Monday, October 27, 2008

Review of "The Shack"

Some folks have asked me about The Shack, a wildly popular book that I haven't read b/c I've been living in Peru, and now that I'm back in the States, I have a bunch of books to catch up on so I'm not likely to read it any time soon.

Having said that, here is a review of the book by Doug Wilson that many have mentioned as fair and spot-on.
I am going to say some hard things about the book in a moment, so I want to begin with this. The book is filled with numerous insights into what makes people tick, and those insights are wise, shrewd, pastoral, tender, and they deal with sins at the root. But the strength here is largely diagnostic, and unfortunately gets confused when it comes to the remedy, as will become apparent in a moment. William Young, the author, knows with profound clarity that fatherlessness is the rot that is eating away at the modern soul. The clear appeal of the book is because of the ache created by fatherlessness which, when coupled with the metaphoric solutions offered, provides us with a full explanation for the popularity of the book.
Read the whole review here.

1 comment:

Hannah D A said...

Thanks John. I read this book because some family members and close friends said it was "that good". I did feel there were good things in it, but I could never resolve the theology given with the truth of the Bible. Having God the Father and God the Holy Spirit presented as women was difficult to grasp and felt so blasphemous that I had to put the book down for a bit. And honestly, I struggled with picking it up and finishing it, but I did it anyway. In the end, it left me feeling confused about why so many people had said it was so good when it clearly was lacking in biblical truth. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it if you ever decide to read it.