Reconciliation road

When Mackenzie Philips first visited The Shack (2007) his heart was in tatters. A note from “Papa” had invited him to the very place where Mack’s youngest daughter had been murdered. Oddly compelled, he accepted the invitation and thereby met none other than the Holy Trinity: “Papa” (presenting as a middle-aged black woman), Jesus (a Jewish carpenter, logically enough), and the Holy Spirit (personified as an airy Asian female).

Mack experienced personal healing during his sojourn with this trio, but in the 10 years since, his family relationships have deteriorated. While separated from his wife Nan, he receives another surprise invitation—this one from his daughter’s killer, now on death row in a federal prison in Nashville. That’s the premise of Wm. Paul Young’s Return to the Shack (Apiary, 272 pp.), “the long-awaited sequel” to the earlier runaway bestseller.

The murderer, known only as J, has made Mack’s visit the condition for J to reveal where the bodies of other young victims are buried. The FBI is eager to close these cases, so agents Samantha, Billy, and Amir are assigned to shepherd Mack through the protocols of maximum security. Though naturally reluctant to meet with a man he can’t forgive, Mack accepts the challenge. Over consecutive face-to-face meetings with J, the two men come to understand and even love each other. Nan has her own encounter with J and experiences her own form of healing and reconciliation.

As in The Shack, the novel consists largely of dialogue, from friendly joshing to emotional gut-spilling to philosophical wrangling. Besides the FBI agents, there’s another “trinity” of three death row inmates who help prepare Mack for his confrontations with J. These are the men to whom the author dedicates the book—Christians who became brothers. In conversation with these and others, Mack deepens his understanding of the lessons he learned in The Shack.

Those lessons confirm his belief in God as Love and “evil as a weak illusion.” No one, in God’s economy, is ever separated from Him or eternally condemned by Him. As image-bearers, all will be reconciled. “Heaven and hell are not places, but orientations to Love”: Those who turn toward Love in this life may enjoy Him now, but even those who die unrepentant will get there eventually. Even J, the murderer of little girls, committed his crimes out of a perverted impulse to protect them from the kind of horrific abuse he experienced as a child. “Broken people break people.” As for justice: “Justice is when you make your enemy your brother.”

Forgiveness and reconciliation are noble themes, and one reason why The Shack sold over 20 million copies. But the book also earned criticism for its defective theology, which continues in the sequel. If he seems to contradict orthodox interpretations of Scripture—as well as shortchange God’s holiness, the depravity of sin, and the atoning efficacy of the cross—Young has no regrets. In an Aug. 6 interview with Fox News, he charged some of his detractors with “a fear-based religion.” But perhaps he should heed the Scriptures and consider that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.