According to the publisher's promotional material, The Shack "is a suspenseful, imaginative and to some, controversial account of a man who suffers a devastating personal family tragedy -- and, in his despair, encounters supernatural manifestations of the three persons of the Trinity in a shack. God the Father appears as a large African American woman, Jesus Christ as a Middle-Eastern carpenter, and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman."

The Shack has made a big emotional impact on many people. It has also been endorsed by respected Christian figures such as Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, who writes: "This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!"

Some critics are not so persuaded, however. Berit Kjos, author of A Twist of Faith, decries what she considers "the twisted 'truths' of The Shack." Kjos maintains that Young's version of the Trinity is problematic, with a distorted view of both the Son and the Father: "This new 'Jesus' never returned to heaven. Was there no real resurrection? Not according to the female 'God.'"

It is not entirely coincidental that, just a few blocks south, Christ Church Cathedral, not long ago, had a similar kind of session with Brian McLaren, the 'emerging church' leader -- who, as it happens, is also a good friend of William Paul Young's.