Is God a fat black woman?
Forgive the irreverent title (if it is in fact irreverent) and bear with me for a moment. It’s just another book that has got me under its spell. It will pass.
Talk about an off-beat book! It was recommended to me almost a year ago, and it sounded perfectly horrible. It still may be a horrible book, but it was worth the reading time. Anyone who has ever thought about God, from whatever perspective, should be intrigued by this pretty well-written yarn.
The super-imaginative Canadian author Wm. Paul Young was raised among a stone-age tribe by missionary parents in New Guinea, and you can find his unusual story at theshackbook.com. I’m not going to review this short novel for you, but the Foreword begins with, “Who wouldn’t be skeptical when a man claims to have spent an entire weekend with God, in a shack no less?”
If you are mildly curious, you can read the first chapter here. (Use the funny little arrows alongside the edges as page turners.)
I sure would like to know if anyone else is weird enough to like this book.
Dave, which he perhaps is suffering from mid-summer madness.
Yep, I like it. Some parts of it I like a lot. I do tend to refer to the women characters by the actors I see playing them if it were ever made into a movie — Whoopie Goldberg and Linda Hunt. I haven’t a clue who would play Jesus.
Elaine
Norman, OK
Thanks for your comment, Elaine. I’m sort of an amateur theologian, so I was prepared to be critical of such a portrayal of the Trinity, but to my surprise I found it quite profound and very orthodox. And it’s a roaring great tale. As to casting, I’m a movie illiterate, so I wouldn’t have a clue. We’ll just have to stay tuned and see what happens.
Hey Dad, The Shack is a bestseller and actually on my radar…. now I’m intrigued, as it comes recommended by dod. Weird, off-beat, you say? Right up my alley!