Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Paul Young, author of The Shack

William P Young

The Shack has sold 14 million copies and is distributed to 39 countries worldwide. Despite controversy over imagery used, like portraying God as an Afro Caribbean woman, The Shack has been a publishing sensation. Jonathan Bellamy spent some time chatting with accidental author Paul Young.

Jonathan: I understand you originally wrote The Shack for your children, but its appeal has certainly gone right across the generations. For those who haven't read it, give a brief outline of the story.

Paul: It's really a mystery and suspense wrapped up in a 'what if'. What if in the midst of our lives there is a God who is good all the time and involved in the detail of our lives? What if in tragedy there is a way through it? It's around a man who's had a great tragedy with one of his children and then gets an invitation four years later that's sort of mysterious. He's trying to figure out if this invitation is from the traitor or maybe it's even from God and that takes him into quite an adventure.

Jonathan: You decided to blow apart some stereo types didn't you; for example, God is an Afro Caribbean female. Was that the intention, to blow up people's perspective to try to get to something deeper?

Paul: No, the intention was to write a story for my children, because my wife asked me to. There was no deeper intention about anything with an agenda. I was just trying to put in one place how I think, that was the mandate that I got from my wife. The fact that it has touched millions of people is just something way beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

Jonathan: How do you see that dynamic of relationship with God?

Paul: You know the Shack isn't full of new theology. It's as old as the early church fathers. Athanasius and Polycarp and those guys really saw the essential nature of God being relational and that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They have always been centred in love and we get included into that love. A lot of us grew up with a western God who is really Plato's god. He is angry and disappointed watching from a distance with a disapproving heart and that's why I went very different with imagery. Imagery doesn't define God. There's lots of imagery in the scripture; animal imagery, rocks and mountains and towers. There is also imagery of fathers and mothers and nursing mothers. Imagery doesn't define God; it helps us understand His nature and character. I'm trying to get away from Gandalf with an attitude or a Santa Claus God who's angry and has a list that he's checking twice and look out because he's coming to town.

Jonathan: What kind of feedback have you had? Do you think people are getting a wider understanding of God's heart for them in relationship? Are you breaking down that Gandalf mindset?

Paul: Oh absolutely. I've got 110,000 emails from all over the world and it doesn't seem to matter what culture you're from or whether you are from a religious background or not; whether you have been hurt by a religious institutional system or whether you've just had a great tragedy or loss in your life. The questions that have been raised by the story are really human questions; questions about the presence of God. Is God good all the time? Can we trust this God? Also elements of forgiveness and the process of healing have been raised. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. At the same time though, it has tested a few people's paradigms and that's a good thing, because then that becomes part of the conversation. Really, it's like the book has given the world a language, to have a conversation about God, loss and authenticity that's not a religious conversation.

Jonathan: You've mentioned a few times about that challenge of relationship versus religion. Without going too much into organised religion, what is your view of church? What do you think church is?

Paul: Church is people who are people of faith and who are a community of like minded hearts. I think the church has always been people. We named the institutional structure which was supposed to be there to support and facilitate the actual work of the church, the people. Even the institutional churches have been a positive expression, not just a negative expression. Institutional religion has done many good things for the human race, but at the same time that system is not eternal. When that group of people leave the building, regardless of whether it has a spire of not, the church has left the building. The church has always been people.

Jonathan: How do you outwork church for you?

Paul: Well, it's you either are the church or you are not. You can't go to something you already are. So it really pushes it back into the relational realities that are around you. I've got eras of the community of faith all through my life. Don't misunderstand me; I have nothing against becoming a member of an institutional system. It's just not what is happening with me right now. I am free to do that if the Holy Spirit directs me to do that. I am totally free to do that, but I am also free not to be part of an institutional system as well.

Jonathan: One aspect of the book is the father finding healing for the deep pain in his life. Does that come out of your experiences of finding healing for pain issues in your own life?