At long last I read The Shack, William Young's unlikely bestseller of 2007. It's a book of theological fiction about a man who, in the wake of the murder of his daughter, gets to meet God and ask him some agonizing questions.The novel has spawned an online community of advocates, some of whom share their own losses and religious struggles. It has also been labeled heretical, especially by conservative evangelicals. The Century's own reviewer, Jason Byassee, was unimpressed by Young's theology, largely put off by the crudely anthropomorphic and politically correct Trinity that Young creates. (It's a multiracial threesome who engage in lots of hugging and down-home cooking while they explain things.)
I think the force of the book, however, is its attempt to convey a God who actually likes and understands human beings. "The real underlying flaw in your life," God tells the protagonist, "is that you don't think that I am good."
That the Christian God is good is what many of us mean by "the gospel." But apparently such good news is not widely known or believed. At least that's how I would interpret readers' enthusiastic response to The Shack: people are relieved to know that God might regard human questions and suffering with some sympathy, even love. The book's success may tell us something about the kind of God many people think Christianity requires them to believe in.
The Shack is a kind of Scholastic Books version of a Dostoevsky novel or a C.S. Lewis fantasy—it tackles life's biggest questions earnestly and directly, with talent but not genius. But that is also why it has something to teach us.
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