Monday, October 20, 2008

Have you read it?

I'm sure many of you have heard of the book by William P. Young, called The Shack? It has been quite the buzz among the "Christian" world, but also among others apparently as it ranked # 12 on the Amazon list.
It has led to many controversial debates such as the one I just watched on You Tube, and a report from Mark Driscoll about it. Argh. It is obvious from what he said, that he hasn't read it. And then another video of a guy my age who finished reading it and thinks of it similarly to the way I do. (Don't watch any of these reports until you've read it for yourself!)
My in-laws gave it to us and Greg and I just finished reading it. I'm not going to give away the story, but I do want to say that I walked away from it feeling a sense of relief. I have a degree from Bible school, but that doesn't make me a theology expert. I don't quite know if all the doctrine in it was true, or that it was even remotely right... but I didn't expect that from this fiction book written by a human, not to replace the Bible, but to tell a story.
It did get kinda heavy in the middle of it, but all in all it just really helped to deepen my understanding of God as a Trinity, and His desire to have a relationship with me. It also helped to take the "guilt" out of our religious duties that we feel obliged to follow and instead focused on LOVE that flows out of us throughout our lives when we're in that right relationship with Him. It also touched on answering that age-old question of "Why if God is God...does He let bad things happen?".
I can see that someone who has a greater understanding of theology might find that this book has some errors, but it does well at encouraging people to LOVE God and understand his LOVE for his children. And so for me...it was well worth the read.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sarah,

From reading your blog, I thought you might be interested in chatting with William Paul Young live on Abunga.com tomorrow (10/22) from 2-3 pm EDT. You can log in by going to www.abunga.com/authorsatabunga. If you won't be able to attend, you can go to the above link today and ask a pre-chat question. Thanks!

Brittany
abunga.com
blog.abunga.com

Anonymous said...

I found this review of The Shack very interesting... take a read:
http://chrisfreeland.blogspot.com/2008/05/shack.html
Any thoughts?

Sarah said...

Thanks to Brittany and the anonymous person who wrote in...I went and read Chris Freeland's blog about this book. I think he may have some good points and it is obvious that he is much more knowledgeable of his theology than I am.
I want to clarify that I do not proclaim that The Shack is free of errors in it's reference to God and the author's interpretation of who God is and what heaven is etc.. I do not see it as a theological book though... I take it for what it is, a fiction book. (Haven't any of you read Narnia? Many can read it and see that Aslan is a representation of God, but that of course doesn't mean He is a lion!)
I could go on and on.
I like what Chris had to say at the end of his post. If I was reading this book as Bible Study material, then maybe I would pick apart all it's parts like he did. There are novels and text books I've read in my life that didn't necessarily agree with everything I believe. You take out the parts of it you want to and leave the rest. I don't do that with the Bible, but with all other books, you take what you can learn from, right? I'm not going to spend my days analyzing and judging .

Karen said...

I read it and loved it. I loved how it made me think outside the box we often put God in. I havent' had a chance to check out what the other commenters refered to, but I found that it was important to remember that it was a fictional novel, not a theology book, but from what I understand, he was mostly pretty on (stretched in some parts, but for the most part pretty accurate).

Anyways, I loved it, and want to read it again!

ps, Sarah, I love reading your blog, but have been oh so lame at commenting ever since the google reader was shown to me. For some reason, it's not as easy to leave a quick comment

Anonymous said...

Sarah please check out this online Church. You will hear his whole story and why he wrote the book.
Its a powerful testimony.
All theologians who have been trying to find anything wrong with his theology all come up with absolutely nothing....

Daryl met him at a conference recently and gave him a big hug :)

http://www.northpointministries.org/player/722player.jsp?occurrenceID=3041&mediaItemID=3385

*Alicia

Sarah said...

Thank you Alicia...I hope that you all go to her suggested link and see his testimony. It is amazing!
http://www.northpointministries.org/player/722player.jsp?occurrenceID=3041&mediaItemID=3385

Anonymous said...

Hi Sarah,

I haven't written on your blog for so long but seeing this post about the "shack" I couldn't resist. I have read it and feel exactly how you do about it. I would never think of it as a theological book but as a fiction book it sure did get us thinking outside the box. I went to a church here in abbotsford and heard William Young speak and it was amazing! He answered some really tough questions from the audience...(some of which were ones I would have asked) I actually got a dvd of him speaking..I can lend it to you sometime if you like. This book is definitely not the Bible but it has introduced many people to Christ! Well it is very late I should try and get some sleep. Bye for now. Ang H

Ashley said...

I recently read "The Shack" about 2 weeks ago. A lady my husband works with leant it to him saying its a book that must be shared. I saw it as a good book for someone who needs to forgive someone for something that you never want to face in your life. I loved meeting each character and would pass it on to others as well