Finding God In The Shack

Olson delves into many of the significant issues raised by the popular book "The Shack," such as forgiving those who have done evil, how God acts in the world, how God is three persons in one, and what difference this makes.

What would it be like to lose your youngest child to a serial killer? And then to have God invite you out for a conversation at the very shack where the terrible deed took place? And then imagine that the door to that shack of horrors opened . . . and before you knew it you had been swept up in the motherly embrace of a large African American woman? This most unlikely of stories, as told in William Young's The Shack, has become a runaway bestseller, and now a major motion picture, and it is easy to see why. But even as lives have been transformed through this book, other readers have sternly denounced it as a hodgepodge of serious theological error, even heresy. With one pastor urging his congregation to read it and another forbidding his congregation to, many Christians have simply been left confused. Aware both of the excitement and uncertainty generated by The Shack, theologian Randal Rauser takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the pages of the story. In successive chapters he explores many of the book's complex and controversial issues. Thus he explains why God the Father is revealed as an African American woman, he defends the book's theology of the Trinity against charges of heresy and he considers its provocative denial of a Trinitarian hierarchy. But at its heart The Shack is a response to evil and so Rauser spends the final three chapters considering the book's explanation for why God allows evil, how the atoning work of Christ offers new hope for a suffering world and ultimately how this hope extends to all of creation. Through these chapters Rauser offers an honest and illuminating discussion which opens up a new depth to the conversation while providing the reader with new opportunities for Finding God in The Shack.

In this booklet I hope to guide you through The Shack. We will look at the book with a charitable but critical eye, attempting to understand what it teaches and how it can be that opinions about the book vary so widely. We do this not simply to be critical, but as an exercise in discernment and critical thinking. We will simply look at what the author teaches and compare that to the Bible.

How can wounded people come to believe that God deeply loves them?Many have enjoyed William Young's "The Shack," even if they puzzled over the book's actual meaning and theology. While some were quick to dismiss it as fiction, "The Shack" isn't really fiction at all. It's a modern day parable."Meeting God at The Shack" shows hurting people how to read this story with pro t and come to know God more fully.

Millions have bought into the theology of Paul Young, whose book, The Shack, which portrays God as a loving, black woman. Similar changes in appearance were given to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The story of pain and redemption then resonated with the public. But is Young's worldview important? Is his theology that big a deal? James De Young thinks so. In fact, it's so important that he's written a compelling challenge to The Shack. In Burning Down the Shack, De Young manages to shed important light on the implications of Young's pluralistic faith, and provides readers with a gripping counter-balance to the popular little volume that's spent many weeks on the best-seller lists. Exploring the nature and character of God, from Scripture, De Young concludes that it is necessary to proceed carefully with The Shack, lest important truths be skewed and even jettisoned. Without being confrontational, De Young makes the case that dangers can lurk under the foundation.

From the author of the bestselling novel The Shack and the New York Times bestsellers Cross Roads and Eve comes a compelling, conversational exploration of twenty-eight assumptions about God—assumptions that just might be keeping us from experiencing His unconditional, all-encompassing love. In his wildly popular novels, Wm. Paul Young portrayed the Triune God in ways that challenged our thinking—sometimes upending long-held beliefs, but always centered in the eternal, all-encompassing nature of God’s love. Now, in Wm. Paul Young’s first nonfiction book, he invites us to revisit our assumptions about God—this time using the Bible, theological discussion, and personal anecdotes. Paul encourages us to think through beliefs we’ve presumed to be true and consider whether some might actually be false. Expounding on the compassion fans felt from the “Papa” portrayed in The Shack—now a major film starring Sam Worthington and Octavia Spencer—Paul encourages you to think anew about important issues including sin, religion, hell, politics, identity, creation, human rights, and helping us discover God’s deep and abiding love.