An open life
Eventually, he sent the manuscript to a writer he admired, Wayne Jacobsen, a former pastor and author of
So You Don't Want to Go to Church Any More, under the pen name Jake Colsen. Jacobsen and another former pastor, Brad Cummings, spent 15 months editing the book with Young to clarify the focus and rip out pages of theological jargon, Young says.
"We had great conversations about how people
are the church. The church is not just a place you go to quote Scripture and feel guilty," Young says.
Jacobsen and Cummings published it through their own company, Windblown Media, after established publishers rebuffed it. They promoted it on Christian websites and broadcast outlets, trying to attract a New York publisher.
Now there are 1.1 million copies in print and, two weeks ago, FaithWords, a division of Hachette Book Group, signed on as co-publisher with Windblown. Hatchette agreed to a 500,000-copy press run in June and a national campaign in the secular market in July.
The Shack's success has changed Young's life — a little.
He no longer works three jobs running a manufacturer's sales office and working on websites. Kim still works at Gresham High School as a baker, but she's driving a new Honda. They've moved from the tiny rental house, where he wrote
The Shack in the windowless basement near the washing machine, to a bigger rental nearby.
Holding hands and beaming at one of their grandchildren, the Youngs say they'd be fine if the money vanished tomorrow.
"Mack is me, a guy who has made a mess of everything," Young says. "The book takes him outside everything familiar, back to the worst experience of his life and lets him recognize God is so much greater."
Yet, as McVey, the minister from Tampa, says, "This pure grace of God has always divided people."
Mohler, Driscoll and other evangelicals pick
The Shack apart plank by plank.
No, God can't be a presented as a woman.
No, the three parts of the Trinity did not all become fully human. Yes, there is a hierarchy in the Holy Trinity with God the Father in command. Yes, God will punish sin.
Young shrugs them off. Out there in America, where only three in 10 people attend weekly worship services and millions are ignorant of the Bible, his readers struggle to find a good God amid their pain.
As for critics, he shakes his head.
"I don't want to enter the Ultimate Fighting ring and duke it out in a cage-match with dogmatists. I have no need to knock churches down or pull people out," he says.
"I have a lot of freedom by knowing that you really experience God in relationships, wherever you are. It's fluid and dynamic, not cemented into an institution with a concrete foundation."
"But it's not about me. I have everything that matters, a free and open life full of love and empty of all secrets."
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