a message from God asking him to return to the shack for a weekend. Even though Mack thinks he might be going crazy, he decides to take God, who refers to himself as "Papa", up on his offer and makes his way back to the shack for the meeting. Mack has some specific questions he needs to ask Papa, specifically, the question we all find ourselves asking God at one time or another in our lives, "If God is a loving and all-powerful God, why does he allow evil to happen to people?"

Why is the topic of religion such a challenging topic for discussion? Is it due to the fact that we each focus our lives on our own sets of beliefs, narratives and practices in order to make the idea of religion meaningful for us? Do these beliefs and practices contribute to our religious convictions or do our religious convictions contribute to our beliefs and practices? What happens when we can't figure out how religion is supposed to work in our lives? Do we rely on the bible? Do we rely on the church? Do we rely on our fellow man? These questions are some of the questions I've asked myself all my life and I was hoping that, after reading all the glowing reviews of The Shack that I might find at least a couple of answers to my questions.

Instead, what I found was a story that personified God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in people that your average man could relate to. I'm not going to go into details about how the Holy Trinity are personified but suffice to say, the characters are like-able enough, it's just that I didn't feel a connection to any of them as people. The other thing I found is that when they answered some of Mack's tougher questions about life, I got a little lost. The answers were somewhat convoluted to me and even though some of the answers made sense on the surface, I couldn't break past the surface tension to the real answer. For example, Mack asks God some questions regarding Jesus and the Holy Spirit, "There's that whole Trinity thing, which is where I kind of get lost" and God answers with, "To begin with, that you can't grasp the wonder of my nature is rather a good thing. Who wants to worship a God who can't be fully comprehended, eh? Not much mystery in that." I totally buy that. But then as the conversation progresses and Mack and God delve further into the Holy Trinity and the topic of love enters the conversation and God tells Mack, "What's important is this: If I were simply One God and only One Person, then you would find yourself in this Creation without something wonderful, without something essential even. And I would be utterly other than I am." Ok, I'm sort of still following the flow of the conversation and now it is leading into love and relationships and then God says to Mack, "You do understand that unless I had an object to love--or, more accurately, a someone to love--if I did not have such a relationship within myself, then I would not be capable of love at all? You would have a god who could not love. Or maybe worse, you would have a god who, when he chose, could only love as a limitation of his nature. This kind of god could possibly act without love, and that would be a disaster. And that is surely not me." God finally finishes up the conversation with, "The God who is--the I am who I am--cannot act apart from love!" Huh??? This just takes me back to my first question about how God, who is supposed to be all-powerful and loving allows evil things to happen to people. I know, I know, it all goes back to our ability to utilize the free will that God gave us and The Shack as much as tells us that eventually.

And unless I'm reading too much into The Shack, there are also statements that are pro-environment, pro-woman, and dare I say it, anti-religion and anti-religious institutions. I may be wrong but this thinking seems to be validated by phrases like "Humans, who have been given the task to lovingly steer the world, instead plunder her with no consideration, other than their immediate needs. And they give little thought for their own children who will inherit their lack of love. So they use her and abuse her with little consideration and then when she shudders or blows breath, they are offended and raise their fist at God." There are also these statements, "The world, in many ways, would be a kinder, gentler place if women ruled" and as Jesus talks to Mack about church, Jesus tells Mack he sees the church as a "living, breathing community of all those who love me, not buildings and programs." As for marriage as a religious institution, Jesus tells Mack, "Marriage is not an institution, it's a relationship." All of these statements provide interesting fodder for conversation and discussion yet I don't think I've read a review yet that highlights these possibly controversial topics and the myriad of ways to interpret them.

All in all, I might sum up The Shack in this way. This is a story, although heartbreaking and poignant at times, designed to shake up our perceptions of God, religion, and the "un-answerable" questions we all long to ask God about love, life, church, Jesus, evil, and how He fits into all of these things. I liked some of what I read and as I said before, the story itself wasn't a bad one. I just didn't really find any of the answers or revelations alluded to in the countless reviews of The Shack. In all honesty, when I finally finished reading, I was left thinking about the answer Jesus gave to Mack when Mack asked Jesus about the whole "what would Jesus do?" phenomenon. Jesus answered, "Good intentions, bad idea." I whole heartedly agree.