Jump directly to the Content

Taking The Shack to the Shed

Is the hottest new Christian novel an exercise in heresy?
Taking The Shack to the Shed

A graduate professor of mine liked to say that every attempt to explain the Trinity is heresy—every metaphor overemphasizes either God's one-ness or his three-ness. In his bestselling novel, The Shack, William P. Young tries to explain the Trinity. You can see where this is going.

At number 11 in book sales at Amazon.com and number nine on the USA Today Top 50 Books list [at the time of this writing], The Shack began as the self-published debut novel of an unknown writer. It has sold like hotcakes: somewhere around 500,000 copies (depending on who you ask) in less than a year. However you feel about the book, the story of its success is remarkable; all the more so considering that the content is unashamedly Christian.

To summarize, the shape of the novel is this: Mackenzie (Mack) Phillips' youngest daughter, Missy, is abducted and brutally murdered during a family vacation. Following Missy's death, Mack, who has always had a somewhat tenuous relationship with God, falls ...

March
Support Our Work

Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month

Homepage Subscription Panel

Read These Next

Related
Divine Comedy
Divine Comedy
From the Magazine
Empty Streets to the Empty Grave
Empty Streets to the Empty Grave
While reporting in Israel, photographer Michael Winters captures an unusually vacant experience at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Editor's Pick
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
Understanding God and our world needs more than bare reason and experience.
close