If you haven’t read the book, The Shack, lately or watched the movie of the same name, you owe it to yourself to do at least one—or both. Whichever you choose, this critically acclaimed, inspiring story will bring you to tears. Yes, tears of sadness as your empathy grows for Mackenzie who struggles with each new unimaginable pain. Yet, don’t be surprised by the sting in the corners of your eyes as memories flood your consciousness unearthing secret, painful wounds you buried long ago. Then, there are the tears that flow freely from pure joy as thoughts of God’s grace, compassion, forgiveness, redemption, protection, and endless mercies surround you with a love you have no words to explain.
Author, Wm. Paul Young, published The Shack in 2007, and perhaps you purchased one of the 20+ million copies that were sold. Even if you read it at the time, your vantage point has likely changed over the past decade. So, now would be a good time to shake off any dust collected and read it again. If you loaned your copy and your friend never returned it, purchase another at Barnes & Noble or amazon.com. If you prefer the movie version, you can now download The Shack on Netflix.
Unlike most adaptations, the movie is virtually identical to the book, which makes each a joy to experience. And an experience is precisely what The Shack is, requiring an open mind in order to get from it what the writer intended. Truth is The Shack will challenge everything you believe about the Person of God, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit because of the images firmly ingrained in your mind.
Once you have allowed your mind to see beyond the actors and actresses cast for the roles, instead focusing on their characterizations of the nature of God, as the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, His Spirit within you will open your eyes to the lessons of love, forgiveness, deliverance and healing throughout the story. Regardless of how you may feel about the race or gender of the actors portraying the Persons of God, reading the book or viewing the movie with your heart, rather than your mind will enable you to receive through your spirit what the Holy Spirit would have you to learn for your growth in the knowledge of who God is and how His thoughts differ from ours. I am confident of this because that’s exactly what happened to me.
“Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.” Mark 9:39-40 (NIV)
Not long ago, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend over an hour interviewing Paul. I wanted to share with you how his book, The Shack, came to be and why it has resonated with so many. The lessons in this story are particularly relevant in light of our emphasis this month on our earthly fathers in proximity to our Heavenly Father. I hope his answers in the interview blesses you as much as the story.
The thing that piqued my curiosity more than anything else was why he chose to portray “Papa” (God the Father) as an African American woman—played by Octavia Spencer in the movie version. I was quite surprised by his answer. You will probably be as well.
HimPower: Was there a defining moment in your life that led you to conceptualize and ultimately write, The Shack? If there was, what was it and why?
Paul Young: There were a series of defining moments. We make choices that may take different paths than what we expected. Things happen, and it’s how we respond to them that become defining moments. My father was a brutal disciplinarian. I looked up to him because he was my father. He projected the face of God to me. Then, there was sexual abuse in the tribal culture we were in. So, there was hiding, shame, and performance orientation.
HimPower: What do you mean by performance orientation?
Paul Young: When we’re hurting like that, it’s how we hide our shame, our hurt.
HimPower: Do you see writing The Shack as a calling—as part of your ministry?
Paul Young: I was a preacher’s kid, a missionary’s kid. I don’t put the expression of life in a category. Everybody on the planet has a mission. I want to say two things about, The Shack. First, the first 15 copies did everything I ever wanted it to do. Second, everything that matters to me was in place before I wrote the book. It hasn’t added any of that to me. It was a gift to my family and friends.
HimPower: What are those things that mattered to you?
Paul Young: My identity, worth, value, significance, security, meaning, purpose, destiny, community and love. It took me 50 years to understand your significance doesn’t come from what you do, it comes from who you are. At one time, I was working three jobs. One of them was cleaning toilets. That’s worthwhile work. I think the wholeness in a person’s life is when the way of your being matches to the truth of your being. What is your being? There are lies embedded. It took a long time to unearth all the lies, to be undone. I grew up where I was told I was worthless—that God is good, but there’s nothing good in me. When you hear that over and over again and are treated that way enough, you believe the truth of your being is worthless. You spend your life covering up a lie, hoping it changes it, but at the core of your belief, you feel you are still a piece of crap—you’re just a piece of crap, a broken soul of a human being. That’s what The Shack is about, it’s where you store your secrets, your addictions, disassociate yourself from your own soul, heart, live from outside in, to put up a front for people’s expectations. It goes back to the broken soul. Remember when Mackenzie is on the porch? He’s furious. They (God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) come from the inside out, not the outside in. God is inside your shack, even when you feel completely alone. We walk on the holy ground of other people’s stories and we have a chance to intersect with someone’s story. Every person is in the center of the active work of God and has a chance to intersect with someone’s story. I am deeply grateful that I had this chance.
HimPower: Why did you choose to portray God with such diverse imagery, especially the image of God as a woman?
Paul Young: When I was pursuing God and asking questions about why so much damage in life came from men—How come men are in charge if more men inflict hurt and pain. I have a modern evangelical heritage. The evangelicals, they won’t read the book. But they’re stuck with me. The scripture says all brokenness was taken on by one man. It took 40 years of work to erase the face of my father from the face of God. It took a lot of work that included counseling. It’s interesting, the Trinity came through gender issues. I married my wife, Kim. Kim had 5 sisters and 2 brothers. The sisters were known as, “The Force”. Kim is a powerful person from Minot (ND). Marrying her was like marrying the wrath of God, but it was something positive. Things that are precious can actually be damaging. Into our marriage was born 6 children. When my wife learned she was pregnant with our 6th child, she called me and said, “I know”. I was in a three month affair with her best friend. I had to make a choice. I had to kill myself or have the ability to face her. It took 11 years of dismantling—eleven years of going back to places that were broken, culminating in 2004. In 2005, I was healthy enough to write the book. I wrote it as a gift for my family and friends. When you hear people’s stories? Our lives are a serious of moments and holy ground events where we encounter the flame of God pursuing all the flame in our lives. These are watershed moments. It’s about redemption. Justice. People don’t understand justice, they think it’s about retribution. It’s not punishment or retribution. Justice is the restoration of that which is lost—redemption. It’s no different that love. Mercy is no different than the fury of God, His pursuit of us is not to punish us, it is to heal us in all the ways we relate to our brokenness. The first place the song, How Great Thou Art, was made popular was by Billy Graham’s crusades, it was mentioned in a little hymn book about mental illness, losses. People with mental illness were stamped “In-Valid”. It’s where we later get the term invalid. The song is about coming to God with all my brokenness. We all have something in common. It’s not our politics, our religion. We all share great loss.
HimPower: Depicting God as a woman goes against everything Christians have been taught about who and what God is. What led you to take this risk?
Paul Young: You have to remember, I wrote it for kids, but I wouldn’t have changed it anyway.
HimPower: Did you anticipate that everyone wouldn’t embrace the image of God as a woman, particularly a Black woman?
Paul Young: When I was going to print, I knew it would be a ripple effect. Modern evangelicals, we have a problem with this. I was trying to get away from a bad attitude. Imagery of God is a window through a character into the nature of God. The imagery of a Black woman resonates with my heart. The notion of a white grandfatherly bearded, abusive deity—I did not want my children with that imagination of God. Let’s try to erase some of the boxes—the ripple effect has been profoundly positive. Many people can’t take that it’s not a white man because they’ve moved from imagery to idolatry. In the human conscientiousness, do you really think God is a white dude? Modern evangelicals, we’re stuck. As soon as we view the imagery as the way God is, we’ve moved from imagery to idolatry. Those who can’t view the imagery differently have moved to idolatry. Because of the damage from men—I just didn’t think it would be helpful. When they dealt with the paternal nature of God, I was happy to see they brought in Graham Greene (actor). It goes to a statement as to the white grandfather image. I’m the white guy, I didn’t need an expression of God in the character of a white, distant, unreachable, unapproachable being.
HimPower: Even though it’s becoming clearer why you chose to portray the nurturing nature of God as female, was there any particular reason you chose the female to be an African-American woman as opposed to another race or ethnicity?
Paul Young: African American women—here’s the deal, they are in your stuff. One of my dearest friends, Renee Granite—she’s gone home now—I knew she loved me, but I could not get away with anything. She was a large lady. So, the presentation of the character of God as a Black woman resonates with me—someone that doesn’t just coddle me, but tells me the truth. You can be surrounded by people that love you, but you need someone that will tell you the truth.
HimPower: Many of our readers are fans of Octavia Spencer, and she’s one of my favorite actresses. Although she’s been cast in a variety of roles, I am curious as to why she was chosen to portray Papa?
Paul Young: Choosing Octavia to play the role of Papa? I wanted to mix metaphors. In the Old Testament, the presentation of God was always in masculine nouns. Life moved from God, “the Father” to “Father” to “Papa”. Abba did not work for Him (Papa). When I lived around Spanish children, they would refer to their father as “Poppy”. Their faces would light up when they saw their fathers. I wanted that imagery of God of bringing happiness. It took nine years to put into print from the get go. Over that period, a lot of names were thrown into the pool at different times including Oprah. When we took a look at Octavia, it was—this is the right person. I was thrilled they selected Octavia.
HimPower: Did you get to spend a lot of time with Octavia during the filming of The Shack?
Paul Young: I haven’t gotten to know her personally, but all the time spent with her has been precious. At one point when the movie debuted, we were all in one room in Hollywood. Octavia, Tim McGraw, myself, we were there all day long doing interviews. We were around the table the next day, the interactions were there by my being on the set when she was there. Everything there is about her appears to be genuine.
HimPower: Has any of your perceptions changed since publishing the book?
Paul Young: It’s deepened the underlying assurance to things talked about. It gives a broader frame of reference. What has changed—how to craft language, how to build bridges for people. You want what you do to be helpful, you don’t want it to build walls. I don’t want my people to be left out. Modern evangelical fundamentalist are my people. They’re kind of stuck with me.
HimPower: It seems that it took thinking outside-the-box to portray God as a woman. To what do you attribute your ability to think-outside-the-box about something as sacred as the evangelical perception of God?
Paul Young: The only time you’ll find God in a box is because He’s trying to help you get out.
HimPower: What do you want others to think or feel after reading the book?
Paul Young: I want them to have an encounter inside their world of what is theirs—what’s inside their story and watch it happen. The things that affected them may be quite different from what affected me depending on what is going on in their life. I’m thrilled that I created a space so that people can have an encounter with God in one way or another. I get stopped along the way. The Shack has had a profound impact for some people, for others it’s not so significant. It’s probably timing. I have friends who’ve read it more than once say, “I never saw this before.”
HimPower: It is remarkable how similar the movie is to the book. What you see on the screen is exactly like what you’ve read. Were you involved in the production of the movie adaptation?
Paul Young: I was Involved way more than I expected. I sold the movie rights 100%. The producers wanted to maintain the integrity of the story. So, I was looking at the script, talking about actors, being on set. I was so much involved.
HimPower: If you had it to do over, would you do anything differently?
Paul Young: I’ve learned to live with regret as part of grief, not part of shame. Shame does not have a place in my life. I went to counseling. I was deeply grieving. I would talk about the lying, the adultery. It would not be as disassociated. The hardest journey to forgiveness is to forgive yourself. You carry it as part of redemption. By submitting to it, it’s transformed into a monument of Grace. It gave me the freedom to talk about it without being a part of shame. Carrying as part of redemption was part of the story. When you don’t just disassociate yourself from that part, then others can embrace that part of their story. I don’t think the church has done a good job of lamenting and grieving. It’s something I tend to do. It’s in the past, all things are new. It’s a different part of my healing journey, I have got to own it.
HimPower: Would you go back and change anything if you could?
Paul Young: Knowing what it would cost—Absolutely, I would go back to change that person and let God find another way to healing. My father did not have the disposition for being a dad. Fathers represent God to you in one form or another. In my relationship with my father, there was a whole lot of brokenness. He embedded in me a sense that I’m not good. Years later, I learned my grandfather was an abusive man. My grandfather stole a little girl. She was 15, and he was 47. My father was the first of 10 children born alive. He was orphaned at 12, shipped out, operating out on his own.
HimPower: Do you and your father have a relationship now?
Paul Young: We never had a father-son relationship, not because we did not want it. He did not have a capacity to enter into a relationship. He’s 88 now. We’re cordial, kind to one another. I don’t place on him a set of expectations. Some people grow up in an affirmed sort of place. Others grow up shame based, and it’s too scary so they store it up in a shack—a place where the truth stays hidden.
HimPower: Did you expect The Shack to be such a success?
Paul Young: The Shack did everything I wanted it to do. I never anticipated being a published author—I had no inkling. I went down to the copier and printed 15 copies. I gave six to my kids, Kim got a copy, I gave the others to my friends. This is all proof of God’s great sense of humor—a God who loves to play the way He loves children.
William Paul Young was born in Alberta, Canada, he spent his early years in West Papua New Guinea, and now resides in Washington State with his wife, Kim. He is the father of six children and a New York Times Best Selling author. He has appeared on Oprah and other mainstream media. His book, The Shack, was on the New York Times Best Sellers list for 177 weeks and sold over 20 million copies. His other books include Cross Roads, Lies We Believe About God, La Cabana, La Encrucijada and Eve, another of his New York Times best sellers.
