The Shack invites 'transforming conversations'
If I had to make a list of some of the finest things in the world, our ability to tell one another stories would be on it.
That’s why the evening of Aug. 1 at Timonium UMC was such a delight. The congregation invited William Paul Young, author of “The Shack,” to speak; and not only were stories shared, but even the stories behind the stories were told.
Eugene Peterson, author of The Message version of the Bible, wrote that “When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of “The Shack.” This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” did for his. It’s that good.”
Apparently some of the members of the congregation at Timonium UMC agreed and a team of them, who were “intrigued and blessed by the poignant and powerful nature of the book,” felt compelled to contact Young and ask him to visit – both to speak and to preach the next morning. They want to invite the community to a transforming event, said the Rev. Frances Dailey.
“The Shack” has been in the number one spot on the New York Time’s Best Selling List for more than 67 weeks. There are 7 million copies of it in print in 20 foreign languages. These are amazing facts for a story that was never intended to be published.
Young, who is a father of six, was asked by his wife Kim in 2005 to write something for his children that would put in one place some of the things he thought about God and life.
Young was working three jobs at the time. As he moved from task to task he began to imagine a series of conversations in his mind. To link the conversations, which illuminated his feelings about faith, he created a story.
While it is a work of fiction, the dark place of great sadness that the protagonist Mackenzie fell into mirrored Young’s own 11-year crisis of faith; just as the book’s theology of the Trinity and insistence that relationship is the foundation for living a life of faith also reflect his beliefs.
The story Young wrote involves a man who is mourning the murder of his daughter and ends up visiting the scene of the crime, where he spends the weekend with the Trinity: the Father, an African-American woman named Papa who cooks delicious feasts; the Son, a Jewish man who wears a carpenter’s belt and takes him for walks across the lake; and the Holy Spirit, an ethereal Asian woman named Sarayu.
Young printed 15 copies of this story and gave it to his family and a few friends. Two of those friends saw potential in it and urged him to send it to publishers. He did, but after 26 rejections, in the spring of 2007, the trio used their credit cards to have 10,000 copies printed.
News of the book, which was ordered by e-mail and distributed from a garage, spread. In three months, Young and his friends printed 20,000 more and 60 days later, they ordered another 30,000 books.
“It’s like the book has given people a language to have a conversation about God,” Young said.
That conversation ignited a spark. In the first 14 months, with less than $300 in advertising and marketing, more than a million copies were sold.
Speaking at Timonium, Young shared that he is not quite sure what to make of all this success.
It has made him leery about asking God for things. He now prays, “Papa, I will never ask you again to bless anything I do, but if you have anything you’re blessing, can I hang around that?”
It’s as if God said, you write a book and share it with your kids, and then I’ll share it with mine, Young said.
That sharing has led to Young receiving hundreds of thousands of e-mails from people around the world, many of whom share their own stories of suffering and quest for redemption and wholeness.
Young compared it to hanging around burning bushes all day.
At Timonium that evening, some of the more than 400 people, half of them from the community, gathered also shared their stories, along with questions about theology, the church and their impressions of “The Shack.”
They even delved into criticisms that have surrounded the book. At one point, on page 184, Mackenzie asks the Son, “is that what it means to be a Christian?”
Jesus responded, “Who said anything about being a Christian? I’m not a Christian.”
These words have brought stern censure from some religious leaders.
But Young stands firm in the book’s defense. “Jesus was born a Jew, died a Jew and ascended as a Jew,” he said. “Jesus didn’t come to set up a religion,” which can often become fear or performance-based. Jesus, Young maintains, came to destroy religious thinking by setting up relationships.
Critics have also cried out, “heresy,” when Jesus states in the book that people have come to him through every system that exists – from Buddhism to Islam to the Republican party.
“Does that mean that all roads will lead to you?” Mack asks in the book.
“Not at all,” Jesus answered. “Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”
That passage was the last edit made in the book before it went to press, said Young who stands by his statement. “It’s you God cares about,” he said, “not what road you’re on.”
The story in “The Shack” and the stories shared at Timonium UMC are also an invitation to God. They remind us of grace and community, healing and heartache, adventure, mystery and the blessings of a good tale well told.
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