Editorial Review:

Product Description:
What would it be like to lose your youngest child to a serial killer? And then to have God invite you out for a conversation at the very shack where the terrible deed took place? And then imagine that the door to that shack of horrors opened . . . and before you knew it you had been swept up in the motherly embrace of a large African American woman? This most unlikely of stories, as told in William Young's The Shack, has become a runaway bestseller and it is easy to see why. The book brings us on a redemptive journey through the shacks' of deepest pain and suffering in our lives, guided by the triune God of Christian faith. But even as lives have been transformed through this book, other readers have sternly denounced it as a hodgepodge of serious theological error, even heresy. With one pastor urging his congregation to read it and another forbidding his congregation to, many Christians have simply been left confused. Aware both of the excitement and uncertainty generated by The Shack, theologian Randal Rauser takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the pages of the story. In successive chapters he explores many of the book's complex and controversial issues. Thus he explains why God the Father is revealed as an African American woman, he defends the book's theology of the Trinity against charges of heresy and he considers its provocative denial of a Trinitarian hierarchy. But at its heart The Shack is a response to evil and so Rauser spends the final three chapters considering the book's explanation for why God allows evil, how the atoning work of Christ offers new hope for a suffering world and ultimately how this hope extends to all of creation. Through these chapters Rauser offers an honest and illuminating discussion which opens up a new depth to the conversation while providing the reader with new opportunities for Finding God in The Shack.

This book is a relevant and enlightening companion to "The Shack". Far from being "preachy", this book incorporates scripture to bring the reader to a deeper understanding of the theoloigical implications of "The Shack".

Average Rating:

Rating: - great book
This book is a relevant and enlightening companion to "The Shack". Far from being "preachy", this book incorporates scripture to bring the reader to a deeper understanding of the theoloigical implications of "The Shack".

Rating: - Finding God In The Shack
Having read The Shack twice and planning to do a group study on The Shack I found this book to be extremely helpful. It breaks down many areas such as the Trinity and it's meaning into understandable terms and gives biblical background to back up points of view. I found this book to be very helpful to me and I am looking forward to using it to help others to have a more in-depth understanding of the many messages in the book The Shack. Great Resource

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Rating: - finding god in the shack
I have read the other version of this book and I think both writer's give really good version's of their perspective of the book The Shack itself.

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Rating: - A Good Primer for those with Concerns
I approached Rauser's book with a few concerns, but probably not the ones that a typical reader might bring. I've read The Shack several times critically and had come to the conclusion long ago that the concerns expressed by some as to the theology were both overstated and also coming most often from those who lean hyper-Calvinist.

What I was concerned most about was whether this book, in its effort to address the theology, was going to do it some violence by focusing on those elements of the book which are really secondary to what the book is about in the first place. The Shack has many elements of Theology within it, but it was never intended to be a systematic theology. Approaching it in that manner misses a lot. It can be a classic case of missing the forest for the trees.

That said, I was encouraged as I read this book, that the author recognized and addressed this concern from the very start. Futher, by addressing the book in broad themes and by recognizing that those themes are better evaluated as a whole as opposed to nit-picking on isolated passages which are wrested from the context of the book by critics who are exercising their own biases.

I did not agree with every element of Rauser's critique but in the end I left feeling that is was fair and would give the reader who was perhaps concerned about The Shack or wrestling with the critiques of others the tools they needed to move beyond the nit-picking and understand where the author of The Shack is coming from.

In view of this, I recommend the book and give it 4 stars.

4 Stars

Bart Breen

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Rating: - A Good Primer for Those With Concerns
I approached Rauser's book with a few concerns, but probably not the ones that a typical reader might bring. I've read The Shack several times critically and had come to the conclusion long ago that the concerns expressed by some as to the theology were both overstated and also coming most often from those who lean hyper-Calvinist.

What I was concerned most about was whether this book, in its effort to address the theology, was going to do it some violence by focusing on those elements of the book which are really secondary to what the book is about in the first place. The Shack has many elements of Theology within it, but it was never intended to be a systematic theology. Approaching it in that manner misses a lot. It can be a classic case of missing the forest for the trees.

That said, I was encouraged as I read this book, that the author recognized and addressed this concern from the very start. Futher, by addressing the book in broad themes and by recognizing that those themes are better evaluated as a whole as opposed to nit-picking on isolated passages which are wrested from the context of the book by critics who are exercising their own biases.

I did not agree with every element of Rauser's critique but in the end I left feeling that is was fair and would give the reader who was perhaps concerned about The Shack or wrestling with the critiques of others the tools they needed to move beyond the nit-picking and understand where the author of The Shack is coming from.

In view of this, I recommend the book and give it 4 stars.

4 Stars

Bart Breen

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