The Shack
The
novel was self-published
but became a USA Today
bestseller, having sold 1 million copies as of June 8, 2008.[2] It was the No. 1 paperback trade fiction seller on The New York Times
Best Seller list from June 2008 to early 2010,[3]
in a publishing partnership with Hachette Book Group USA's FaithWords imprint
(Hodder & Stoughton in the UK). In 2009 it was awarded the "Diamond
Award" for sales of over 10 million copies by the Evangelical
Christian Publishers Association.[4]
The
title of the book is a metaphor for "the house you build out of your own
pain", as Young explained in a telephone interview.[5] He also told radio host talk show Drew
Marshall that The Shack "is a
metaphor for the places you get stuck, you get hurt, you get damaged...the
thing where shame or hurt is centered."[6]
Plot
The
novel is set in the American Northwest.
The main character is Mackenzie Allen Phillips, a father of five called
"Mack" by his family and friends. Four years prior to the main events
of the story, Mack takes three of his children on a camping trip to Wallowa
Lake near Joseph,
Oregon, stopping at Multnomah
Falls on the way. Two of his children are
playing in a canoe when it flips and almost drowns Mack's son. Mack is able to
save his son by rushing to the water and freeing him from the canoe's webbing
but unintentionally leaves his youngest daughter Missy alone at their campsite.
After Mack returns, he sees that Missy is missing. The police are called, and
the family discovers that Missy has been abducted and murdered by a serial
killer known as the "Little Ladykiller". The police find an abandoned
shack in the woods where Missy was taken. Her bloodied clothing is found, but
her body is not located. Mack's life sinks into what he calls "The Great
Sadness".
As
the novel begins, Mack receives a note in his mailbox from "Papa",
saying that he would like to meet with Mack that coming weekend at the shack.
Mack is puzzled by the note—he has had no relationship with his abusive father
since he left home at age 13. He suspects that the note may be from God whom his wife Nan refers to as "Papa".
Mack's
family leaves to visit relatives and he goes alone to the shack, unsure of what
he will see there. He arrives and initially finds nothing, but as he is
leaving, the shack and its surroundings are supernaturally transformed into a
lush and inviting scene. He enters the shack and encounters manifestations of
the three persons of the Trinity.
God the Father
takes the form of an African
American woman who calls herself Elousia and
Papa; Jesus is a Middle Eastern carpenter; and the Holy
Spirit physically manifests as an Asian
woman named Sarayu.
The
bulk of the book narrates Mack's conversations with Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu as
he comes to terms with Missy's death and his relationship with the three of
them. Mack also has various experiences with each of them. Mack walks across a lake
with Jesus, sees an image of his (Earthly) father in Heaven with Sarayu, and
has a conversation with Sophia, the personification of God's wisdom. At the end of his
visit, Mack goes on a hike with Papa, now appearing as an older Native American
male, who shows him where Missy's body was left in a cave.
After
spending the weekend at the shack, Mack leaves and is so preoccupied with his
thoughts that he is nearly killed in an automobile accident. After his
recovery, he realizes that he did not in fact spend the weekend at the shack,
but that his accident occurred on the same day that he arrived at the shack. He
also leads the police to the cave that Papa revealed, and they find Missy's
body still lying there. With the help of forensic evidence discovered at the
scene, the Little Ladykiller is arrested and put on trial.
Publication
Young
originally wrote The Shack as a Christmas gift for his six children with
no apparent intention of publishing it. After letting several friends read the
book he was urged to publish it for the general public. In 2006, Young worked
with Wayne Jacobsen,
Brad Cummings (both former pastors from Los
Angeles) and Bobby
Downes (filmmaker) to bring the book to
publication after a period of sixteen months and four rewrites.[7] They had no success with either religious or secular
publishers, so they formed Windblown Media for the purpose of publishing
the book. The Shack achieved its No. 1 best selling success via
word-of-mouth and with the help of a USD$300.00
website; it is often reported that nothing else had been spent on marketing up
to September 2007.[8] Additional startup funds were supplied by Brad Cummings,
president of Windblown Media, who spent the maximum credit
limit on 12 personal credit
cards in order to publish the book.[9][10]
Reception
The
Shack went largely unnoticed for over a
year after its initial publication, but suddenly became a very popular seller
in mid-2008, when it debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times paperback fiction best seller list on June 8.[3] Its success was the result of a "word-of-mouth,
church-to-church, blog-to-blog campaign" by Young, Jacobsen and Cummings
in churches and Christian-themed radio, websites, and blogs.[2]
As
of May 2010, The Shack had over 10 million copies in print, and had been
at No. 1 on The New York Times best seller list for 70 weeks.[11] The Shack was also released in hardcover, and
translated into Spanish
as La Cabaña.[11] In June 2009 a German
translation with the title Die Hütte – ein Wochenende mit Gott (… a
Weekend with God) was released.[12] It was also translated into Croatian
as "Koliba" and it became very popular in Croatia and in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.[citation needed] The book
was also translated into Polish
as "Chata" and published in 2009. There were re-editions in 2011 and
2017 due to its popularity.
However,
former Mars Hill Church
pastor Mark Driscoll
criticized The Shack, saying "it misrepresents God"[13] and called William P. Young "a heretic".[14] Evangelical author Chuck
Colson wrote a review called "Stay
Out of The Shack," in which he criticizes the attribution of "silly
lines" to characters representing the three Persons of the Trinity, and the
author's "low view of scripture".[15] R. Albert Mohler, Jr. called The Shack "deeply troubling" on his
radio show, saying that it "includes undiluted heresy".[16] Apologists
author Norman Geisler
and William C. Roach published a critique in 2012 detailing their 14 points of
theological disagreement with the book (including "unorthodox",
"false", "classic heresy", "non-rational",
"psychologically helpful ... doctrinally harmful", and "very
dangerous").[17]
Pastor
Sean Cole of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Sterling, CO offered yet another
critique appearing in the Pulpit and Pen. He provides six major arguments
against the content of the book and Young’s portrayal of the Trinity, and
offers them as major problems.[18]
Theologian
Randal Rauser
has written a generally sympathetic guide to The Shack in his companion
volume Finding God in the Shack (Paternoster, 2009). In the book Rauser
responds to many of the objections raised by critics like Colson and Mohler.
Brad
Robison, a psychiatrist and family therapist who used "The Shack" in
his practice, wrote "The Shack Study Guide" (Windblown Media, 2016)
to assist his patients on their healing journey. It is co-authored by William
P. Young.
Wayne
Jacobsen, one of Young's early
collaborators, wrote a detailed response to several common points of criticism.
His column "Is the Shack Heresy?" was published online by Windblown
Media.[19]
In
"The Shack Revisited", C. Baxter Kruger analyses the theological
messages of the book.[further explanation needed]
Legal dispute
In
July 2010 the Los Angeles Times reported that The Shack had "spawned a tangle
of lawsuits over royalties and even the book's authorship."[20] Young claimed that he was owed $8 million in royalties,
Jacobsen and Cummings filed a suit against Young,[21]
Young asked the court to dismiss or stay the claims,[22] and Jacobsen and Cummings responded.[23] Hachette, the commercial publisher involved, asked the
court to determine to whom it should pay royalties from the book.[24] On January 10, 2011 the court declared that it had been
advised that the case between Young et al. and Jacobsen et al. "has been
settled or is in the process of being settled" and the case was dismissed.[25][26]
Film adaptation
Main article: The Shack (2017 film)
A
film adaptation of The Shack, directed by Stuart
Hazeldine and starring Sam
Worthington, Octavia
Spencer, and Tim
McGraw; was released on March 3, 2017 to
extremely negative critical reviews. Audience response was, however, much more
positive.[27]
References in other works
The
Shack was referred to by Stephen
King in his 2010 title, Full Dark, No Stars, which is a compilation of four novellas. In the final
novella, A Good Marriage,
the protagonist recalls that her husband recommended she read The Shack
and he said the novel was "a life-changer."[citation needed]
It
is also cited in the introduction to Richard
Rohr and Mike
Morrell's The Divine Dance for
getting people thinking about the Trinity again.
References
· Rich, Motoko (2008-06-24). "Christian
Novel Is Surprise Best Seller".
The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-24.
· · Schuessler,
Jennifer. "Books
– Best-Seller Lists – New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
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