The Shack Themes

The Shack tells the story of Mackenzie Allen “Mack” Phillips, who, after his daughter Missy is brutally murdered on a family camping trip, bitterly turns away from God. Everything changes when Mack eventually returns to the shack where his daughter was killed and finds himself face to face with three surprising manifestations of the Christian Trinity: God is a black woman named Papa, the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman named Sarayu…

Nan, Mack’s wife, has always had a close relationship with God, as is exemplified by her affectionate nickname for him: Papa. It takes Mack much longer to realize that he, too, can relate to God on such a deep and intimate level. Over the course of his weekend at the shack, Mack has many conversations and special moments with the three incarnations of God, from gardening with Sarayu and cooking with Papa…

When Mack’s daughter Missy is kidnapped and murdered, Mack can’t stop thinking that God has abandoned him in his time of greatest need. A big part of why Mack initially suffers so much and feels so disconnected from God is that he labors under a number of false assumptions about the nature of God: he assumes that God is unsympathetic to Mack’s life; he assumes that God abandons people in their times of need…