Everyone I know has read the William Paul Young book, “The Shack.” Everyone except me.

Why I didn’t get around to reading it over the last couple of years as it zoomed to the top of the best-selling list and stayed there, I don’t know. I observed that no one was neutral about it, some cursing it and warning everyone off and others testifying to how it changed everything about the way they think of God.

That’s pretty powerful stuff. Wouldn’t mind writing a book that would do that, myself.

I confess that the only reason I read the book this weekend is that my niece Lisa McKeever Hollingsworth asked me to and to tell her what I think. She had wept through it and said that nothing has affected her the way this book did.

I bought it at the local used paperback book store. The sticker on it reads “$9.00 cash.”

It was a fast read. It’s well written. Mr. Young clearly has written before and has a knack for expression. A knack for the shack? Sorry.

The good thing about penning one’s thoughts on a blog is that he can always re-enter the website and tweak what he has written. I expect I’ll be doing that since I have so many currents running through my mind on this little book, and doubtless I’ll forget to jot some of those thoughts down.

It hits me that writing a review of a book long after it has run its course is par for me. The only time I saw the movie “Gone With the Wind” was 30 years after its debut. It came to the theaters in Greenville, Mississippi, where I was pastoring my first church following seminary, and so affected me that I sat down at the typewriter and put on paper all the thoughts rushing through my mind. What I did with it in those pre-blog days, I have no memory.

As I sit at the computer, the clock in the lower right corner identifies the time as 3:02 a.m.

I had planned to sleep last night and did for some four hours. At 2 a.m., I awakened and made the customary journey to the smallest room in the house which people my age take in the middle of nights. I took a couple of pills I always take at that time, and then, wide awake, went to my drawing table and worked on six cartoons for a pastor friend in Michigan who asked me to illustrate a mission lesson he is doing.

And I decided to get back into bed and read the last 25 pages of “The Shack.” Those who have read it will vouch for that being a climactic part of the plot. When I laid the book down, far from being ready for bed, I knew I’d have to write down all those emotions and thoughts fighting in my brain for expression.

So, here goes.

Dear Lisa.

1. This story is not quite as original as it might seem at first. In many ways, it’s the story of Job in the Old Testament.

Job had “a great sadness,” as does Mack in “The Shack.” For Job, it was not just the lost of one child, but 10 children–7 sons and 3 daughters–all at once. His children died in a tornado, robbers carried off his herds, fires took everything else, and he was left with a diseased body and a nagging wife. Now, that is a sadness!

Instead of meeting with the Three Members of the Trinity, as Mack did in “The Shack,” Job’s conversation involves three old friends. Toward the end of the story, God shows up (although not bodily) and puts everyone in his place.

Job’s story is also about trusting God when life caves in and you don’t know what to do, and it’s about showing forgiveness toward those who wrong you. In the 42nd chapter, God told the friends that they had given Job bad counsel and He was angry with them. “My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with ou according to your folly.” When Job prayed for his accusers, God forgave them.

2. But what do I think of “The Shack”? That’s what a dozen Facebook friends asked, it’s what you wanted to know, and it’s what I promised to answer on this website.

a) I was much impressed by how well the writer knows his Bible, particularly the New Testament. Often little details pop up that only a serious reader of Scripture would see and appreciate.

b) I can see how a person dealing with brokenness in his own life would find great comfort and inspiration in this book. More than one person told me they have given “The Shack” to someone whose child was killed and was unable to get past it.

c) The jury-in-my-head is still out on what I think of the portrayals of the Father (“Papa”), Son (Jesus), and Spirit (“Sarayu”) in the story. Presenting Papa as a Black woman was strange at first, but the more I think of it, the more it seems to have been a stroke of genius.

One Facebook friend said the Lord did that because Mack had lost his mother and that’s how he would appreciate seeing God. I don’t know about that–did Mack lose his mother?–but the main thought that occurred to me was: “The writer wants us to think outside the box!”

Anyone coming to God should prepare to be surprised. He is the Wholly Other and even though we were created in His image, He is not created in ours. He is the Great I Am.

d) One Facebook friend didn’t like the way Sophia showed up in the story. The word “sophia” is Greek for “wisdom,” and the Old Testament book of Proverbs does indeed speak of wisdom as a woman.

The problem, as readers no doubt know, is that radical feminists who wish to reinvent the Gospel and rewrite the Scriptures have adopted Sophia as the name of their female deity. When they pray, they address their prayers to Sophia.

My own take, however, is that what they do should not blind us to the simple meaning of the word and the portrayal which Proverbs gives of wisdom.

I’m not offended.

e) This story is fiction and should be taken as fiction. It does not claim God is the way He is presented in “The Shack.” He may be, or He may not be. But the book does not make a claim either way.

Having said that, let me hasten to point out that I love fiction. The books by my bed right now include a murder mystery by Julie Garwood and a western by William Johnston. To friends who protest that fiction is just someone’s made-up story, I respond that a good novel will often contain more truth than a dozen biographies.

3. One major concern I have in anyone writing such a book, Lisa, is that it comes close to violating the Second Commandment. That’s the one, you’ll remember, forbidding idols or “graven images” of God (Exodus 20:4).

Not that a book is an idol. But what this kind of story does is the same thing the ancients would attempt to do with a carving or statue of a deity: give a representation of how things are in the Celestial world.

“God is like this.” That’s what an idol says.

And it’s what this book is saying, no matter how many times we protest that it’s only fiction.

There is a danger is going beyond what Scripture presents as how God actually is.

Is God like the three figures William Paul Young introduces as the Holy Trinity in “The Shack”? My short answer is: yes. The longer answer is: But He’s so much more.

And therein lies the trouble with an idol. It limits God to one person’s image of Him.

The old folks used to take the blind-men-and-the-elephant metaphor. I’m not sure where that originated–was it an Aesop’s Fable?–and could probably look it up on Google. In that tale, a blind man grasps the elephant’s tail and says, “An elephant is like a rope.” Another pats his broad side and says, “It’s like a wall.” The one by a leg says the elephant is like a tree trunk, and so forth. Each one “sees” only a small portion of the much larger reality.

We are all so limited in our grasp of reality. Stories help us to understand and to convey insights. But they can never contain the entire reality of God or Heaven or the cosmic drama of redemption.

William Paul Young actually attempts to do this–to convey an explanation of these matters–and frankly, I am most impressed.

He knows his Bible, he loves the Lord, he “gets” what the cross was all about to a great extent, and he appreciates the Tri-uneness of God. All of that was most impressive to me.

4. Buy “The Shack” and read it again from time to time, if you like. Several people say they do. Becky Brown, a special friend and a full-time Christian worker, tells me she has read it repeatedly and loves it. Personally, I see no harm in that so long as we read the Bible more and do with this book the same we would do with any other: judge its teachings in light of Scripture.

The Bible is always our authority. “Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another–showing us faith, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.” (II Timothy 3:16-17 The Message)

5. I have sometimes preached that if you could go to Heaven for 30 minutes and come back, how different everything about your life would be. Once you saw that Heaven is real, that God is true, that His promises are genuine, and what we do here on Earth matters, you would come back to live an entirely new kind of life. You would have more peace, be more generous, pray better, laugh more, and witness with a new fervor.

Something like that may have been what happened to the Apostle Paul, referred to in the early verses of II Corinthians 12.

It’s what “The Shack” is all about. And, it’s worth thinking about.

The rich guy in Hades told Father Abraham that “if someone were to come back from this place and warn my brothers, they would repent.” (Luke 16:30)

He wasn’t in Heaven, of course, but in the other place. Even so, he liked the idea of an eyewitness returning to earth as an authoritative preacher of the truth.

In Jesus’ story, Father Abraham informs the tortured man that if his brothers do not believe the Bible–that’s what “Moses and the prophets” refers to–“they would not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

To prove that, all you have to do is look at the resurrected Jesus. People are still trying to prove He did not actually rise and that they do not have to obey His words.

6. Finally, this brings us to what some have pointed out as a major deficit in “The Shack:” There’s no hell.

There seems to be a kind of universalism where even the worst of the bad guys get it all worked out.

But, and this is important, not everyone agrees with this assessment. Some point out that in the story, the God figure (“Papa”) makes the point that each one has to decide. Even so, there is no actual mention of eternal punishment in the story.

If after this life, hell is a reality, then to present a story dealing with “the drama of redemption” without mentioning it is a serious omission.

What I personally think is that William Paul Young, the author, does not want there to be a hell–hey, who does?–and so conveniently left it out. If he’s going to give us his idea of the afterlife, it might as well be the way he wants it.

You can do that when you write your own novel.

You just hope no one takes it as gospel.

We have a Gospel. Four of them, in fact. In those, Jesus talks more about hell than heaven. A sobering thought. And let us never forget for a moment, He is our ultimate authority on the afterlife. In John 3:13, he tells Nicodemus that the only one who has ever been to heaven is the one who came from there, referring to Himself. When he speaks of those things, we would do well to listen intently.

Lisa, I appreciate anyone’s “take” on the redemption story so long as they take seriously the reality of sin, of Jesus, His cross, and our accountability. This book does that.

Thanks for asking me to read it.

Remember those hugs between the son Mack and his estranged father in Heaven?

I send you one of those. The really big kind.

I love you. Hope to see you soon.

Uncle Joe