This interesting treatment of a practical situation which cuts to the heart of the Universalist/ECT debate will probably appeal to the ladies I think even though written by a Canadian man. Has anyone read it? I think that in the end for a mere bloke like me it tends to rather lead by the nose like a deductive bible study (are we not sick of those?).
Haven’t read it. Report! 
I started reading it, but much as I wish the author well and appreciate his effort, he might have done better to just write a non-fiction theological treatise. It starts out somewhat promisingly, but he lost me pretty quickly with the appallingly stilted diaglogue. Er . . . dialogue. (I had to leave that misspelling because it’s so funny and SO me.) 
I do agree Cindy but I was not sure as a mere male. It seems that Mr Chevrier may not have crossed the gender gap successfully - Ah well!
Jason, the book covers the unfortunate death of a teenage girl and her mothers reaction in a ECT church and the despair which results as the lass has not become a christian yet, in fact is rather a rebel. I recall the young lady was aboout 13 and drugs were involved. The mother feels the Lords comfort unexpectedly at the sad funeral but needs some guidance and right on cue a knowlegeable Universalist friend appears and takes her on a short (long winded) holiday to sort here out! Not a book for everyone but I do believe for some its approach may be helpful.
Does that about sum it up Cindy?
So it’s like The Shack but more ‘realistic’ in genre.
I guess I applaud the idea. If he finds an audience, more power to him!
That’s about it, Chris.
I only read about a fourth of it, though. If I’d been hungry for the info, I might have read more, but what I did read was stuff I’d already read before so . . .
It’s a great idea and I’m sorry it wasn’t done as well as I would have hoped. It’s not that the guy can’t write; just that he (at the time anyway) might have benefited from a little mentoring in writing fiction specifically. A whole different game than non-fiction, and the same rules just don’t apply.
Jason, I know it’s a year but I just got round to reading The Shack. The Shack uses a similar sort of approach but is much much better and addresses relationship with God not the ECT issue. Has anyone reviewed the Shack herein? I looked but could not find anything. Probably published a while back prior to this site 
. Chris
Someone probably has, Chris. I seem to remember reading something or other about it here. As you’ve just finished reading it, why not post a review? I’d enjoy reading what you think of it, and maybe others would too.
Love, Cindy
Hi all,
I read The Shack awhile back and really enjoyed it! One of my favorite bloggers, Randal Rauser, responded to a review by… Mark Driscoll 
, here:randalrauser.com/2011/08/the-shack-under-attack-a-response-to-mark-driscoll/ and has also written an excellent book, Finding God in the Shack which examines The Shack’s theology in a very thorough and positive manner.
Steve
Hi Chris et al
I’ve read The Shack a couple of times, because I love its theological viewpoint. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a great piece of writing. As I said here a while back, I found it pretty amateurish - limp and somewhat cliched in its prose, shallow in its characterisation. And given its horrific subject matter, simply too saccharine.
I think Paul Young is very brave to take on the sensitive subject of child murder. But unfortunately he fails to pull it off fully because he is unwilling or unable to penetrate the true darkness at the heart of his subject. If you’re going to take on a subject like the murder of a child in fiction, you need to be brave enough to go the whole hog, to plunge headlong into that darkness. But Young either isn’t brave enough or, more likely, a good enough writer to do that.
But hey, I don’t hold that against him. *I * certainly couldn’t do it . And like I say, the theology is wonderful, really uplifting and encouraging. And anyway, I’m sure he and all the millions of people who’ve bought the book and liked it couldn’t give a monkey’s what I think .
Cheers
Johnny (frustrated and jealous failed novelist )
Hi Johnny,
I was thinking about what you’d written last night and agree that the writing isn’t great and is indeed ‘amateurish’ much of the time. What really struck me, though, was this:
I thought about it for a bit and realized I didn’t want to “penetrate the true darkness”. I didn’t want to take a trip into the depths of that abyss of child murder and perversion. This feeling is certainly stronger now having four children. If I *did *take that trip it would have to be with an author who I felt could safely bring me back out and there are only a few I would feel “safe” with and trust to do that—who wouldn’t leave me alone at the bottom of the pit. The list is short but might include Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and George MacDonald (though I almost think GMac had a “friendship” with Death making it impossible for him to really take me to the depths of that abyss)
Just some off topic thoughts…any authors you would trust?
Steve
I agree, Steve. I barely made it through Young’s book (and I also agree it’s no classic). If it had been more competently written I’m pretty sure I never would have finished it. I did object intellectually to his simplistic portrayal of the hard parts, but at the same time I’m glad he did it that way. I could NEVER do something like that to my characters. I can barely bring myself to read about it. It took me nearly a year to read The Shack because I put it down when I figured out what he was about to do and didn’t go back to it until much later someone strongly urged me to finish it. I’m glad I did. Yes you have to overlook some clunky writing, but it was my first introduction to the idea that you could possibly be both Christian AND universalist.
Ironically, I didn’t object to the things Driscol seems to have found so problematic. And it didn’t even occur to me that it was a book about the Trinity. (And there’s no way THAT was modalism.) I actually thought from the beginning that the book was about soteriology. Young’s concept of the Trinity was pretty much the way I see it too (more or less) so I didn’t pay a lot of attention to that aspect. I DID feel very uncomfortable about his obvious (to me) universalist leanings. Yes at the time, I would have stayed away from ME!
Love, Cindy
Great question, Steve.
And I think you and Cindy are right. The book wouldn’t have worked if Young had tried to plunge directly into that true ‘heart of darkness’. As I say, I do think he was very brave to put the murder of a child at the centre of The Shack. It’s rare to find a Christian author who is willing to admit the depths of our darkness and despair. At least, as I recall, Young doesn’t offer empty, pious platitudes - ‘Jesus took her home to be with the angels’ etc. That sort of schmaltz has no place in serious fiction.
So who would I trust to do it ‘for real’ as it were? I’ve been racking my brains trying to thing of a novel that actually does this, puts the murder of a child right at its centre and really ‘goes there’. There’s The Lovely Bones, I guess, but I haven’t read it so I don’t know how far Alice Sebold goes into that heart of darkness. In truth, I suspect it’s rarely been done. I’d like to hear of any examples people know of.
Okay, cards on the table. Who could truly pull it off? Shakespeare, yep. If the greatest writer in the history of the planet couldn’t do it, no one could. Dostoyevsky, yes, he’d be my next choice too. *The Brothers Karamazov *is widely acknowledged to be the greatest novel of all time, and it does explore some very dark themes, including the suffering and death of children.
Er, that’s it. A very short list indeed. I hear what you say about GMac, and I agree. I think he would deal with the subject matter with great tenderness, but he wouldn’t get to its true horror, I don’t think.
I thought about Hardy and Dickens, two giants who often dealt with death, including the death of children, in their novels. But I’d discount them both, for pretty much opposite reasons. Hardy would take us deep into the despair, as he does in Jude the Obscure, for example. I studied this for my degree, and while I thought it was a masterpiece, it was just so depressing. (If you’ve read it, you will recall the ‘because we are too many’ scene. Horrific 
.) So Hardy could get us in, but I don’t see him getting us out again. And I for sure wouldn’t want to be left in that chasm.
As for Dickens, he did death in spades. But he larded it with mawkish Victorian sentimentality. So he’d probably be in the same boat as Paul Young, emotionally speaking.
And I think every other candidate would fall, broadly speaking, into one of these two categories. Some - Beckett, Camus, Faulkner, Graham Greene perhaps - could get us into the darkness but might not be able to bring us out again. The others just wouldn’t get there. You mention Tolstoy. I’ve never read him, but from what I have read about him he was more one for the epic sweep of the human condition in all its glory, not for wallowing in its depths.
Actually, here’s a suggestion: William Golding. One of my favourite writers, a brilliant analyst of the human psyche who dealt with deep religious themes, and who wasn’t afraid to plunge into our heart of darkness - as he famously did in Lord of the Flies. His Darkness Visible, which takes its title from Paradise Lost - “No light, but rather darkness visible” is a very dark novel, which, according to Wikipedia “narrates a struggle between good and evil, using naïveté, sexuality and spirituality throughout.” I’ve not read it myself, although I love Golding. Which is perhaps instructive - I don’t know if I want to go there 
.
What do you reckon?
Cheers
Johnny
PS I would have said Milton, perhaps, but again, I don’t know enough about him. As a 19-year-old I just didn’t fancy wading through Paradise Lost, and I’ve never tried since. Oh the shame of it …
A good list, Johnny! I agree with you about Dickens and Hardy. Haven’t read Golding in awhile but maybe… I think Milton could pull it off if he was writing in the modern day. I’m sure Tolstoy could do it as he wrote not only sweeping epic novels, but more intimate short stories and works like The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Jane Austen I would trust but can’t see her getting that dark… Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, I think could do it. (Three Russian authors on my list now). How about Yann Martel, author of The Life of Pi? He wrote a very interesting and dark book Beatrice and Virgil allegorizing the holocaust. Will have to see if I can come up with any more…
I’d say that Jane Yolen could do it, and do it well. This book gets dark, and she can go darker, but in what I’ve read of her, she can bring us back as well.
An example, one of my favs: janeyolen.com/works/briar-rose/
Read the comments starting in the middle of the page to get a feel for it…
Looks interesting, Dave. Might have to check her work out!
Thanks
Steve