Book Reflection: The Shack
I'm usually the cool kid. I know what's hot, and then I introduce my family to it. Not so much with The Shack. My mom read it first and sent it to us. Then Stacy read it. Finally, when I finished classes last semester, I had a chance to start it.
There are a lot of words and comments on the interwebs about the book. You can find people who love it. You can find people who think it is heresy. There isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said. I can understand both sides of the conversation, though I'm a little frustrated with people who are on the witch hunt. Look. It's a book that a guy wrote for his kids. It's a parable. It's self-published. This isn't some driven individual who set out to shatter paradigms and change the face of orthodox Christian theology.
There are a lot of people like that. They speak in hyperbole and say ridiculous things so that others will totally wig out. They deconstruct theological ideas just to mess with people. William P. Young is not one of those cats.
So here's the deal. Once you've read the book, you need to hear the author speak. NEED to. He spoke at Greater Portland Bible Church for 2 hours recently, and was good enough to let them post the conversation on their website. It's part sermon, part author's notes, part testimony, part insight on writing and publishing. I found it to be an incredibly fast two hours. Without just gushing all over the place here, I might even call it "riveting".
It's 120 minutes that make me want to read the book again. It's 120 minutes that really convicted me about some stuff in my life. And it's 120 minutes that puts into perspective some of the stuff in the book that seems so far outside the box that it makes some people really mad.
So check out the podcast. It's here. At least for a couple more weeks, at which point it will move to the archive here.
Fair Dinkum
There are a lot of words and comments on the interwebs about the book. You can find people who love it. You can find people who think it is heresy. There isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said. I can understand both sides of the conversation, though I'm a little frustrated with people who are on the witch hunt. Look. It's a book that a guy wrote for his kids. It's a parable. It's self-published. This isn't some driven individual who set out to shatter paradigms and change the face of orthodox Christian theology.
There are a lot of people like that. They speak in hyperbole and say ridiculous things so that others will totally wig out. They deconstruct theological ideas just to mess with people. William P. Young is not one of those cats.
So here's the deal. Once you've read the book, you need to hear the author speak. NEED to. He spoke at Greater Portland Bible Church for 2 hours recently, and was good enough to let them post the conversation on their website. It's part sermon, part author's notes, part testimony, part insight on writing and publishing. I found it to be an incredibly fast two hours. Without just gushing all over the place here, I might even call it "riveting".
It's 120 minutes that make me want to read the book again. It's 120 minutes that really convicted me about some stuff in my life. And it's 120 minutes that puts into perspective some of the stuff in the book that seems so far outside the box that it makes some people really mad.
So check out the podcast. It's here. At least for a couple more weeks, at which point it will move to the archive here.
Fair Dinkum