The Shack: Unauthorized Theological Critique

Tim Challies

Jul 2008 · Nimble Books LLC

About this ebook

In this booklet I hope to guide you through The Shack. We will look at the book with a charitable but critical eye, attempting to understand what it teaches and how it can be that opinions about the book vary so widely. We do this not simply to be critical, but as an exercise in discernment and critical thinking. We will simply look at what the author teaches and compare that to the Bible.

Ratings and reviews

I grabbed this "book", better called a 18 pages word document, as I was going to book group reading "The Shack. I should have recognized the word CRITIQUE. While Challies gives you the feeling he is going to help with a Bible Study on this fantastic fiction book you soon find he Tim Challies is the exact same religious people Mack from the book is not very happy with. Challies is obviously on the defensive as soon as academia is challenged and the "church" is held accountable. I find his short paper to closed minded and not seeing the bigger picture the Shack address Forgiveness. He misses the simplest points trying to make this fiction work written for young people into a challenge to theology. Where Young describes Christ death and God's forgiveness as the essences of The Shack Tim finds fault is the way Young explains it so a young Christian could understand it. He could have been as easily been discounting the egg example for the Trinity as heresy because somehow compared God to something making the example an image. This is ten bucks better kept in your pocket. One star because there is no choice for NO stars. This paper is a great example of academic Bigotry, education snobbery. In fact just the audacity of this author to call this a book speaks volumes. I find it sad that bright people, young and old, on fire for their beliefs head to centers for higher education only to have their lights snuffed out by the jaded opinions of those who hold education and publication over original thought and Spiritual led awareness from their hiding places in those institutions. In the Ministry I see this so much lately also. An immediate dismissal of one who has not attended seminary. Not even that simple. Dismissal and disgust of another's thoughts if they did not attend the "correct" Seminary. Of course this is true on many levels of most every colleges today. When they see a profound thought their question is not to expand the thought or the origin of the thought but of the of what graduate school did the thinker attended. As if the acceptance of a thought outside the ones own heritage of education is heresy.

First of all, don't waste your money buying this booklet because you can download it for free from the author's website. If you are like me and found yourself both somewhat moved by the book "The Shack" but also wary in a way that you can't quite put your finger on, READ THIS CRITIQUE. There is a reason Mr. Challies book review site is called Discerning Reader. He takes both non fiction and fiction and hold them up to the ultimate test: biblical accuracy. The previous reviewer obviously has his/her own biases as well. Mr. Challies simply asks how does the theology presented in "The Shack" compare to God's Holy Word. Read it, think about it and apply it as you see fit. When you have to use a character's world view from a work of fiction to prove your point about another person's perspective you have already failed in your argument to begin with.