Christian Retailing

'USA Today' spotlights controversy over 'The Shack' Print Email
Wednesday, 28 May 2008 08:00 PM America/New_York

The Christian publishing phenomenon The Shack, the debut novel that has sold around a million copies mostly by word of mouth, has been featured in USA Today for the second time in a month.

The newspaper's latest article looks at the charges of heresy that have been made against William P. Young's novel about a man who encounters God at the scene of a past personal tragedy.

Critics have called the Windblown Media book "deeply subversive" and "scripturally incorrect," while supporters praise it for portraying God's grace and acceptance.

For his part, Young tells USA Today that he doesn'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."

Windblown Media, which published the book in March last year after established Christian houses turned it down, recently signed a deal with FaithWords for a 500,000-copy pressing in June and a national secular marketing campaign the following month.