This is a brave and wonderfully written book by William P. Young, a graduate in Religion from Warner Pacific College, Portland OR. Although “The Shack” is a great contemporary presentation of the Trinity concept, God in three persons, it may disappoint Urantia Book (UB) readers that Mr. Young’s version still portrays Jesus as the Son in the Holy Trinity. The UB is careful to distinguish between Jesus/Michael as the Creator Son of the local universe of Nebadon, and the Eternal Son, 2nd person of the Paradise Trinity of the Central Universe of universes. I realize that it may be a long time before this UB depiction finds acceptance among world religions.
The story follows Mackenzie “Mack” Philips journey through the crippling pain caused by his youngest daughter’s abduction. He finds eventual redemption from the anger and bitterness of the loss. This book has some important things to say to people who wonder why bad things happen to good people, and who ask the question how can God allow evil and suffering? “Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will lead you to false notions about me.” (p. 185)
In spite of philosophic differences about the Trinity and how the will of God is discerned in our lives, I was quite swept off my feet by the powerful and uplifting messages in this story. “It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way (p. 192).” Again on pg. 198, “Don’t just look for rules and principles, look for relationship—a way of coming to be with us.”
Here is an excerpt from the review of William Young’s new book, “Cross Roads,” that was published in Maclean’s, Canada’s news magazine last month.
Author of ‘The Shack’ is back with a New Novel, Cross Roads
http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/01/21/breaking-out-of-the-shack/
When one of the world’s best selling novelists dropped by a deserted strip mall in suburban Toronto recently, he was unperturbed to find just four people waiting for him in a Christian bookstore. As long as there is anyone at all to hug—as he does with everyone he meets—and to share stories with, William Paul Young is more than content. Story is everything for Young: the personal tale of childhood pain, adult brokenness and spiritual healing he poured five years ago into The Shack; the story of that novel’s astonishing explosion from 15 copies printed at a Kinko’s to 18 million copies sold worldwide; and the 100,000 stories he has collected from readers. He doesn’t even mind that the people he meets barely spare a word for Cross Roads, the new novel he is—in theory—promoting. …
Young, 57, never used to find God and his ways funny, or have much to laugh about at all. Born in Grande Prairie, Alta., but raised by his missionary parents in Dutch New Guinea, Young was sexually abused by some of his parents’ congregants, and again later, at a Christian boarding school. As an adult, Young kept his past and his feelings of shame and worthlessness secret, bundling it all into his metaphorical shack, “the place we make to hide all our crap.” Until, at 38, the crisis came, when Young’s wife, Kim, discovered his affair with one of her best friends. He realized he couldn’t hide any longer and had to somehow restore his relationships with Kim, with God and with himself.
It took him 11 years, but he managed. And he created Mack, The Shack’s protagonist, whose five-year-old daughter, Missy, was murdered. Years later, Mack, as angry and despairing as Young had been, finds a note in his mailbox—a note from God—inviting him back to the wilderness shack where Missy died. He’s greeted at the door by God, in the guise of a plump, middle-aged black woman incongruously known as Papa. Mack soon meets the rest of an unusual Holy Trinity: a sawdust-covered, olive-skinned Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, an Asian woman called Sarayu. Together, enveloping him in their loving relationship, they heal Mack.
Some Christian leaders reacted favourably. … Many more doctrinaire Christians, however, were outraged by Young’s “ungendered” Trinity and by what they saw as New Age taint. “My own mother slammed the book shut when Papa opened the shack door,” laughs Young, “and immediately phoned my sister: ‘Debby, he really is a heretic!’ ” But the response of ordinary Christians was viscerally positive.
Young’s personal shack was an evil place, but not the one two readers showed him in photos at a Midwestern book signing. The grief-ravaged couple, who had lost their daughter to a drunk driver, were on an aimless road trip when they saw it, a building standing alone in a field, sporting a sign reading “the Shack.” Intrigued, they went in to find a yellow legal pad with the instruction to “Take what you need,” and two worn copies of The Shack. The wife did take one; “it saved my life,” she tearfully told Young. The Shack has brought him a lot, including wealth enough to support his family—he had been working three jobs—and to build a house for a Honduran orphanage, a school in Uganda and to fund several charities in Portland, near his Oregon home—but none he treasures as much as those 100,000 stories. (Brian Bethune)
