Would love to read it, Pastor Youssef is one of my favorite Pastors, but it requires an account and sharing names and address, etc.
Thank you for posting this.
Many years ago, I had an 8 HOUR layover at LAX (groan!) and bought “The Shack” to read during those endless airport hours. The ad on the book said something like “A powerful story of Redemption, blah blah, blah”.
About a quarter of the way into it, I tossed it in the trash can and contented myself to watch “ARRIVALS/DEPARTURES” on the big screen, which contained more truth than the stupid book.
The WHO’s Rock Opera “Tommy” was also a “powerful story of redemption” but NOT from a Christian Viewpoint. Verdi’s “La Traviata” is also a “powerful story of redemption” but does not shrink from the consequences of sin. So is “Moby Dick” which succeeds in redeeming only one, who escapes to tell the tale.
“The Shack”, on the other hand, does not even rise to the level of “Tommy”, “La Traviata”, or “Moby Dick”, as it is a mealy-mouthed, virtue-signaling, New-Age, preachy, poorly-written attempt at allegory, and gets it wrong at every turn.
Not only that, it is a direct abandonment of the 2nd Commandment against creating God in our own image.
While there have been many unsuccessful attempts throughout history to explain the Trinity, most by MUCH smarter and more deeply spiritual Theologians, this one doesn’t even come close!
Just my humble opinion, based upon my understanding of the Bible, which I read every day.
Wish I had had one with me at LAX!
Here is an interesting story, that is more indicative of the Mystery of the Trinity, attributed to St. Augustine:
Augustine and the Seashell
Marian Horvat
The great Doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise De Trinitate [about the Holy Trinity], endeavoring to conceive an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity.
St Augustine with the boy on the beach
Augustine meets a boy on the beach
He was walking by the seashore one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand.
The Bishop of Hippo approached him and asked, “My boy, what are doing?”
“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile.
“But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine.
The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”
The Saint was absorbed by such a keen response from that child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished.
Some say that it was an Angel sent by God to teach Augustine a lesson on pride in learning. Others affirm it was the Christ Child Himself who appeared to the Saint to remind him of the limits of human understanding before the great mysteries of our Faith.
Through this story, the sea shell has become a symbol of St. Augustine and the study of theology.
Being that so many trendy people in churches read this book and enjoyed it, tells me it is pure crap.
I read all about what the book was when it came out. There is no way I would go see it on screen.
Thanks for the post. The book is pure herasy, meant to pull away those whose religion is emotion based.
Later