I feel compelled to make a couple of statements as we walk up the path to this abandoned structure that has received so much attention since the book was first published in 2006. First, I would like to explain my own interest in this book in that having recently experienced the almost complete destruction of a close relative who lost a young son in a tragic auto accident a few years ago, I have to admit that I read this book with someone in mind. I had heard the book is powerful especially meaningful for anyone who is trying to work through spiritual death and/or spiritual anger. This book sparked my interest especially perhaps because of the recent family loss. Second, I wish to explain that I am writing a rather brief review here since the Internet is packed with many, many critiques of this book (approaching 500 at this point in time), and many of them carry multiple tags from others who, typically in matters spiritual, are seemingly bent on accepting, denying or sorting through their own personal mishmashes of thoughts about all matters that pertain to spirituality.
At the beginning of the book, the reader is introduced to the main character in this fictional account. Mack Phillips has experienced the pain of having had a child die. His young daughter, Missy, was brutally murdered by a serial killer while on a family vacation in the woods of the Northwest United States. It is four years later, and Mack has not learned to accept what occurred (his wife was not with the family when they were on the camping vacation), and thus, when Mack receives an invitation from God to visit the shack where it has been determined that the murderer took the young child, Mack packs up in a rather surreptitious manner, and travels back to the scene of the crime.
Upon entering the run-down and disturbing structure, who does Mack meet? None other than the Trinity, the Godhead, the ultimate weekend encounter. It would spoil the story to reveal details about the Trinity members, all who have taken bodily form, but suffice it to say that Mack's weekend is an interesting one with God appearing as a woman, Jesus as a man of Middle-Eastern descent and the Holy Spirit as a small, delicate woman. Mack then tackles his "Great Sadness" by unraveling is faith and subversive feelings and in the end, as he leaves The Shack and his weekend of revelation, he is a changed man. One wonders what he is going to say to his wife and kids upon his return to reality. After all, at the beginning to the book, his wife's intense relationship with God and a strong spiritual side to both Mack and his wife are stated by the author, but their relationship in this regard is really never explored in the book.
What strikes me about this book right away is how it is a "Christian" book and yet we are led down the path of understanding and acceptance of all and all spirituality and belief systems by the Trinity. Jesus is a Middle-Eastern man, for instance. That geographical connection places Jesus very close to other belief systems.
Clearly, the rather short book attends to all of our "Great Questions", however. It explains God's lack of communication with us, and tells us that all communication now must be mediated since we fell into sin. We learn about salvation, the Trinity itself, identity, the glory of God, and of course, redemption and salvation. This is no small task for an author who wrote the book originally for his children in 2005. It was, in fact, a Christmas gift to his children that year.
For me, well, I did not like the book much, and I guess I have joined the ranks of a very split population that judges it as either "very much pro" or "very much anti" regarding Young's first and only writing effort. Many reviewers point to way too much error in the book. These errors are noted by followers of The Bible from what I can see in previous reviews, and I guess my issue with the writing goes beyond errors and concerns about mixing the natural world with the supernatural. My issue is a simple one of not liking the premise so much, not being moved in any great spiritual way, and objecting to the :all the world is Christian: attitude that prevails. A staunch Christian myself, I find that this attitude makes for enemies and just isn't "the way it is", as Walter Cronkite used to say. I did not pass the book over to my relative who lost his son four years ago.I don't think it will help, but maybe I don't have my own Shack to go to.
Susan Krook is a faculty member at Normandale's Dept of Anthropology. She has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and she has been teaching at Normandale since 1990 when she began teaching part time while employed in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota as a Medical Anthropologist. Her current interests in Anthropology are devoted to Archaeology and Visual Anthropology.
