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The Shack | 
| Author: William P. Young
Publisher: Windblown Media
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2260 reviews
Sales Rank: 5
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0964729237
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780964729230
ASIN: 0964729237
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
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Product Description
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!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2255 more reviews...
 Why you should give the Shack the shaft January 8, 2009
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I did not write this analysis and critique, but I wholly agree with it. Everyone who claims Christ should read it.
"The book entitled The Shack has been a marketing phenomenon among "evangelicals." Blurbs compare the Shack to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I am here to tell you that the hype is a bit forced. Let's do a bit of comparison, first with the book of Job, then with Bunyan, interjecting a bit of C.S. Lewis in for fun.
The Shack is the story of a man whose beautiful daughter is brutally murdered. The man leaves the faith, only to receive a message from God to meet him at the shack, the very place where his daughter was murdered. He then meets God. The Father is a big jolly black woman, the Son is a Jewish carpenter, and the Holy Spirit is a wispy, mysterious Asian woman (we'll get to that blasphemy in a moment). The upshot of the plot is that God explains to the main character the why's and the wherefore's, and the man is healed. The theological upshot is that God is good, but not all-powerful. Young takes Rabbi Kushner's prong of the dilemma. What is important to notice here is a combination of rationalism and experientalism. On the one hand, Young tears at the heart strings, making the reader bleed for the main character. On the other hand, in order for the man's faith to be "restored," God has to explain himself.
Contrast Job. Job lost much more than the man in the story (ten children!), and it was due to the prince of demons being opposed to him, not a mere man, even if Job didn't know that. He lost all his possessions, and then finally his health. He had much more to complain about than the man in The Shack. He too wanted God to explain. He wanted to vindicate himself as well. But when God finally has His say, He tells Job that He does not have to come to the bar of human reason. Humans have to come to the bar of God. This is where C.S. Lewis comes in. In his brilliant essay entitled "God in the Dock," he makes the point that the really important thing for autonomous man is that he is the judge, and that God is in the dock. The man may very well be a kindly judge and acquit God of wrong-doing, if God shows Himself up to the task of defending himself. But the really important thing is that man is the judge, and God is in the dock (on trial). Job shows us that the reverse is true. God is the judge, and man is in the dock.
Rationalism always results in God losing one of His attributes. If God is all-powerful and all-good, then how come evil exists? The Bible does not allow us to lessen the difficulty of this question by jettisoning one of these attributes. The reason the problem is so acute for the believer is that God is both all-benevolent and all-powerful.
Just to begin an answer (and not leave the readers hanging), God allows evil to exist for various reasons, but evil will not continue to last. God has dealt with the problem of evil on the cross and the empty tomb, and will finally eradicate the very presence of evil in this world in the future. No other religion, by the way, or atheism, has an answer to this question. Pantheism believes that evil is naturally part of the world. No hope of eradication there. Atheism cannot define right and wrong, so his faith in his own reason becomes shockingly apparent when he confidently talks about the problem of evil. Deists don't believe that God has anything to do with the world. These all lack hope and eschatology.
Bunyan and Young go in fundamentally different directions. Christian's journey is to the bar of judgment as a defendant whom God will acquit based on the spotless righteousness of Christ imputed to him. The man's journey in The Shack is to the bench, where he magnanimously acquits God of wrong-doing, once it becomes evident that God is really powerless to stop it. Of course, if God is powerless to stop evil, then He is also powerless to eradicate evil, and so that road is also a dead end eschatologically speaking.
In talking with one of my friends, he made the very interesting point also about faith. What moves Christian? It is the scroll, the evangelist, the Interpreter, the fellow believers he meets on the way, the key of faith in Doubting Castle. It is the means of grace which compels Christian to a life of faith. In The Shack, it is a one-time rationalistic showdown where God pleads and begs with the man (in effect) not only to give Him a hearing, but to acquit Him of wrong-doing. Ultimately, the man's faith is in himself.
My friend also noted the contrast between the way in which God is portrayed in the Bible as opposed to how God is portrayed in The Shack. The God of The Shack is hardly a God with the least little hint of awe and majesty. He is not the God of the whirlwind, which is how God treated Job. He is not the God before whom all bow their faces to the ground. Instead, He is a God whose booty sways to the music. Anyone who cannot see the blasphemy and rank heresy of this portrayal of God is seriously lacking in discernment. God is Spirit, and only the Second Person of the Trinity has a human body which exists only in hypostatic union with the divine nature, and is currently a glorified body. I choose to believe the God of the Bible, who will eradicate evil because He is completely omnipotent and completely free of sin." -- Lane Keister
 Great Book about God's Love and helps with the concept of Trinity January 8, 2009
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
THE SHACK is a great book... well written, and you don't need to be a theologian to understand that this book is about the Triune God's love and forgiveness, which we should pass on to others.
I see that some people are taking exception to this book, and they seem to think that it isn't consistent with the Bible. However, since I believe that THE SHACK's key message is about love and forgiveness, I do not see any major conflicts. In the Gospels, Jesus taught us to love and forgive others. He told us to love each other, and to love, forgive, and even pray for our enemies. John 3:16 tells us that God gave us Jesus because he loved us so much that he was willing to give up his only begotton Son to atone for our sins. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we did a better job of loving and forgiving others -- even our enemies!!!
An added benefit is how the author, William Young, conceptualizes the Trinity. I found this to be a helpful treatment of this complex concept.
Is this a "new gospel"? No. Is it a great story? Yes. Does it teach a moral lesson? Yes. Does it help people understand the concept of the Triune God (the Trinity)? Definitely. Do I recommend it for individuals and/or groups? Absolutely!
Good beginning and end, muddled middle January 8, 2009
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Four years ago, Mack's little daughter was brutally murdered in a crumbling old shack. Since then, he's been consumed by The Great Sadness, which has distanced him from his wife and other children. Now Mack receives a cryptic note inviting him to the scene of the crime. Little does he know he'll come to terms with his anger and grief - and the Holy Trinity.
This unusual book is part riveting drama and part familiar Christian philosophy. The parts about Mack's terrible childhood and the loss of his daughter are very well-written; edge-of-your-seat scary and grab-the-tissues sad. But they're only the bookends around the main part of the book which is a lengthy discourse on the nature of God and his relationship with Man, as explained by some very folksy people who happen to be the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The problem I had is that the ethereal conversations between Mack and God were so drawn-out and repetitive that I grew impatient for them to end and for the fictional story to resume. The same platitudes are repeated ad nauseum for 150 pages, told in (to me) an annoyingly homespun manner. It would have been better and more effective if this section had been massively reduced, because the endless droning could really be reduced to a simple, "God is Love."
The fiction part of the story about Mack's coming to terms with his past is excellent - taut and tear-jerkingly tragic; but the endless cutesy theology was tiresome. I do think this would make a good movie, though, and hope to see it one day. (3.5 stars)
 Not for me.... January 8, 2009
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book over the course of three days. About half-way through I started to get bored, but finished it. Nonetheless, I can understand why many people would love it. For people who aren't familiar with spiritual concepts due to not going to church or other life experiences, and they want these questions answered, this is the book for them. For people like me, who were raised in church and/or have an active spiritually-seeking mind, there's not going to be a lot in this book that knocks the socks off. None of the concepts or conversations in this book were new to me. In fact, one thing I realized is how many people there are who don't understand God at this level. To these people, I highly recommend it, but don't base a spiritual path on a work of fiction.
The Shack January 8, 2009
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books I have ever read. This is a wonderful book to give as a gift.
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