|
The Shack | 
 enlarge | Author: William P. Young
Creator: Wayne Jacobsen & Brad Cummings
Publisher: Windblown Media
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $6.97
You Save: $8.02 (54%)
New (78) Used (31) from $6.97
Rating:  1507 reviews
Sales Rank: 2
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0964729237
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780964729230
ASIN: 0964729237
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 1502 more reviews...
 A Bible Teacher's Review October 6, 2008
I teach advanced Bible studies to intelligent, accomplished adults and am usually highly suspicious of books with Biblical themes, especially those built around fiction. But this reviewer is happy to qualify my five-star rating thus: This is outstanding reformed trinitarian theology. There are a few inconsequential unbiblical fillips tossed in here and there but they do not ruin the basics of Biblical truth, the important lessons therein.
True, God The Father is not a black woman named Papa. True, it is unbiblical to state that God is both male and female. True, the Holy Spirit isn't a female. One or two other asides do not destroy the biblical integrity of this fictional book any more than wearing a cross destroys the commandment not to make "graven images".
What you have here is a book for everyone who can think analytically. It is true some parts are easy to fathom, other parts are questions and problems that people have been wrestling with since people were created. But it's less the actual story that is so attractive as it is the deep, deep theology the participants analyze. The reader who enters these pages with the notion of cruising along without analyzing or thinking deeply will be either disappointed that it's not another simplistic "Dinner With The Perfect Stranger", or will be confused by what appears to be unanswerable questions about God, pain, suffering, creation, death, life, eternity and purpose.
This is no simple book. Bible studies and weekend Christian retreats are already being built around this book and for good reason: The book asks all the right questions and in some cases answers those questions by saying, "It is not for you to know just yet." In short, it's a book for the seeker as well as for the committed Christian. I imagine Fundamentalist Atheists will find it terrible, as might some who miss the greater messages in favor of finding fault with angels on pin heads.
Get this book for every seeker or Christian you know. As an ex-atheist who converted to Christianity late in life, I can tell you that this is a substantive book, unlike many pop-Christian books out there today by well-known writers and pastors. In fact, this book may be a tad too substantive for some; it scrapes your psyche and challenges your mind.
Great Book October 6, 2008
This fictional tale gives a new way of explaining theological issues. It is well written and does not condesend. The plot and the characters are interesting. It could be a good opener to Christianity for non-believers.
Awesome book! October 6, 2008
I would recommend this book to everyone.
You should order more than one book - you are going
to want to give it to friends to read.
Very thought provoking book.
So loved...... October 6, 2008
I was hooked from the introduction of God to the very last words. Having been raised in the South, there is no more loving figure to me than "Papa". I could feel the emotions pulsating in the initial meeting between Papa and Mack. I have been there! I understood that feeling of being lost and unable to cope. However, as the journey began in earnest, I walked this path with Mack. I felt loved again! I will definitely read this again and again.
I ordered 15 copies for my book club and special friends. It is a message everyone should hear, over and over again.
 Doctrine and Fiction October 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Whenever I've brought up many of the theologically egregious assertions of this book, the response I've often received is that "it's just fiction" or that it's simply an effective metaphorical device, but rarely have my concerns ever been addressed directly. I'm usually challenged in my use of the word "heresy" or questioned as to why I think this book is an attempt at systematic theology under the canopy of fiction. Yet the book reviews and the assertions the "Missy Project" makes about it suggest that The Shack has the ability to transform lives and give us a glimpse into the true nature of God.
In other words, perhaps it should be read as truth is what the proponents of it seem to suggest. One person told me it was an attempt to "influence people's personal theology". I was also told by a pastor that it had the power to heal and that many people to whom he'd given copies had received "healing" from it.
First and second Timothy (both in chapter 4) as well as 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11 and John 8:32, however, speak of people not being able to endure sound doctrine and instead turning to "fables" and being sent strong delusion. The enemy will deceive people with signs and wonders. And that sort of deception begins with false doctrines, to deceive even if possible the elect. Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Paul told Timothy to guard the truth, to take heed to doctrine.
The larger theological issues I have with this book include of course God represented as a woman (pages 65,66 and throughout), evil having no "actual existence" (page 136 or 139), the Christian life not about being like Jesus (page 149),God's nature being dependent on the creation (page 94 and page 102), God's nature merely metaphorical(65-67), the attempt at properly interpreting Scripture as something of which to be suspicious, and God not having to punish sin because sin is it's own punishment.
There are a host of other problems with it as well, including as some other reviewers have aptly pointed out, the Shack's "god" being far too familiar, i.e. man making God in his own image. This is precisely what God has against Israel in Isaiah chapter 40 "You thought I was altogether like you". The Shack's god permits Mack to commune with his deceased father (page 216). Mack even kisses him on the lips.
Mack later thanks Papa for the experience. Papa says "No problem". But the God of the Bible would and does have a big problem with mediums, spiritualists and the likes, those who claim to be able to communicate with the dead.
The foundation for our beliefs as Christians must come from Scripture. It was the doctrine of the Authority of Scripture for which many Christians stood up during the Reformation and lost their lives. The Shack is an amalgam of philosophical & self-help therapeutic spiritualism, not true Christian doctrine. We are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
|
|
|
The Outpost Network | |
