The problem with your argument is the fact that bad theology is still bad, rather or not the books “point” was to present brokenness. If Young wanted to make the point that God can heal brokenness, then he could have written a book that ONLY dealt with healing brokenness, but the moment that Young began to make theological statements that are erroneous, it must be answered and corrected.

I’m sorry that you suffered loss and experienced hardships, but “The Shack”, while it does illustrate God’s love and His healing power, also demonstrates false ideas of God’s character and horrible illustrations of theology.

I do understand the main point of the book. Pain, hurt, forgiveness, and tragedy are the overarching themes of the book and they are very apparent. I have also experienced tragedy in my lifetime, even in this calendar year. Like I mentioned in my post, the book does have some benefits as it relates to helping people overcome hurt and helping people deal with forgiveness. My problem was not with that aspect one bit.

If Young had written a book about dealing with tragedy and forgiveness, I would have had no problem. However, Young took many liberties in writing the book and included information that I believe is heresy or borderline-heresy. I know many young/new believers who have read this book or are currently reading this book. Sadly, I feel this power has the power to skew someone’s biblical worldview if they are not careful.

You say that Jesus did not teach theology but I would have to disagree with you. Jesus taught truth, and absolute truth at that. The truth of God and the truth of Jesus has become our basis for theology. Yes, Jesus did teach love and forgiveness, but those were also part of His truth.

Young did include some truth that was in line with Scripture, but also made truth subjective in areas. Also, he took many liberties and implied things about God and said things that were not biblical at all. I believe that is false truth and dangerous for believers.

If someone wrote a book about my family that contained great ideas, coping methods, a positive message, etc but also included information that was false or skewed and presented my family in a false manner, I would be upset. Yes, there may be some value to the book, but the book could be detrimental to my family’s name and the truth about my family.

With Scripture, our concern should be even greater. Someone may write a great work that includes a positive and needed message, but when you begin stripping truth from Scripture or skewing the message of Scripture, you run into many problems. You’ve made the message of Scripture subjective and incorrect in many ways.

So once again, my problem is not with the overall “theme” of the book. I think it’s important for believers and nonbelievers to know how to deal with tragedy and forgiveness. My problem was with the way Young slanted the truth of Scripture and said some things that I believe are far from biblical truth.

The universalism got me too. By the end of the book I felt like he was purposely avoiding saying what he really believed. It’s like he wanted to leave it up to the reader’s interpretation. That might work with a song or a truly fictional story, but when you write about the Bible and Scripture, you tread dangerous water.

The hinting at universalism drove me crazy. While he never says that those without Christ will be saved, he never says that they won’t be either. I kept waiting for him to tell us what he really thought, but it seemed to me that danced around the edges without ever taking a stance one way or the other.

Like you, I didn’t think it was the worst thing ever, but after all of the hype I had simply hoped for more.

The key thing you pointed out was the emotional standpoint.

Of all the blogs and posts I’ve read concerning The Shack…I don’t think I’ve found a single female who disliked the book. Why? I attribute it to the emotional drawing of the book. The book WAS emotional, but it also threw out a bunch of junk, too.

Good review.

Be prepared for flaming.