William P. Young Speaks to Audience from His Shack
In his disarming way, Young spoke about his upbringing in a tribal culture where he was placed by his missionary parents to learn the language. In that setting and later at a missionary boarding school he suffered sexual abuse which created feelings of shame and guilt. Later in life he hid his pain behind a veneer of "performance perfection" that kept people away from the shame and guilt and made him feel like less of a disappointment to God.
Young describes his image of God at that stage as "much like Santa Claus" who "knows when you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake."
His journey of healing began in January 1994 when his wife discovered that he was having an affair. At that point Young chose between running and facing the destruction he had caused due to his childhood pain. He chose to face his issues.
With the help of his wife and a counselor he began dealing with the issues in his life. Along the way he realized that his life-long image of God as a distant, disapproving figure was a paradigm that prevented him from seeing the loving God who comes to live in the middle of the mess.
Young suggested that "the shack" the place of the protagonist Mack's encounter with God, is a metaphor for the soul.
"The soul is where we hold all the pain of our lives", says Young. "Yet that is where we experience the love of God who comes to us as Trinity."
Young says that he was able to write The Shack, originally written for his six children, because of the freedom he now experiences spiritually.
"I am no longer a slave to addiction, and not just the dark ones like pornography, I'm no longer addicted to being seen as successful or good. I'm the same person wherever I go, completely transparent with no secrets."
The Shack, which has now sold almost 4 million copies, is helping many people on their journeys of healing. Young receives over 200 emails a day from readers around the world testifying to the affect of the book on their lives.
At the end of his talk, Young responded to questions from the faculty panel and the audience about his understanding of God and how it corresponds to the traditional Christian view. He believes that his theology is orthodox even though he uses images and metaphors that are not part of typical church vocabulary.
Young is passionate about experiencing God and then describing that experience without regard for conventional categories. It is this fresh description of the meeting between God and a hurting soul that makes the book and its author so appealing.
The lecture with William P. Young was the first in a series for 2008-09 sponsored by the Ambrose Faculty of Theology.
Contact: Writer Kim Follis
Phone: 403.410.2927
Email: kfollis@ambrose.edu