{"id":2509,"date":"2008-06-24T22:12:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-24T22:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/06\/how-christian-readers-made-the-shack-a-smash.html"},"modified":"2008-06-24T22:12:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-24T22:12:00","slug":"how-christian-readers-made-the-shack-a-smash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/06\/how-christian-readers-made-the-shack-a-smash.html","title":{"rendered":"How Christian readers made “The Shack” a smash"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the unlikeliest of places — the New York Times<\/a> — they had a story today about the unlikeliest of best-sellers, a Christian novel about God’s love. <\/p>\n

Take a look: <\/p>\n

<\/a>Eckhart Tolle may have Oprah Winfrey, but \u201cThe Shack\u201d has people like Caleb Nowak.<\/p>\n

Mr. Nowak, a maintenance worker near Yakima, Wash., first bought a copy of \u201cThe Shack,\u201d a slim paperback novel by an unknown author about a grieving father who meets God in the form of a jolly African-American woman, at a Borders bookstore in March. He was so taken by the story of redemption and God\u2019s love that he promptly bought 10 more copies to give to family and friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody that I know has bought at least 10 copies,\u201d Mr. Nowak said. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely something about the book that makes people want to share it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thousands of readers like Mr. Nowak, a regular churchgoer, have helped propel \u201cThe Shack,\u201d written by William P. Young, a former office manager and hotel night clerk in Gresham, Ore., and privately published by a pair of former pastors near Los Angeles, into a surprise best seller. It is the most compelling recent example of how a word-of-mouth phenomenon can explode into a blockbuster when the momentum hits chain bookstores, and the marketing and distribution power of a major commercial publisher is thrown behind it.<\/p>\n

Just over a year after it was originally published as a paperback, \u201cThe Shack\u201d had its debut at No. 1 on the New York Times trade paperback fiction best-seller list on June 8 and has stayed there ever since. It is No. 1 on Borders Group\u2019s trade paperback fiction list, and at Barnes & Noble it has been No. 1 on the trade paperback list since the end of May, outselling even Mr. Tolle\u2019s spiritual guide \u201cA New Earth,\u201d selected by Ms. Winfrey\u2019s book club in January.<\/p>\n

Its publisher, Windblown Media, a company that was formed expressly to publish \u201cThe Shack\u201d in May of last year, estimates that the book has sold more than one million copies. According to Nielsen Bookscan, which usually tracks about 70 percent of sales, the book has sold about 350,000 copies, although those numbers do not include sales at stores like Wal-Mart or direct sales from the publisher\u2019s Web site, theshackbook.com, which may have accounted for an unusually large percentage of the book\u2019s sales.<\/p>\n

Early in the novel the young daughter of the protagonist, Mack, is abducted. Four years later he visits the shack where evidence of the girl\u2019s murder was discovered. He spends a weekend there in a kind of spiritual therapy session with God, who calls herself \u201cPapa\u201d; Jesus, who appears as a Jewish workman; and Sarayu, an indeterminately Asian woman who incarnates the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Sales have been fueled partly by a whiff of controversy. Some conservative Christian leaders and bloggers have attacked \u201cThe Shack\u201d as heresy. The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, devoted most of a radio show to the book, calling it \u201cdeeply troubling\u201d and asserting that it undermined orthodox Christianity. Others have said the book\u2019s approach to theology is too breezy to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

Brad Cummings, a former pastor and the president of Windblown, said the company, which first shipped books out of his garage, spent about $300 in marketing. Word of the book ripped through the Christian blogosphere, talk radio and pulpits across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would call back, asking for a dozen or a case,\u201d Mr. Cummings said.<\/p>\n

Even people initially put off by the book\u2019s characterization of God as a black woman were won over. \u201cI was so stunned by the presentation of Papa that I couldn\u2019t deal with it,\u201d said Bill Ritchie, senior pastor of an 8,000-member nondenominational church in Vancouver, Wash., who recalled putting the book down at first. He eventually finished it and told his congregation that it was \u201cone of the most remarkable books I\u2019ve read in years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check the Times link for the rest of the story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the unlikeliest of places — the New York Times — they had a story today about the unlikeliest of best-sellers, a Christian novel about God’s love. Take a look: Eckhart Tolle may have Oprah Winfrey, but \u201cThe Shack\u201d has people like Caleb Nowak. Mr. Nowak, a maintenance worker near Yakima, Wash., first bought a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Christian readers made "The Shack" a smash - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/06\/how-christian-readers-made-the-shack-a-smash.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Christian readers made "The Shack" a smash - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the unlikeliest of places — the New York Times — they had a story today about the unlikeliest of best-sellers, a Christian novel about God’s love. 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