The Shack

A new, more personal way of understanding God and how he (or quite possibly she) is involved with our lives. Unfortunately, evil exists, it is not Gods fault that it is there. But if we allow God into our lives, he/she can help us deal with it and heal from it.

At first I thought this was going to be one of those ultra-Christian B Movies...knowing nothing about the book or the cast. But, to my delight, it certainly is not either a B movie, nor dogmatic. Yes, it contains many references to mainstream Christian theology, but it also has just as many elements that suggest a very diverse spiritual approach to understanding God. What a great story, and told with such a high purpose that it transcends the story altogether. The cast is wonderful. Sam Worthington (Pandora), Olivia Spencer (The Help, Hidden Figures), and narrator/best friend,Tim McGraw who delivers a surprisingly good performance. Papa is the storys nickname for God and is charmingly portrayed by both Spencer and later, changing disguises, more seriously by the great Graham Green. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill also co-wrote and performed one of the best movie songs Ive heard in years. The film watcher may miss some of the dialogue which delivers the straight-to-the-point theology that drive the movies messages--I turned on the English subtitles and it helped a lot. Ive yet to read the book, but it will soon grace my kindle app. Because...this story is chock full of incredibly accurate true things about the way life and love actually work to our good. Even through the blackest tragedies; maybe even because of the hardships we all encounter. There are a couple of slightly cheesy moments, that I ever so slightly cringed at during my first viewing (I watched it four times in two days), but in the end I came to love those scenes. I gave it an extra star for its very accessible treatment of the importance of trust and forgiveness in real healing. The kind that heals the world.

I was suggested to read this book. I started to read the first four chapters and I had to put it down. I couldnt go any further. The anguish was too great for me. After a couple of days I picked it up again and paragraph by paragraph stepped through the anguish the father was experiencing. On his journey he makes a decision that puts him in touch with people who really changes his life and feeling of so much anger, hatred and getting even with the cause of the recent past. The book puts word pictures in your mind which makes the book much more understanding than the movie. The descriptions of the surroundings actions of what is going on with the people he met, makes him confused at first. All of this is going to come together later on. One is the doing the cooking at the Shack, one is working in a shed, working on a wood project and the other is working in the garden. The garden is a mess but she asks him (the father) to help her with a project she is working on. They finish their work and the soil is ready for a new planting. What are you going to plant here? The father asks. Youll see. One of those books you just cant put down. Even those first few chapters were difficult for me, I am a father too. The love for your children makes you want to do only the best for them. Even when one of your children goes missing, youre not going to stop until you find the answer. A very intriguing and exciting story of people who are struggling with their faith. Ive offered this book to many other people I know, but they said they already read it.

Love this movie, its warm, sad, funny, full of emotions. I recommend it.

I enjoyed this book a lot. For me, it was unforgettable. It wasn’t until years later I got to see the movie. I liked both.

The movie is amazing. I cant say enough about it. If you grew up in fundamental or reformed Christianity, you will probably struggle with this movie. But do yourself a favor and watch it anyway. And watch interviews that Wayne Jacobsen gives on this movie, where he explains there thinking behind it. Its not meant to the be Bible, they never meant for it to be. As an example, the reason they chose God to be played by a black female actress is because the main author (that initially wrote this book for his children) was dismissed by his church for adultery. And I dont mean asking him to step down from being a pastor (because of course that is a natural thing to expect), but asking him and his family to leave their local church altogether. The only one from their church (as I remember it) that came to extend love, and the love of God, was an African American woman from their church. She understood that more than ever, their family needed connection, support and love. Its little things like this that helped me better understood the meaning behind the movie. I struggled with it in the beginning (the book), but was better able to understand the message meant in it later when it came out as a movie.

This was based upon a novel written in pain and hope concerning the problem of evil and the need to maintain a relationship with God. It is Protestant--with the rather vague, confused theology--but it hit the larger issues quite well (which is also normal). It portrayed Jesus as stating that he is not religious and not Christian: but if you even begin to ask who Jesus is...sorry but thats religion and thats Christian...larger than we can imagine for sure, but we cannot consign Christianity to mere vagueness. The second lack of clarity concerned that people really can go to hell according to Christ Himself. The film was not explicitly universalist, but it also was not explicit that serious criminals should be arrested and need to repent before their deaths.

The Shack is a movie based on the book by author William P. Young. Young, according to an interview, wanted to write a story that expressed the gospel, specifically how God may see and want to interact with the peak of His creation (mankind), in a novel contemporary way. For my money I think that Young succeeded in doing so and though I havent read the novel it seems to me that the movie, an especially engaging account of a man caught in a nexus of personal pain, succeeds in capturing and delivering the same message about God. It is an account of salvation of a man entering into a real relationship with the trustworthy Creator of universe and discovering as he is brought into the relationship of the personality, desire, and interactivity of God who allows the man the freedom (and the consequences that go with it) of his choice to participate and to know and to interact with God; in short, to choose or reject God. People who would shy away from such an obviously Christian movie should know two things about the film: 1) the movie by way of how it presents God gives the viewer an obvious choice to believe the main character, Mackenzie, or to dismiss his accounts and (2) this is a drama that deals with painful and heartbreaking events that are not clean nor cleanly resolved; it doesnt present life, even one where the main character makes a choice to walk through it with God, as being wrapped up all nice and tidy in the end like some people think of the biblical Job story. Far from this, Macs life though it is going much better by the end of the story, is still one where he has had to live and move through incalculable pain and makes choices to continually forgive in the aftereffects of that pain. So the story parallels many peoples life experiences as they are, not in fairy tale fashion. That last bit is important because the clear-eyed view of the story and what it relates about God (certainly taken from the biblical characteristics of the trinity but expressed through a very human view--also certainly open to scrutiny and rebuke but being overly literal about this story will also being missing its many points) makes it an even more compelling case about God. It treats God seriously, as a personal entity, and offers some not often pronounced insights into His character. Many people (myself included) will be or were surprised by the presentation; some will go away offended but I might enquire why? God, in His agency, is depicted in trinitarian fashion and just as Jesus was Gods fullest represenation of God to humankind as clearly exhibited in the gospel accounts and through His own words so too does The Shack express God and His character to a mere man.

It’s a great movie based on a great book. SPOILER ALERT/TRIGGER WARNING: the little girl is raped and killed in the beginning of the movie. You don’t see any of the violence but if this is a trigger for you don’t watch this movie. The movie is about the family’s (especially the dad’s struggle with the loss and the guilt. I thoroughly enjoyed it.