Summary

The Shack By William P. Young

_________________________________________ Summary…………………..………1 About the Author……..……..2 Book Reviews……………..……3 Discussion Questions……...4 Author Interview..………..…6 Further Reading………..……9

Summary _____________________________________________ 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. Source: www.BarnesandNoble.com

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About the Author _____________________________________________ William P. Young (Paul) was born a Canadian and along with three younger siblings was raised among a stone-age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of what was New Guinea (West Papua). The family returned to Canada where his father pastured a number of churches for various denominations. By the time he entered Canadian Bible College, Paul had attended a dozen schools. He completed his undergraduate degree in religion at Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon. While in Oregon, Paul attended seminary and met and married Kim. Together they celebrate “the wastefulness of grace” with their six children, two daughters-in-law, and now two grandchildren. In his Web site biography (windrumors.com), Paul writes, “These are some of the facts of my life, but they don‟t begin to tell the real story. The journey has been both incredible and unbearable, a desperate grasping after grace and wholeness. Facts cannot tell you about the pain of trying to adjust to different cultures; of life losses that were almost too staggering to bear; of walking down railroad tracks at night in the middle of winter, screaming into a windstorm; of living with an underlying volume of shame so deep and loud that it constantly threatened any sense of sanity; of dreams not only destroyed but obliterated by personal failure; of hope so tenuous that only the trigger seemed to offer a solution. These few facts also do not speak to the potency of love and forgiveness, the arduous road of reconciliation, the surprises of grace and community, of transformational healing and the unexpected emergence of joy." source: www.HatchetteBookGroup.com

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Book Reviews _____________________________________________ Newsweek …With 3.8 million copies of his Christian novel "The Shack" in print, Young is being hailed as a theological innovator, his book the "Pilgrim's Progress" of the 21st century. His controversial message is one that, evidently, a lot of people want to hear. "I don't like religion," he says. "I think Jesus is about relationships."….The conceit is unorthodox, the writing hokey and the theology infuriating to conservatives—so why is "The Shack" such a phenomenon? The answer is in its emotional message of the transforming power of God's love. The Entertainment Critic: Needless to say, Paul Young‟s modern day interpretation of theology has some of the organized church up in arms. Theologians have called the book “deeply subversive,” “spiritually incorrect,” and “dangerous.” Some have gone as far as to say that “if you haven‟t read The Shack, don‟t!” I‟m not a theologian, but if you are a conservative, strict constructionist of scripture, this book may not be for you. Please be aware that there is controversy that surrounds the book. Paul Young has indicated that he has no desire to “duke it out in a cage-match” with the organized church; the book is more of a recounting of a journey of self discovery and original thought than a new wave religion to be feared. Pulling people away from churches is not the point; sharing the findings of the journey is the point. With that caveat, I found the book to be brilliant. Euro Weekly The Shack has become very popular because it is asking some of the most important questions people can ask and exploring the answers in a way that is very accessible. While reading, it is easy to understand its appeal. There is nothing especially unique about the book and, although similar plots have been extremely overused before, it repeats the same old message beautifully. For certain people, or in certain situations, you are likely to dismiss or even be infuriated by reading all this again. Of course, for the right person, reading „The Shack‟ can be one of the most powerful experiences of their lives. It‟s not the best writing in the world, but if you read „The Shack‟ at the right moment, it might have a powerful effect on your life. Others, instead, might regard it as the same old history disguised in different lines.

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Discussion Questions _____________________________________________ Overview Questions 1. If you were to rank the book: THE SHACK on a scale of 1-5, what would you rate it and why would you give it that rating? 2. What part of the book spoke to you the most, and why?(If you can find it please read it) 3. Are there any brief quotes in the book that you like? 4. What part of the book confused you the most or created the most questions? Why did you have a hard time with that part of the book? 5. What were some of the things that the Shack says about God, faith, and life that you disagree with? Digging In: The Shack, The Garden, and The Human Soul 1. Why do you think Mack's encounter with God took place at the shack? If God were to invite you somewhere, where would it be? (In other words, where is the center of your doubt and pain)? 2. Do you think suffering draws people closer to God or distances them from Him? Which has it done in your life? 3. If you think about your soul as a garden, what do you imagine it being like? Is it neat and all in order? Is it a mess? Do you want it in order? Do you want it to be a mess or in order? Does it need weeding? 4. Why do you think Missy was buried in the garden? Digging In: Papa, The Trinity, and All that God Stuff 1. How did the author's description of God differ from your understanding of God? What parts of the descriptions of God did you resonate with? What parts did you have a hard time with? Why? 2. Did you have a hard time with the way the author presented God's gender? Why or why not? 3. Did you find the presentation of the Trinity helpful? Why or why not? 4. When you pray to or think about God, what is the mental picture that comes to mind of what God looks like? 5. Mack naturally relates to Jesus the best out of any member of the Trinity? Which do you tend to relate to when you pray? When you think about what is God is like? 6. Do you think God is too nice in The Shack? Digging In: The Great Sadness, Relationships and Reconciliation 1. What do you think about how Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu relate to one another? 2. The Great Sadness goes from being something that is the grief of Mack, to the thing that defines him. How did this happen? How does this happen in people that you know? 4

3. In what ways does the Great Sadness in Mack hurt him in his relationships with other people? 4. In what ways does Mack blame himself for what happened to Missy? How does this define him? 5. Throughout the story we see that Mack, although he can hardly speak it, blames God for taking his daughter away. When do we blame God? Why? How do we reconcile with God after this? 6. What were your thoughts about Mack's reconciliation with his father? In what ways do our relationships with our parents define us? Color our relationship with God? With others? 7. Why is Mack's forgiveness of the killer important? To Papa? To Mack? For the killer? 8. How does Mack's forgiveness of himself, God, and others get him to the point where he can be a better husband, father, and friend? Do you think this is true of all of us? Source: www.FriarTucksFleetingThoughts.Blogspot.com

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Author Interview _____________________________________________ If you haven‟t already heard of The Shack chances are you will soon. The best-selling novel is storming through the Christian community changing lives, stirring dialogue and fueling controversy. Recently New Man talked about the book‟s success with the author, William P. Young. Interview by Drew Dyck New Man: Were you surprised at the tremendous success of The Shack? William Young: Well, let me give you a little backdrop. I wrote it for my six kids. I‟ve never published anything in my life or tried to. I‟m the most accidental author you‟ll ever meet. It was not even on the radar that anyone other than family and friends would ever read this thing. So you ask if I‟m surprised—are you kidding me? It‟s such a God thing. There‟s no question about what‟s going on here. It was a gift to my children and God decided to give it as a gift to His children. New Man: This book has really resonated with people who have experienced abuse or trauma. Do you view this book as a ministry? Young: The word “ministry” is an old word to me. It‟s part of the performance paradigm. To me ministry is a verb. It‟s something we do because Christ, as a servant, indwells us. So it happens whether you‟re holding your child or loving a friend. Ministry is about servanthood, so whatever we do for others is ministry. There‟s no split between the sacred and secular stuff you do. That‟s the old paradigm. So I don‟t use that kind of language. I understand that God is doing something with the book. At the beginning at 2005, after I‟d completed The Shack, I started praying a new prayer. “Papa, I‟ll never ask you to bless anything I do again. But if there is something you‟re blessing and it‟s OK for me to hang around, I‟d be all over it. I don‟t care if I clean toilets or shine shoes.” At the end of the day I want to say, “I know who did this. It wasn‟t a mix between my efforts and need for significance.” I had no idea that God would say, “OK, how about I choose this little story that you‟re writing for your kids.” I know it‟s become powerful in many different circles. The fact that the Holy Spirit has decided to do something unusual with it is just phenomenal to me. New Man: I understand you‟ve suffered trauma in your own life. How much did you draw on that experience when you were writing the book? Young: A lot. We‟ve had losses in our family. We had a six-month period where my 18-year-old brother was killed, my wife‟s father died suddenly and my 5-year-old niece was killed the day after her birthday. So we have that pain. I received a letter from a reader that asked if the character Missy in the book represented something innocent in me that was murdered as a child. And she got it dead on. My stuff goes back to my childhood on the missionary field. My disconnectedness from my own family, sexual abuse in the culture, abuse that happened at boarding school—that‟s where the center of my pain comes from. So the pain in the story is very real. I picked a scenario that encompasses both elements of loss and went to what I thought was the deepest most intense point of pain I think humans 6

can endure—that‟s losing a child. That raises the most fundamental questions: Who is this God? How can He let this stuff happen? What kind of world do we live in? How do we understand ourselves in light of this? And I wrapped it in a story because a story has a way of penetrating our defenses. New Man: Is the story‟s protagonist, Mack, autobiographical? Young: Yes, but there are things that are totally different between us. My kids knew that I was Mack. The first draft I ever wrote my kids knew that it was me. New Man: There‟s a lot of theology in your book. You do seem to affirm Trinitarian doctrine and the divinity of Christ. However other passages are more controversial. At one point the character of God says, “In Jesus I have forgiven all humans of their sins against me.” Young: That‟s directly out of 1 Timothy: “This is a statement is true and worthy of full acceptance. That Jesus Christ is the savior of all mankind, especially of believers.” New Man: You just worded it a little differently? Young: Exactly. I did that a lot because we wanted to get the preachy feel out of it. In the first draft I had God quoting Paul, which just doesn‟t work. But if you reform the same content and put it in a conversation people won‟t recognize them as Scripture, but they are. New Man: Yes, but some of the language you use sounds a little like Universalism, the doctrine that all will be saved. How do you respond to that? Young: Very simply. I‟m not a Universalist. I‟ve never said anything other than the road gets narrowed down to one man, that‟s the person Jesus Christ. I‟ve been very clear about that. And it‟s very clear throughout the whole book, unless you want to find an agenda for Universalism in there. New Man: Tell me about how the book took off? Young: Well, I gave it to my kids for Christmas along with some family and friends and the response was just phenomenal. So after Christmas I sent it to the only real author I knew: Wayne Jacobson in California. Wayne and his friend Brad Cummings—they do a podcast called God Journey—we got together in the spring of 2006 just to talk about the book and then we broke it down as a screenplay, so we could understand the content better. Then we worked on the language and rewrote it. We all have regular jobs, so we did all this over a period of about 16 months. We were looking for a publisher. We sent it out to every major Christian and non-Christian publisher. The few that responded said “We‟re sorry but as much as we like it, we don‟t have a niche for it.” From the faith side they said, “It‟s just too edgy.” From the secular side they said, “It‟s got too much Jesus in it.” They just didn‟t take. So Brad and Wayne created Windblown Media as a publishing company with one title. We stuck it on a Web site. We did an initial run of 10,000 and we were hoping to get through that in the first two years. We did nothing else. To date we‟ve spent only $300 in marketing and promotion. I think we‟re about around 700,000 sales now. New Man: Mack has such an incredible healing experience in the book. Why is it, do you think, that God doesn‟t facilitate a dramatic healing process like that for everyone?

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Young: Mack‟s weekend represents 11 years for me. But 11 years would have been way too long of a book. So I needed to squeeze my 11 years down to that weekend for Mack. The beautiful thing is that because of our uniqueness we‟re all in a process that is different from anyone else‟s. The events in that process and the duration will differ. Jesus didn‟t heal anyone the same twice. New Man: Any plans for a follow-up to The Shack at this point? Young: I don‟t know. I‟m really hesitant to do anything as a sequel at this point. I‟ve got other ideas for things I want to do, but The Shack is kind of a stand-alone book.

Source: www.NewManMagazine.com

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Further Reading _____________________________________________ If you liked The Shack you might try: Dinner With a Perfect Stranger by David Gregory (INSP Gregory) In this didactic inspirational novella, Cincinnati workaholic Nick Cominsky accepts an invitation that he assumes is a gag: to have dinner with Jesus Christ himself. He soon finds out it's no laughing matter, and, despite his doubts and initial misgivings, he engages in a long conversation with the deity (who has jettisoned the long locks and sandals in favor of a Brooks Brothers haircut and blue suit). That conversation constitutes the novella's light plot. As the courses of their elegant Italian meal are delivered, Nick and Jesus discuss the dichotomies of sin and salvation, grace and works, organized religion and personal faith. In his quest to prove why Christianity is superior to other religions, Gregory has Jesus make misleading statements about Hinduism, Buddhism and particularly Islam. These unfair caricatures add to the book's heavy-handed feel, as do strawman arguments for the veracity of the Bible and the resurrection. What's appealing about this book is that its Jesus is refreshingly down-to-earth; he digs good food, draws theological illustrations from Star Trek, and quietly chafes at wearing a necktie. But that can't disguise the fact that Gregory has not written a story so much as a dressed-up and controversial sermon. Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall (976.4 HALL) Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless-until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together. But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing? Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader will ever forget it. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (B JACOBS) What would it require for a person to live all the commandments of the Bible for an entire year? That is the question that animates this hilarious, quixotic, thought-provoking memoir from Jacobs (The Know-It-All). He didn't just keep the Bible's better-known moral laws (being honest, tithing to charity and trying to curb his lust), but also the obscure and unfathomable ones: not mixing wool with linen in his clothing; calling the days of the week by their ordinal numbers to avoid voicing the names of pagan gods; trying his hand at a 10-string harp; growing a ZZ Top beard; eating crickets; and paying the babysitter in cash at the end of each work day. (He considered some rules, such as killing magicians, too legally questionable to uphold.) In his attempts at living the Bible to the letter, Jacobs hits the road 9

in highly entertaining fashion to meet other literalists, including Samaritans in Israel, snake handlers in Appalachia, Amish in Lancaster County, Pa., and biblical creationists in Kentucky. Throughout his journey, Jacobs comes across as a generous and thoughtful (and, yes, slightly neurotic) participant observer, lacing his story with absurdly funny cultural commentary as well as nuanced insights into the impossible task of biblical literalism.

Source: www.Amazon.com

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