You Won't Meet God at "The Shack"

A Casual Critique of a Potentially Hazardous Cultural Phenomenon
By Timothy Adkins (March 30, 2009)

Some months ago while wandering through the mall in our hometown, waiting on my daughter (seems I do that quite a lot—I’m sure I’ll miss it one day in the not too distant future), I was browsing the “Inspirational” aisle of a bookstore. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, just passing the time (as there usually isn’t much of value in that section of most bookstores, just so much superficial nonsense). An eager employee seized the opportunity to recommend “The Shack,” a recent title by William Paul Young that has taken some people and even some churches by storm. (As usual, I’m about a year behind the rest of the world.)

The bookstore guy sounded breathless from discovery. “It’s so good!” he said. He then half-apologized for disturbing my meandering and then informed me that anyone he found in that part of the store looking as if they might be open to a recommendation, he told them about “The Shack.” The intonations of his voice were those of a devotee; having been deeply moved, he wanted others to experience what he had.

I had heard about the book before. After that day several people, one and then another, asked if I had read it. I was told that churches were buying cases to give out. Startled to see a copy on a relative’s end-table, I noticed one of the blurbs from the front cover: a reviewer suggesting that “The Shack” could do for our generation what “The Pilgrim’s Progress” did for Bunyan’s. Appreciating the value of allegory to communicate spiritual truths, I thought, “Hmm.” But then I dismissed the matter again for another couple of weeks.

Friends mentioned it again, saying (although neither had read it, nor did they intend to) the book was dangerous and harmful to souls according to some voices they highly regarded. The very next day I dropped in at our town’s Library when someone from the circulation desk was putting out a copy of “The Shack.” I thought I would look at it. I decided to read it with as much openness as possible, determined to give the writer every benefit of the doubt. So I began; within a few days I finished. Along the way I scribbled notes and page numbers, hoping the content would improve and my concerns would be resolved as the book resolved some of the issues it raised. It only grew worse.

Having now read “The Shack,” I feel sure that its charm will fizzle, but not until many more books are sold, a movie is made, and a bunch of money along with it. Some will talk about it from now on, as if it dropped out of the sky on angel-wings. It didn’t. One thing is clear—those who applaud “The Shack” either do not understand the gospel or do not believe it. The book takes about eighty pages to introduce “God” and then proceeds to define Deity in terms completely at variance with the message of the Bible. There is some attempt to explain God, the Trinity. The result is a mangled mess, with some truths intermingled with much error.

The book is written as a sort of ‘true fiction’ (fiction as a vehicle for a true message). It is written in a mostly accessible style. The content unfolds along an emotional storyline, so readers become concerned about the characters involved in an unfolding tragedy that is the canvas for the book’s God-encounter. Certainly, allegory may be used to communicate good, even great things, as in Bunyan’s classic work about a sinner’s journey from utter lostness and condemnation to his ultimate entrance into the very presence of God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But such is not the case with “The Shack.”

Regardless of its popularity, readable style, and captivating plot, “The Shack” simply lacks theological soundness. If only it were about fishing for lake trout or some other harmless thing. The sort of biblical integrity necessary to make it an enduring work is absent. Having read it for myself, I am saddened that many people will swallow, whole, the unsound message of “The Shack.” Instead of helping people find God, “The Shack” will ultimately promote idolatry. Instead of coming to know the true and living God as He declares Himself in Christ, Shack readers will re-imagine God as they wish Him/Her to be—outright idolatry.

“The Shack” is a collection of monumental doctrinal problems (if the Bible is our standard for true doctrine). Shack’s God is a Papa, is a Mama, is a big, lovable, snuggly Softie, as warm as marshmallow roasted over glowing campfire; the divine “It” morphs into whatever He/She needs to become so as to accommodate the person being dealt with—after all, Shack’s God is all about us. Absolute holiness and other divine attributes are studiously downplayed and the Bible doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone is entirely absent. Shack’s Jesus is a greasy-fingered, likable fellow who had to live by faith during His days on earth, a grievous perversion of the Kenosis (See Philippians 2:7)! Shack’s Holy Spirit is an ethereal, delicate, semi-humanized vapor of a personality with a Far-Eastern (Hindu), feminine flavor.

Shack’s Trinity is not biblically recognizable, with the eternal Persons of Deity subsisting without any authority within the Divine Self (See 1 Corinthians 11:3). An original circle of relationship, without need or purpose for authority, defines Shack’s God. Further, the Bible’s doctrine of election is caricatured as God choosing which of His children He will send to hell.

A glaring heresy staining “The Shack,” making it more fit for the fireplace than the bookshelf, is its unbiblical teaching of universal reconciliation. Shack’s Jesus scoffs at the idea that people need to become Christians in order to enter a right relationship with God. All people are already reconciled to Shack’s God through Shack’s Jesus, whatever their religious ideas might be—so true faith in the actual Son of God proclaimed in the biblical gospel is completely unnecessary. While not all have yet found the way to “relationship,” the implication is that, since all are already reconciled, all will eventually come to “relationship” because they are already, in fact, God’s children. In “The Shack,” God the Creator morphs into God the Father/God the Mother/God the Whatever, without any necessity for sinners to exercise faith in God the Son through the regenerating power of God the Spirit.

Shack’s God is always pleased with people because, being omniscient and knowing the fallibilities of mankind, He/She has no expectations of people and places no demands on their lives—the law of God (say, the Ten Commandments) amounts to rules designed by people to control other people. As to sovereignty, Shack’s God does not purpose the bad things that happen, but makes the best use of whatever does happen.

To preserve the notion of infinite Goodness, infinite knowledge and infinite power are removed from consideration. Shack’s God is Self-limiting, which is necessary to preserve the writer’s concept of human free will; he realizes that if God were infinitely infinite and unlimitedly so, His ultimate will would fully comprehend all things, good and bad, as part of His eternal decree. And we simply can’t have that, can we?

Is it any wonder that celebrities and cultural icons would love “The Shack?” It is New-Agey-Religion with God, Jesus, and the Spirit—without the seeming narrowness often associated with biblical Christianity. Narrowness like: “…there is one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,” and “…No one comes to the Father except through Me (Jesus),” and “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Why let the Bible get in the way of a good time?

Any person with the slightest interest in the truth of the gospel or in the well-being of his own soul (or anyone else’s) should not waste time on “The Shack.” If you do read it, know what you’re getting into. It offers a lightweight (often blasphemous) take on God, making little of sin, and redefining the gospel as much as it redefines God. It denies every person’s need for salvation through faith in Jesus; in fact, salvation is re-conceptualized in this book as something other than a sinner being rescued from the condemnation, penalty, and power of his sin by the grace of God in Christ. The church of Jesus Christ (See Matthew 16:13-18) is seen as more of a problem than a blessing.

Shack’s God is no more God than my little strawberry blonde dog is God. Like the Baals, Dagon, Aaron’s Golden Calf, Pleasure, Accomplishment, beloved Bank Accounts, and other Earthly Delusions, Shack’s God is an imaginary, manageable god-concept molded by each individual. To receive and believe the message of “The Shack” is to embrace a false conception of God and to worship an idol, not the true and living God who has revealed Himself, His will, and His message of salvation in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the Scriptures and preached to mankind in the gospel. –TSA