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Soon after William Paul Young's The Shack hit the bookstores, a friend handed me a copy and said, "You need to read this; it's going to be the next best-seller."
I put the book on my "to read" pile, and it remained there for several weeks. Then, in an idle moment, I picked it up and scanned the first few pages. Soon I stopped scanning and started reading.
The Shack got to me. Admittedly, Young seemed to stray across a few theological boundary lines, but I found myself less concerned about that and more captivated by the way he raised so many of the issues that spiritually devastated people have inside and outside the Christian movement. I'm thinking of issues like bitterness, guilt, powerlessness, and emotional paralysis that often originate from traumatic experiences in one's past.
As I read, I heard Young saying, "Let's fool with an out-of-the-box story that might offer us a fresh appreciation of some very old truths about who God actually is—and how far God might go to establish restorative relationships with broken people like us."
After several chapters, I put the book down. I decided that I could go no further until my wife, Gail, was able to share the reading with me. That evening we lit some wood in the fireplace, and I started back at page one, this time reading The Shack aloud to her. As I read I found myself pausing several times to deal with strange surges of emotion that The Shacktends to elicit from all but the most resistant people.
Gail and I finished The Shack in two evenings and agreed that we'd never read a book quite like it. We spoke of the way the author had prodded us to think new thoughts about the three persons of the Trinity. We agreed that the book would mean a lot to those who have suffered from horrific experiences of physical and sexual abuse and who need their memories to be decontaminated. We went back through the pages and identified places where we'd been startled by the author's insights on the nature of evil and grace. We even laughed at some of the clever antics used by the Three-who-were-One to point out the way of salvation.
For Gail and me, The Shack was a reviving experience.
Some weeks later I met my first Shack critic. I should have anticipated that there would be some who would have problems with this unusual book, who would reject the way the author chose to deal with some of the most precious ideas in all of Scripture.
Of this critic's sincerity, there was no doubt. He and others I would later meet were deeply disturbed that Young had dared to portray the members of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as eccentric personalities with offbeat ways of communicating their message.
Most than once I heard Young accused of blasphemy. I heard him labeled a post-modernist for whom "truth" meant nothing. I was told by one Shack-detractor that anyone refusing to denounce the author and his book could not be considered a sound evangelical.
I can admit to a sense of shock when I realized in the course of my reading that Young had chosen to portray God our Father as an absolutely enchanting, powerfully-mothering, African-American woman. But I will also admit that it wasn't too long in my reading before I found myself wanting to sit at her kitchen table and to enjoy her cooking, her conversation, and her maternal affection. The beauty of the fellowship generated by her presence was what many of us have sought for a lifetime and so rarely experienced.
let it speak into those places in our lives where we long for a closer walk with him.
I wonder if those who are critical of Young's fictional description of divinity have ever contemplated that one of the Psalm-writers used a similar literary method when he wrote, "The Lord is my shepherd …"
Did Psalm 23 collect critics when it was released? Was anyone offended when Israel's God was portrayed as a shepherd?
If I've got it right, shepherds in ancient times were not the clean, pacific, romantic figures that we cast in our Christmas pageants. As I understand it, shepherds in ancient times were, more often than not, skuzzy, unkempt people that one might prefer to avoid. My perception is that most shepherds did not own their sheep but were merely hirelings (temps, if you please) who did the messy work of flock-tending for sheep-owners who probably lived in town. Bottom line: shepherds lived on the underside of society.
So how does one convey to ancient people the splendor of a redeeming God who is good, gracious, caring, and patient to a fault? How does one describe a God who is not aloof, not capricious, and not cruel or vindictive as most ancient divinities were perceived to be? In short, how does one celebrate a God who is ever-present, always guiding, constantly nurturing and restoring?
Well, I suppose one could just line up these nice words in the previous paragraph and say, "There you are. There's your God … theologically described."
Then again, one might make the same point by reaching into everyday life and finding a figure, like a shepherd, for example, and say "God is something like what you see in that person."
Perhaps that was what the writer of Psalm 23 had in mind. He was confident that everyone had seen shepherds and could picture them leading their sheep toward green pastures and cool waters.
The picture of a simple shepherd in motion—grimy though he might be—was sheer genius when it came to forming impressions of who God is and how he connects with those who are the sheep of his pasture. Once the Psalm was read, anyone in the ancient world could possess a beginning-theology of an incredible God who provides "everything that I need."
Then there's The Shack. I think Young had the same idea the Psalmist had. Find a way, any way, that will open the heart of a broken person and point him toward Heaven and all of its redeeming love. Tell the old, old story in new and astonishing ways.
Gordon MacDonald is editor at large of Leadership and interim president of Denver Seminary.
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