Canadian author (1955- )
We've created a theology in the West of a God who is fundamentally self-centered. The imagery of God as distant, unapproachable, unreachable -- that's not a God who is relational. It is a God that gets to declare or judge when he gets pissed off. But there is no basis for love and relationships if God is a fundamentally self-centered being.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
New Statesman, Jan. 3, 2013
My mom closed the book, called my sister and said, "Your brother is a heretic!" You know, and she meant it, and it took a whole series of beautiful situations for her to get across that bridge.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
interview, NPR, Dec. 1, 2012
Every human being is a universe within themselves. Your mother and father participated with God to create a soul who would never cease to exist. Your parents, as co-creators, supplied the stuff, genetics and more, uniquely combined to form a masterpiece, not flawless but still astounding; and we took from their hands what they brought to us, submitting to their timing and history and added what only we could bring to them -- life. You were conceived, a living wonder who exploded into being.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
Cross Roads
Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
It is so easy to get sucked into the if-only game, and playing it is a short and slippery slide into despair.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
Disconnect your identity from what you produce, and that's a hard thing for us because we think of our significance, worth and value based on what we do instead of who we are.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
interview, Title Trakk: Your Christian Book, Music & Movie Terminal
I wrote a story for my kids. It's fiction. It's not systematic theology. It's not a new book of the Bible. It's flawed, I wrote it. All of that goes into the mix, but I love the controversy. It elevates the conversation.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
interview, Title Trakk: Your Christian Book, Music & Movie Terminal
Um, I made 15 copies [of The Shack] at Office Depot. It did everything I ever wanted it to do -- in those 15 copies. All of the rest of this is, I think, you know, is part of God's great sense of humor. And I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
interview, "Your Daily Bread", Rare, Dec. 10, 2013
I don't want my kids growing up with the image of God that I had -- Plato's white grandfatherly god -- because that god is not a very good father. When it comes down to it, you can't trust him with your kids.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
"The Love Shack", Christianity Today, Mar. 4, 2013
It is my desire and intent to trust the multi-layered good purposes of God than in what humans fabricate out of their need and experience. I specifically ask not to know these purposes so that I might remain a child in their unfolding.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
FaceBook post, Aug. 20, 2014
Don't forget that in the midst of all your pain and heartache, you are surrounded by beauty, the wonder of creation, art, your music and culture, the sounds of laughter and love, of whispered hopes and celebrations, of new life and transformation, of reconciliation and forgiveness.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
There is only one race ... and it is human!
WM. PAUL YOUNG
FaceBook post, Aug. 9, 2014
Religion and anger has gone together a lot, historically. My father, being very religious and angry, was trying to reconcile the ideas of love and forgiveness with damage in his own heart. We historically create God in the image of someone who will redeem us, or someone who has damaged us. A lot of my imaginations of God was a projection of my own damage because of my father. God is good but he has a lot of expectations, of which I have failed -- just like my dad. But I don't think it's truthful to create God as a projection of either our damage or our altruism.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
New Statesman, Jan. 3, 2013
And when you learn, over the course of your life, that it's not about pleasing God, it's about learning how to trust God. That's a huge watershed, because trust is a whole different ballgame than appeasement or pleasing.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
interview, "Your Daily Bread", Rare, Dec. 10, 2013
Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
I think good creative writing opens up space for people to come into. Let God reach out and touch the human soul. That's not my job. I get to be present and create as much space as I can ... That frees me up just to be creative in the way I want to be.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
"Christian Mingle: Wm. Paul Young, Bestselling Author of The Shack, in New York", The New York Observer, Nov. 14, 2012
I want to tell you about the God that actually showed up and healed my heart. Not the God I grew up, because the God I grew up was fundamentally, and I use the word advisedly, fundamentally untrustworthy -- schizophrenic, narcissistic, unreachable, unknowable, and my concept within which I grew up was that Jesus -- He likes me -- but He came to save me from God the Father -- who was the one who was angry and distant, and unreachable, unknowable. All of that had to come crashing down.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
interview, "Your Daily Bread", Rare, Dec. 10, 2013
I think that most creative fiction involves the transformational process, whether it is Dickens or Dostoyevsky and the writer in some sense is expressing their own journey through such a wilderness.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
"12 questions for WM Paul Young, author of Cross Roads", Scatter the Stones, Nov. 22, 2012
Healing is as incremental and mysterious as the damage ... what took time, takes time.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
FaceBook post, Sep. 11, 2014
Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack