“The Shack” came out on March 3, 2017. This is a movie about a man named Mackenzie who lost his daughter after she was murdered in a shack. While going through the grieving process, he receives a personal invitation to meet with God in the same place his daughter was murdered. This novel-made-movie has received a lot of attention in the past couple of weeks, and it has been more negative than positive. The reason why is because it is supposedly a Christian film and book, but Christians don’t appreciate the way the character of God is portrayed. This character’s name in the movie is Papa and is not only a female, but a black actress, Octavia Spencer. This has brought up a lot of controversy, considering most Christians believe God to be a large white man with a beard.

Of course, this doesn’t phase the true fans of the book, because it is the same way in the novel. Papa is described as a black woman who brings comfort to the main character, Mackenzie. “As she stretches out her arms to Mackenzie he feels the warmth and love as he did from his mother.” The makers of the movie wanted to be true to the book for the fans.

According to a review on IMDB, people are so upset because they have heard about this character; they just refused to read the book because it seemed damaging to their faith. However, the same people are incredibly bothered when they see a preview for this movie and immediately see Octavia Spencer, because they have to “deal with the monstrosity of our God being played by a woman and not who He truly is. It’s sickening.”

So far, the movie has had many showings and many packed houses, whether the audience was there to watch the movie fail or see their favorite book be put onto the big screen. Either way, the film is getting a lot of attention.