Christian Faith
William Paul Young initially wrote The Shack as a way to show his children and a few close friends his religious beliefs and the path he took to spiritual fulfillment. It follows that the main theme of the book is religion, particularly Christianity. Parts of contemporary Christianity are criticized by Mack, the main character, and by God in the form of Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu. For example, Jesus criticizes the church's status as an institution rather than a relationship. However, other parts of Christianity are reinforced, such as the literal truth of stories including Jesus's crucifixion and the Garden of Eden. One of the most important messages of the book is that Christians who are doubting their faith can take little steps toward a relationship with God, especially by relinquishing their judgement of people and reliance on hierarchies of power.
Grief
The Shack shows that there are many ways of dealing with grief, and points to love and openness as the way to heal after a loss. After Missy's disappearance, the author shows her family coping in different ways. Through the character of Josh, Missy's older brother, Young demonstrates how a person who maintains relationships and works through their pain rather than bottling it up can deal with grief successfully. Young writes, "Josh fared much better, due in part to the long-distance relationship he had kept up with Amber. E-mail and the telephone gave him an outlet for his pain, and she had given him the time and space to grieve. He was also preparing to graduate from high school with all the distractions that his senior year provided" (66). Though Josh does not forget about his sister's death, he allows himself to keep living—forming relationships and having positive experiences—and does not blame himself.
Mack and Kate, on the other hand, demonstrate what can happen when one does not work through grief with open communication. Of Kate, Young writes, "Although no one involved was left unmarked by the tragedy, Kate seemed to have been affected the most, disappearing into a shell...It was as if something had died inside her and now was slowly infecting her from the inside, spilling out occasionally in bitter words or emotionless silence" (66). Mack and the reader learn later that Kate blames herself for Missy's death, leading her to cut herself off from family and friends since she believes they blame her as well. Since she refuses to speak about her negative feelings, nobody is able to understand or give her the help and compassion she needs to work through her grief. Mack deals similarly with his grief; though he tries to keep a strong, happy face on for his family, he struggles with "The Great Sadness," a euphemism for his depression, until coming face to face with God forces him to forgive himself and Missy's killer for his own emotional benefit.
Gender
The differences and similarities between males and females is a major theme in The Shack. Gender is one of the aspects of the book that caused controversy because Young chose to have two of the three figures of the Trinity, commonly called the Father and the Holy Ghost, present themselves as female. Young has written that it was an easy choice to make Sarayu, the Holy Ghost, female because female pronouns are often used in the Bible in reference to this being. The choice to make the Father, called Papa in the book, female was more controversial, though Young addressed this choice in the text itself. During Mack's first encounter with Papa, he asks about Papa looking female, and Papa says, "I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it's because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me 'Papa' is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning" (95). With these choices, The Shack challenges the role of gender, especially the dominance of men, in contemporary Christian thought and practice.
While Papa looking like a woman for much of the book shakes up traditional roles and portrayals of women, Young also reinforces the idea that there are innate differences between men and women, especially with regard to religious practice. Jesus and Mack discuss why Nan, Mack's wife, has always found it easier to have a trusting, personal relationship with God. Jesus explains, "That's because, like most men, you find what you think of as fulfillment in your achievements, and Nan, like most women, finds it in relationships...The woman's turning was not to the works of her hands but to the man, and his response was to rule 'over' her, to take power over her" (148-9). This discussion reinforces traditional ideas that men and women are naturally different, not only in body but in mind or soul as well, justifying men's dominance throughout history and into contemporary society. Interestingly, Jesus seems to argue that it is easier for women to be good Christians, which in The Shack means removing oneself from hierarchies of power and being in a personal relationship with God.
Fatherhood
The Shack presents the reader with three important examples of fathers: Mack's father, Mack himself, and God. A main reason Mack was unable to connect with religion before visiting the shack was that he and his family were abused by his father when he was a child. This meant that Mack found it difficult to trust fathers, and perhaps male authority figures in general. When Mack gets to the shack, God, or at least part of the Trinity, asks to be called Papa, but presents herself as a woman; this causes Mack to re-examine his relationship both with God and with father figures. Forming a more trusting relationship with God, or Papa, allows Mack to forgive his own father for the trauma he effected, and to forgive himself as a father for failing his child. The Shack shows that the most important aspect of fatherhood is love, because this is what Papa gives to Mack that he didn't get from his own father.
Freedom
One of the main questions of Christianity examined in The Shack is how much freedom, or free will, people have on Earth. This question is of extreme importance to Mack, because he comes to the shack believing that God could potentially have prevented Missy's death, meaning he believed that humans do not have full freedom or control. Papa rectifies this belief, assuring Mack throughout the book that it was of utmost importance to God from the time Adam and Eve were created that humans have free will. The fact that humans have free will has led to all the problems and pain people experience, but still God does not intercede; the most that Papa acknowledges doing is turning painful situations into means for people to turn to God. Papa also complicates the idea of freedom, to show Mack the limited way in which he was thinking about free will. She tells Mack, "We could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer. Or the intrusion of your soul's sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain. And then there's advertising, propaganda, and paradigms. Inside that confluence of multifaceted inhibitors...what is freedom really?" (97). This quote shows that even though humans, according to The Shack, have free will, the question of whether they have "freedom" can be more complex, including physical constraints and social norms.
Beauty
The theme of beauty can be found throughout The Shack. First, The Shack uses beauty to increase the pathos of the story. In the Foreword, Young describes Mack's children as "unusually beautiful" (13), and while Mack himself is described as "a rather unremarkable, slightly overweight, balding, short white guy" (12), the first thing Mack says to Jesse and Sarah about his wife is, "Well, besides being beautiful..." (39). Emphasizing the beauty of Nan and the children early in the novel increases the shock and sadness when the family starts to fall apart. Mack's plainness, makes him accessible, allows the reader to connect and empathize with him as the protagonist.
The interplay of external and internal beauty is also examined in The Shack. When Mack talks about his wife to Jesse and Sarah, he doesn't just call Nan physically beautiful but elaborates, "She really is beautiful, inside and out" (39). This shows that Mack acknowledges a distinction between external and internal beauty, and that he values both. Still, Mack is surprised that Jesus is not incredibly handsome in person, showing that he had thought internal beauty correlated with external beauty. Mack boldly tells Jesus, "Somehow I thought you'd be the ideal man, you know, athletic and overwhelmingly good-looking" (113), to which Jesus responds "By whose standards? Anyway, once you really get to know me, it won't matter to you" (113). Since Mack still does not seem convinced, Jesus broadens his message away from the personal, saying, "Being always transcends appearance—that which only seems to be. Once you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simply no longer matter" (114). This ties the theme of beauty to the moral that people should never judge others because perception will always be subjective.
Forgiveness
The final challenge Mack faces before leaving the shack is being able to forgive Missy's killer. Papa coaches Mack through this process for much of the chapter titled A Morning of Sorrows, instructing Mack to let go of the idea that forgiving the Little Ladykiller would mean forgetting what happened to Missy or letting the killer off without judgement. Papa assures Mack that judgement should be left for God, and Mack's duty is to forgive the man and leave room to love him in the future. Papa even says that Missy already forgave her killer, because God's presence was in her.
Papa instructs Mack to start by asserting that he forgives the Little Ladykiller aloud, and says that he will need to keep doing so for as long as it takes to be true. This practice seems to relieve Mack of a burden he has been carrying since Missy's death, and Young tells the reader in the Afterword that Mack even petitioned to meet face to face with the Little Ladykiller, likely to forgive him in person. Importantly, forgiving Missy's killer also seems to allow Mack to forgive himself and others more easily; it is after Mack starts to forgive the Little Ladykiller with Papa's help that Sarayu tells Mack about Kate blaming herself for Missy's death. When Mack wakes up in the hospital, he brings this up to Kate and assures her that she too can reach self-forgiveness.
