Living The Shack: An Interview with Author William P. Young 

If you haven’t already heard of The Shack chances are you will soon. The best-selling novel is storming through the Christian community changing lives, stirring dialogue and fueling controversy. Recently New Man talked about the book’s success with the author, William P. Young.

Interview by Drew Dyck

New Man: Were you surprised at the tremendous success of The Shack?

William Young: Well, let me give you a little backdrop. I wrote it for my six kids. I’ve never published anything in my life or tried to. I’m the most accidental author you’ll ever meet. It was not even on the radar that anyone other than family and friends would ever read this thing. So you ask if I’m surprised—are you kidding me? It’s such a God thing. There’s no question about what’s going on here. It was a gift to my children and God decided to give it as a gift to His children.

New Man: This book has really resonated with people who have experienced abuse or trauma. Do you view this book as a ministry?

Young: The word “ministry” is an old word to me. It’s part of the performance paradigm. To me ministry is a verb. It’s something we do because Christ, as a servant, indwells us. So it happens whether you’re holding your child or loving a friend. Ministry is about servanthood, so whatever we do for others is ministry. There’s no split between the sacred and secular stuff you do. That’s the old paradigm. So I don’t use that kind of language. I understand that God is doing something with the book. At the beginning at 2005, after I’d completed The Shack, I started praying a new prayer. “Papa, I’ll never ask you to bless anything I do again. But if there is something you’re blessing and it’s OK for me to hang around, I’d be all over it. I don’t care if I clean toilets or shine shoes.” At the end of the day I want to say, “I know who did this. It wasn’t a mix between my efforts and need for significance.” I had no idea that God would say, “OK, how about I choose this little story that you’re writing for your kids.” I know it’s become powerful in many different circles. The fact that the Holy Spirit has decided to do something unusual with it is just phenomenal to me.

New Man: I understand you’ve suffered trauma in your own life. How much did you draw on that experience when you were writing the book?

Young: A lot. We’ve had losses in our family. We had a six-month period where my 18-year-old brother was killed, my wife’s father died suddenly and my 5-year-old niece was killed the day after her birthday. So we have that pain. I received a letter from a reader that asked if the character Missy in the book represented something innocent in me that was murdered as a child. And she got it dead on. My stuff goes back to my childhood on the missionary field. My disconnectedness from my own family, sexual abuse in the culture, abuse that happened at boarding school—that’s where the center of my pain comes from. So the pain in the story is very real. I picked a scenario that encompasses both elements of loss and went to what I thought was the deepest most intense point of pain I think humans can endure—that’s losing a child. That raises the most fundamental questions: Who is this God? How can He let this stuff happen? What kind of world do we live in? How do we understand ourselves in light of this? And I wrapped it in a story because a story has a way of penetrating our defenses.

New Man: Is the story’s protagonist, Mack, autobiographical?

Young: Yes, but there are things that are totally different between us. My kids knew that I was Mack. The first draft I ever wrote my kids knew that it was me.

New Man: There’s a lot of theology in your book. You do seem to affirm Trinitarian doctrine and the divinity of Christ. However other passages are more controversial. At one point the character of God says, “In Jesus I have forgiven all humans of their sins against me.”

Young: That’s directly out of 1 Timothy: “This is a statement is true and worthy of full acceptance. That Jesus Christ is the savior of all mankind, especially of believers.”

New Man: You just worded it a little differently?

Young: Exactly. I did that a lot because we wanted to get the preachy feel out of it. In the first draft I had God quoting Paul, which just doesn’t work. But if you reform the same content and put it in a conversation people won’t recognize them as Scripture, but they are.

New Man: Yes, but some of the language you use sounds a little like Universalism, the doctrine that all will be saved. How do you respond to that?

Young: Very simply. I’m not a Universalist. I’ve never said anything other than the road gets narrowed down to one man, that’s the person Jesus Christ. I’ve been very clear about that. And it’s very clear throughout the whole book, unless you want to find an agenda for Universalism in there.

New Man: Tell me about how the book took off?

Young: Well, I gave it to my kids for Christmas along with some family and friends and the response was just phenomenal. So after Christmas I sent it to the only real author I knew: Wayne Jacobson in California. Wayne and his friend Brad Cummings—they do a podcast called God Journey—we got together in the spring of 2006 just to talk about the book and then we broke it down as a screenplay, so we could understand the content better. Then we worked on the language and rewrote it. We all have regular jobs, so we did all this over a period of about 16 months. We were looking for a publisher. We sent it out to every major Christian and non-Christian publisher. The few that responded said “We’re sorry but as much as we like it, we don’t have a niche for it.” From the faith side they said, “It’s just too edgy.” From the secular side they said, “It’s got too much Jesus in it.” They just didn’t take. So Brad and Wayne created Windblown Media as a publishing company with one title. We stuck it on a Web site. We did an initial run of 10,000 and we were hoping to get through that in the first two years. We did nothing else. To date we’ve spent only $300 in marketing and promotion. I think we’re about around 700,000 sales now.

New Man: Mack has such an incredible healing experience in the book. Why is it, do you think, that God doesn’t facilitate a dramatic healing process like that for everyone?

Young: Mack’s weekend represents 11 years for me. But 11 years would have been way too long of a book. So I needed to squeeze my 11 years down to that weekend for Mack. The beautiful thing is that because of our uniqueness we’re all in a process that is different from anyone else’s. The events in that process and the duration will differ. Jesus didn’t heal anyone the same twice.

New Man: Any plans for a follow-up to The Shack at this point?

Young: I don’t know. I’m really hesitant to do anything as a sequel at this point. I’ve got other ideas for things I want to do, but The Shack is kind of a stand-alone book.

To visit William P. Young’s Web site click here!