Product Description

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From AudioFile
Mac is a grief-stricken father in mid-life about to have an extraordinary experience with God. His great sadness began four years ago on a weekend camping trip, when his 6-year-old daughter, Missy, was murdered. What he couldn't know then, but is about to learn, was God's purpose for Missy's death. Roger Mueller's clear, gentle voice characterizes Mac's family with high-spirited joy and laughter. His portrayal of Missy's animated excitement makes her especially believable. His polished performance of grief-stricken Mac brings tears. With empathy and sensitivity, Mueller captures the mysterious voices of those who have invited him to the now abandoned, yet transformed, cabin in the wilderness. This compelling fantasy explores themes of love, loss, and blame. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
"The Shack" is a one of a kind invitation to journey to the very heart of God. Through my tears and cheers, I have been indeed transformed by the tender mercy with which William Paul Young opened the veil that too often separated me from God and from myself. With every page, the complicated do's and don't that distort a relationship into a religion were washed away as I understood Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the first time in my life. --Patrick M. Roddy, ABC News Emmy Award winning producer

Finally! A guy-meets-God Novel that has literary integrity and spiritual daring. "The Shack" cuts through the cliches of both religion and bad writing to reveal something compelling and beautiful about life's integral dance with the Divine. This story reads like a prayer--like the best kind of prayer, filled with sweat and wonder and transparency and surprise. When I read it, I felt like I was fellowshipping with God. If you read one work of fiction this year, let this be it. --Mike Morrell, zoecarnate.com

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! --Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

About the Author
William P. Young was born a Canadian and raised among a stone-age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of what was New Guinea. He suffered great loss as a child and young adult, and now enjoys the 'wastefulness of grace' with his family in the Pacific Northwest.

Customer Reviews

Meh
This book is downright silly. I felt like I was reading a deleted scene from the matrix with never ending dialogue between Neo and the Oracle. Only without the cool action sequences.

A Bible Teacher's Review
I teach advanced Bible studies to intelligent, accomplished adults and am usually highly suspicious of books with Biblical themes, especially those built around fiction. But this reviewer is happy to qualify my five-star rating thus: This is outstanding reformed trinitarian theology. There are a few inconsequential unbiblical fillips tossed in here and there but they do not ruin the basics of Biblical truth, the important lessons therein.

True, God The Father is not a black woman named Papa. True, it is unbiblical to state that God is both male and female. True, the Holy Spirit isn't a female. One or two other asides do not destroy the biblical integrity of this fictional book any more than wearing a cross destroys the commandment not to make "graven images".

What you have here is a book for everyone who can think analytically. It is true some parts are easy to fathom, other parts are questions and problems that people have been wrestling with since people were created. But it's less the actual story that is so attractive as it is the deep, deep theology the participants analyze. The reader who enters these pages with the notion of cruising along without analyzing or thinking deeply will be either disappointed that it's not another simplistic "Dinner With The Perfect Stranger", or will be confused by what appears to be unanswerable questions about God, pain, suffering, creation, death, life, eternity and purpose.

This is no simple book. Bible studies and weekend Christian retreats are already being built around this book and for good reason: The book asks all the right questions and in some cases answers those questions by saying, "It is not for you to know just yet." In short, it's a book for the seeker as well as for the committed Christian. I imagine Fundamentalist Atheists will find it terrible, as might some who miss the greater messages in favor of finding fault with angels on pin heads.

Get this book for every seeker or Christian you know. As an ex-atheist who converted to Christianity late in life, I can tell you that this is a substantive book, unlike many pop-Christian books out there today by well-known writers and pastors. In fact, this book may be a tad too substantive for some; it scrapes your psyche and challenges your mind.

Great Book
This fictional tale gives a new way of explaining theological issues. It is well written and does not condesend. The plot and the characters are interesting. It could be a good opener to Christianity for non-believers.