MASH

When I was a little girl, one of the most popular things to do on inside-recess days was to play MASH. The object, of course, was to predict your future- who you'd marry, what career you'd have, where you'd live. The name comes from Mansion Apartment House Shack, the four options for living. Clearly, living in a Shack was the least desirable option.

Fifteen years later, The Shack is still not a great choice. This time, however, I'm referring to the runaway bestseller by William Young. A co-worker lent it to me a few weeks ago and I've yet to open it, mostly because I don't have time, and also because I've heard many less-than-glowing reviews of it, from both orthodox Catholic sources and Protestant ones.

I'm inherently suspicious of any pop-religion themed book, because they tend to be shallow at best and heretical at worst. Maybe I'm a snob, but I prefer to read things like the Bible, the Catechism, G.K. Chesterton, or Papa B16. Bubble-gum, empty-calorie theology just doesn't cut it for me.

This week Adoro wrote two great posts on the book - not the book itself, which she hasn't read, but the reasons we shouldn't.

First: Conduit to our Souls

And: The Importance of Authenticity and Truth

Additionally, last year Catholic Exchange gave a review, as did Paragraph Farmer. USA Today even did a piece on the controversy.

I think Adoro sums it up nicely, "Theologically, then, if you don't know a lot, and sincerely want to learn, and someone hands you a book full of errors, well, you're going to go on internalizing those errors. You're going to pass them on, and in the end, not only will your "patient" be spiritually dead...but so will you. And you'll propagate that error more quickly than Ebola or Swine Flu."

So I'll be staying out of The Shack.