As many of you undoubtedly know, The Shack is getting a lot of attention. It’s sort of an underdog story: an unpublished salesmen writes a book for his children that was never supposed to be published. When it is published, it is done so on a $300 budget by a small, independent press. Through word of mouth, the book has grown into a best seller.
One of the reasons, I think, the book has been such a huge seller is because of the basic story line: a man endures a tremendous loss, goes into depression, finds “God” personally (and literally), and is restored to a life of joy. This resinates with a lot of people because loss and pain are parts of all of our lives.
Although this book has touched many people and, perhaps, even brought them closer to “God,” there are many people that I would strongly caution before reading this book. Others I would greatly encourage them to read it. I’ll explain my reasoning below.
Before I start, I’d like to point you to some well done (and more in depth) reviews of the book:
—Tim Challies has a free .pdf review that is very in depth and well done.
—Ben Witherington does a nice job balancing the positive and negative.
—Amy encourages people to read The Shack in order to engage critically with the theology presented.
—Steve Bishop calls us to remember the genre of the book before passing judgement.
Literary Comments
As a piece of literature, The Shack is pretty much deplorable. The writing is awkward and the entire story line is completely contrived. It seems, at least to me, that Young had (more…)
