Book Review: The Shack – The Spiritual Lessons of Parenthood

The Shack, in case you’ve been living in a cave this summer, is the runaway bestselling Christian novel by William P. Young that has the religious blogosphere overflowing with both beaming and scathing reviews. Amazon.com currently has 912 reviews of the book (and growing), mostly 5 stars and 1 stars from each end of the religious spectrum. Many consider it a life-changing book, with its message of love and forgiveness a welcome reminder of the core tenets of Christianity. Others consider it subversive, undermining Church authority and the Bible.

Personally, I’d have to say both sides are right, and that’s why I loved the book. Although entirely Christian (the main character spends much of the book ‘visiting’ with the Holy Trinity of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit), its exploration of good and evil, free will, the nature of love, and the role of religion, are all done in a way that can appeal to anyone, regardless of their religious faith. And in the end, the focus of the book is on the spiritual process, not religious beliefs – the process of growth and learning that true seekers within any faith engage in.

Since so much has already been said about The Shack, I’ve decided to highlight the theme most relevant to this blog – themes of parenthood. The plot of the book is designed to plunge the reader into one of the most fundamental questions of religious faith – if there is a loving God, how can such evil exist in the world? And the way it does so is through a storyline representing every parent’s darkest fear – the main character’s youngest daughter, just six years old, is abducted and brutally murdered by a serial killer.

There is perhaps no more basic, or universal, love then a parent’s love for their children, and nothing that could inspire more raw anger and hatred than the harming of a young child (in polls, when people are asked if they believe in the death penalty, many who otherwise don’t support it pause or change their answer when specifically asked about child molesters or murderers.) In this way, Mack is forced to face the disconnect between his ‘beliefs’ and his true inner thoughts – while he professes to ‘believe’ in a loving God, inwardly he is angry at God for not protecting his daughter, and cannot understand how God can possibly allow such an event.

In his visit with God (who appears to him as an African-American woman, because that is what he least expects), his anger and these questions are the focus of all the discussions regarding free will, and what it means for the world to exist independently of God. That independence enables both suffering and the joy of the spiritual process, the joy of rediscovering God through one’s own mistakes and inquiry. As God explains to Mack, removing humanity’s free will would end suffering, but it would also end any possibility of engaging in spiritual practice, and finding God for oneself.

And what is the pathway to finding God for oneself, even in the separate and independent world? LOVE (of course)  and parenthood emerges as one of the primary means for humanity to do this. In fact, in one scene, a spiritual judge uses Mack’s feelings for his own children as a way of explaining the crucifixion to him. She asks Mack to choose two of his children to be ’saved’ and two to be damned. Mack refuses to choose, and instead says ‘take me in their place’ – the same choice, the judge explains, that Jesus made.

The love of parent for child is also expounded upon as a pathway to finding God, in addition to all other types of human relationships. God explains to Mack that it is first through our love for others that we learn what love is, and only then can we pursue a loving relationship with God (or Christ.) And since our parents are our first experience of love, they largely shape our initial relationship with spirituality. If our parents abuse us or are unable to love us, we will struggle with the trust required for any true faith. We can heal this as adults through forgiveness, and through our own adult relationships, with friends, spouses, and, especially, our children.

While I do not consider myself Christian – or at least not exclusively so – The Shack’s exploration of love is broad enough for me to embrace. And although I am hesitant about paths that expound parenthood as a spiritual path (see my post on the Spiritual Mommy Wars for more on that), I think the author here has made it clear that truly loving in any form takes work, and ALL our relationships, not just parenthood, are potential vehicles for exploring love.  So overall, I recommend this book to absolutely anyone with spiritual interests of any type, although if you are not Christian, you will need to look past the surface.

If you are interested in some of the current religious debate surrounding The Shack, one of the best places to go is Amazon.com, where the most influential reviewers have excerpted their reviews. The official book website is www.theshackbook.com, and there are of course links to many positive reviews there. Two theologically critical reviews (both LONG) can be found at: http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/the-shack-by-william-p-young.php and http://sharperiron.org/2008/07/17/the-shack-a-review/.

Two others posts from this blog that explore ways to use your own parental love as part of a spiritual journey can be found here: Meditation For Busy Women Part III – Love and Mystic Parenting. For other book reviews on this site, go to the Book category.