The Shack Revisited by William Paul Young
Week 7: Chapter 6 — The Great Sadness and the Human Blindness
Read Chapter 6 of The Shack Revisited. Primary Bible passages: Romans 1:18-25; Ephesians 4:17-19.
Previewing Week 7 of The Shack Revisited
Read 3 of 7 discussion questions below. Unlock the complete 14-week guide when you’re ready.
Kruger now turns from who God is to what has gone wrong with us — and his diagnosis is more radical than simple moral failure. The 'Great Sadness' is not just personal grief; it is the universal human condition of living cut off from the love at the center of the universe. This week, sit with the weight of that diagnosis.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Kruger describes the human problem not primarily as guilt or moral failure but as a kind of blindness — we cannot see who God really is, and therefore we cannot see who we really are. Do you find this diagnosis more or less convincing than the traditional emphasis on sin as wrongdoing? What do the two views have in common?
2.Mack's Great Sadness is caused by the murder of his daughter — a specific, violent evil. But Kruger reads it as a window into something more universal. In what ways is Mack's numbness and distance from God representative of the human condition generally, not just his particular tragedy?
3.Kruger draws on the Pauline idea (Romans 1) that humanity has suppressed the truth about God and replaced it with distorted images — gods of power, wrath, indifference, or absence. What distorted images of God do you think are most common in your culture? In your own heart?
a.How do those distorted images shape the way people live — their anxiety, their ambition, their relationships?
b.What would change if those distorted images were replaced with the Trinitarian vision Kruger is describing?