The Shack question

Incredible book, great analogy of the trinity. I wish the movie and the book was more accurate to the Bible more(told the complete truth about Jesus), but both movie and book are awesome!

I really liked the book. The emotion and the power of the words that were spoken were very powerful.
I liked how she explained how the garden was his heart. I read the book at least four times and each time I read it I learn something new. It has touched my heart.

One word: whack!

Lissa Ann wrote: "Has anyone else read this book??
If so, what are your thoughts on it?? I was raised Catholic, and it has raised some crazy questions on some aspects where I was taught different.

Just curious what..."

I read this book and watched the movie and found it to be such an amazing look at The Father , The Son,and The Holy Ghost. I don't know much about the Catholic religion, but I found this book to provoke serious questions about beliefs and what people go through following the death of someone near them.

One of my favorite books I have bought and given away five copies. I am spiritual but this book is definitely a nice thought of what i feel like religion should preach. That they are always calling to you no matter what. They absolutely nailed the movie as well <3

Thanks Rebecca,

Love the way you said that perfect

For me the characters represent the allegory of the Relational God in a beautiful way. We often miss the role of God in our day to day situations as if He is far and cannot relate to us (His creation).

Lissa Ann wrote: "Has anyone else read this book??
If so, what are your thoughts on it?? I was raised Catholic, and it has raised some crazy questions on some aspects where I was taught different.

Just curious what..."

I loved this book! It helped me see it is about a relationship with the Living God and His Son and Holy Spirit not just following a legalistic moral code. Praise God for His love!

I am a Christian myself and I really did not enjoy this book. I found the author created a God that does not exist. Surprised it has such rave reviews!

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I SEEN THE MOVIE FIRST AND I AM GLAD I DID BECAUSE I REALLY GOT THE BOOK WHICH I MAY NOT HAVE GOT SOME STUFF IN THERE IF I HAD NOT SEEN THE MOVIE FIRST. I KNOW A LOT OF CHRISTIANS HAD ISSUES WITH GOD COMING AS A WOMEN TO HIM ( BUT GOD EXPLAINED IN THE SITUATION WHY SHE DID THAT AND AGAIN AT THE END WHEN GOD WAS A MAN HE EXPLAINED AGAIN). LOVED HOW THE BOOK SHOWED THE TRINITY OF THE GODHEAD. I AM A CHRISTIAN AND I GOT WHY GOD DONE WHAT HE DONE CAME AS A WOMAN BECAUSE HIS FATHER WAS VERY ABUSIVE AND HE MIGHT NOT HAVE TRUSTED A MAN AT THIS TIME WHEN GOD FIRST CAME TO HIM.
IT WAS SAD WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER. AND YES IN TIMES LIKE THAT WE ALL DO QUESTION GOD AND WHERE HE WAS WHEN THIS OR THAT HAPPENED - I LIKE WHEN GOD ( AS A WOMEN) TELLS HIM THAT HE WAS THERE WHEN HIS DAUGHTER WAS KILLED AND THEN HE SAYS JUST LIKE "I WAS THERE WHEN MY SON DIED TOO". LOVED THAT GOD SHOWED HIM A VISION OF HIS DAUGHTER IN HEAVEN WITH JESUS PLAYING AND RUNNING AROUND. WHAT AN AWESOME BOOK. AND MOVIE.

I saw the movie before I read the book and seeing the movie made me want to read the book as I've always found the book is better than the movie. I loved both. Both had me crying 😢 a lot and I'm a Christian but not religious. I believe Christianity is a way of life and a way to be. This book is hard for religious people to like because it goes against what those man made, flawed organizations ingrain into you but growing up with a preacher father, then believing my own way not religion based, this book gave me a lot to think about and I loved it. People who are religious are programmed to dismiss this way of thinking and believing but if you simply get away from religion you'll see that this is exactly what scripture says and everyone, good and bad, has their part to play in this world and it's about a relationship with God, not about what your preacher tells you. Why do we need another man or woman to interpret scripture for us if God said the Holy Spirit does that? Faith comes by hearing the Rhema Voice of God and that comes by a relationship where He teaches you the scriptures, not a person standing on a pulpit once or twice a week, or more depending on what church you attend. People use the scripture, "Forsake not yourself the assembling with other believers, to try and say that's where the Bible says you have to go to church. What if you assemble with other believers everyday and talk about God every day and don't go to church? Is that a sin. No, but religion says it is. How many people that attend church live everyday like you do at church? So, how's religion working out for you? I practice the presence of God everyday and try to include Him in all my activities. I'm not perfect, nor do I ever think I'll be but I'm happy and He works and speaks through me. So I must be doing something right that religion just isn't getting.

It was beautiful and a very eye opening book, although I'm pretty sure you already agree or wrote it up yourselves.

I may not go to church or attend mass, not every Sunday or even on special occasion even though I come from a Catholic family, but I do believe in God and a peace that is waiting for us when our time comes.

Little Missy was a little beauty with big eyes and a huge heart, and her character was very intriguing to me. Mack's journey through grief, mourning, acceptance and forgiveness was truly powerful. Any one who has read this book or just seen thought movie - I still recommend reading the book - would agree.

I've read my fair share of books and several have made me cry, where I come across an innocent sweet soul dying of an incurable illness or their life as been taken too soon. In those books, there is a resolve, leading to an happy ending or the journey to one. However, The Shack was the journey itself - a very odd and expectantly different journey than most would ever go on, because sadly no one is going to actually get a hug from God or see what is already waiting for us at the end of our rope. Life can be painful, cruel, cold and harsh...in those times we ask "Where is God?" "Why did he do this?" "Why couldn't he save him/her?". It's hard to accept that he is already with us, and that sometimes, things may not go the way we wished. But he is there anyway, help us flow through the pain and grief. Mack realised this in a painful, truly spectacular and intense journey that I doubt even I would be able to get through. Forgiving a person who hurt your daughter in such a way...I'd rather hunt the SOB down and making him answer for what he did to Missy and those other little sweethearts.


Overall, even through the heartbreak and sobbing and emotion-overload mess that this story made me go through, it was simply beautiful.

To be honest. The beginning was good.

This is a very loving pure book and Im happy to give it 5 stars . The book emphasizes a personal relationship of intense love with God as being more important that being obsessed with the rules outlined in the scriptures . I do not wholly agree with this because our love for some one is good only if we remain within that person's will . A true lover will never willfully transgress his beloved's will . However I do agree that having LOVE is far far more important than blindly following religious injunctions and blindly accepting dogmas ( like eternal damnation if you disobey) ) . Moreover the greatest commandment of the bIble is which is MOST ESSENTIAL to follow is :

"THOU SHALT LOVE THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART "

This author has that right and THAT is the one essential to walk away from this book with that GOD really does love and care about us and though we cant understand with our limited intellect he is accomplishing everything in the best of all possible manners .

It is love --not intellect --that unites man with God . I would therefore ask those who zealously read and quote scripture to understand or accept the possibility that those with a personal love relationship with God know him much better than those who merely read and zealously quote the scriptures and are experts on the scriptures thinking that God can speak only through the scriptures and not directly to the minds and souls of his sincere seekers and lovers .

This author definitely has a personal relationship with God and it shows in his denial of the institutionalization of religion with its rules and rituals and condemnations and his placing emphasis on the supreme importance of responding to God and to each other with LOVE and forgiveness and not to judge but to love and help God and each other with no thought of hatred .


This author took a very novel original approach with a very pure loving heart and with best intentions. He erred when he said "rules don't matter ONLY relationships do" and that " god never intended us to be emulate Jesus's example " but he got it 100% right that God loves us and sheds tears when we judge Him , turn away from Him HER, IT ) and spread strife and destruction in his with our self will . That Just a loving parent who loves his /her children intensely would never send them to eternal condemnation God would never send any soul to hell for eternity and that he loves every single soul he created and will do what ever it takes to get them back to Him ASAP. (but some of us delay that happy reunion do to out NOT loving him and may pull a stint in hell )

so NO its not a perfect book but the scriptures are not perfect either because they say that God damns some souls to ETERNAL hell fire. Common sense tells us the punishment is only temporary with the ultimate aim of speeding the souls return to God once released .

Therefore any person who bases their salvation on the scriptures instead of on a personal loving relationship with God has a very imperfect paradigm. Those who seek first and foremost to be still and yearn for and love God and want to live a life with God . God comes to them in their stillness , in their sincere seeking a conscious contact with Him and because of this direct personal inner contact they have the more perfect paradigm . They have a LIVING love that will grow and grow .
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 says :

"...God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the [a]Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

I therefore hold that it is the holy spirit NOT MERELY blind acceptance of written scriptures that is the MORE PERFECT word of God and spirit does indeed reveal itself to men ( includes woman) and that the TRUE CHURCH is a simple gathering of those who love god meeting to create an atmosphere of love and faith after which they can go and attend to solitary prayer and meditation with great love and faith and EXPERIENCE his living loving presence within and to have increasingly profound spiritual experiences which convert all faith into knowledge.

And right here I must point out that the author fell short when he said we could not be like Jesus or God because love always unite 2 into one . ultimately we do merge into what we love .

Matthew 5:48 King James Version (KJV)
48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

What we need is interpretation of the scripture in the light of the living spirit but the VASTLY more essential is the light of the living spirit . I feel that to some extent this author has that Light .

I read the book and loved it. The movie was good, however, it left out so much that it was disappointing. I feel that it explained in a great way the difference between religion and Christianity.

I loved this book, I was raised somewhat Catholic and somewhat to have my own beliefs. This book felt spiritual, not so much religious. It raised many questions and also answered many for me. It felt compassionate and selfless.

W.M. Paul young has brought a wonderful book into the world. There were so many lines that I could really relate to the character. One of my favorites was on page 211, it is a little quote by Frederick Buechner. He says, “You can kiss your family and friend’s good bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you (Buechner).” In this book I could really understand the character. The way Young writes this book is so beautiful. It does involve religion, but W.M. Paul Young makes it to where it’s not overbearing. It’s more inspiring instead, once I started it I could put it down. It had a nice even tone throughout the whole book. I am forewarning you though, sometimes this book will take your heart on a roller coaster ride of emotions.

I read the book and wasn't a big fan. But, I think its message of religion versus relationship with God was timely and struck a chord with many Christians.

I just finished reading it. My editor said my book reminded her of The Shack, but I had never heard of it. I didn't like it.

I felt the depiction of the trinity was contrived, as was the depiction of wisdom. I had to wonder if the author would have liked to introduce more characters so he could sprinkle more diversity throughout his book. I could almost see him writing, and as he wrote, checking off boxes. African American - check. Woman - check. Middle eastern - check. Asian - check. Hispanic - check.

His prose is good and descriptive, although I felt he went overboard with the descriptions of Serayu.

I hated the ending. He wrote this wonderful story about a man meeting God and all that that entails, and then he destroys it by making it a hallucination Mack had while in a coma from the car wreck.

Overall, I give it two stars.

Had I read this book as a budding young teenager I would have loved it. So, you may love it. I didn't love it though.

Firstly, because of some subtle self-righteous like, perhaps unintended, digs at the theology of some Christian religions (I would need to explain this a lot of further, it's not taking at a dig at all Christian denominations) and secondly, because the writing style was on par with Twilight.

I can see why the book is so popular with many, as is Twilight, but I cringed my way through it. Cliche after cliche, amongst flavourless metaphors and painful similes, I got to the second last chapter thinking, and hoping I'd finally read the last of "tears streaming down cheeks," which was dispersed through the novel randomly about once or twice per chapter. Lo and behold, Chapter 17 delivered a final tormenting tirade of tears welling or "streaming/pouring down cheeks" not once, not twice but three times within the space of a few pages and possibly more as I just skimmed it after that.

I haven't seen the movie but I know I would enjoy it more than the novel, as literary banality and cliches can be lost at the cinema. I quite liked the plot of the novel.

I would recommend the book to any young person who is either a comfortable fundamental Christian, or still young and innocent in their life and faith journey and is trying to make sense of it. I would not recommend it to those who have moved on from fundamental beliefs (the irony being that it challenges these but once again I would have to explain much further). Unlike the classics, if your interest is unshakeable then I would recommend you just watch the movie.

I've been surprised at the polarized reviews of this book. I thought it a good work of fiction. I felt it raised some questions worth pondering. I was raised Baptist. I was also raised to have a mind of my own (because I fully believe that's why God gave us one, lol). I don't think any Christian religion has it 100% correct but I do believe they are all based in Christ-centeredness. The book does not support this (which is why I consider it fiction). However, I also think it brings up to question some of the hard and fast rules that have gone alone with our religious upbringing - yours, Catholic; mine, Baptist. For entertainment - I think its good. For "doctrine", not so much.
I've also read his book "Eve". It kept me interested, I finished it in a short period of time - so I rated it 3 stars. Otherwise, it's new-age-ie, so from a Christian perspective - not a fan.
ps: being over 50, I'm sorry if I got off topic - my mind has a tendency to wander (mental-pause, lol)

I loved it and it has taught me to look at my faith in a whole new way. Made me feel wonderful!