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Deep down people yearn for simplicity and trust but they readily dismiss any vision that could take them there when it has religious clothing. This is the power of The Shack novel which takes the reader into deep theology and spirituality on the back of a remarkable human story line.
Mack, the central figure, has his daughter Missy abducted. Evidence of her murder is found in a shack in the wilderness of Oregon. Years later Mack gets a mysterious note from God asking him to come to the shack for a weekend over which he meets the Trinity and recovers joyful trust, the lifting of fear and a readiness to forgive.
The picture of the Trinity is refreshingly joyful but shockingly counter traditional. No white bearded men but black or Middle Eastern figures, female save for Jesus. The author paints a captivating picture of God's perpetual satisfaction which appears without arrogance. God lives and works, Father, Son and Spirit, not in a chain of command but in a circle of relationship. Each seems more aware of the others than of themselves. Human beings are invited to look for relationships rather than rules as being God's way to God and heaven.
The Shack is a powerful theodicy or defence of God's providence in the face of evil. Its power is in the use of a gripping story line to turn the reader towards key issues of meaning related to who we are as humans and who God is. The abduction and murder of children is something that absorbs people when they read about it in the papers. Here such absorption is turned back on the reader who is shown how destructive tendencies relate to fear and distrust that can be healed.
The right love of children is at the heart of the argument of the book. Mack judges his children including Missy as worthy of his love even if that love were to cost him everything. So it is, he finally accepts, with God's love for his children in the big picture of things. Jesus is impelled to die to recover God's children and the whole world from the ravages of sinful independence and the whole of God is in his offering. This is where the portrait of the Trinity drawn in The Shack becomes less convincing. God is so refreshingly joyful and down to earth that his all-powerful otherness seems down played.
Millions are said to have read this paperback and millions more will surely do so. It is a rare phenomenon to see a paper back with a Christian vision breaking through into mass circulation. This was why I read it. It is also why I have confidence to commend it to friends who, though chary of Christianity, are prepared to wrestle with human tragedy and its ultimate significance. The Shack makes accessible an in depth engagement of that kind which gently points the reader to Jesus as the living answer to life's searching questions. It also provides inspiration to live trusting the Lord through life’s uncertainties prioritising relationships before achievements.
The Shack William P. Young Where tragedy confronts eternity Hodder 2008
John Twisleton
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