About Philip
Growing up in a strict, fundamentalist church in the southern USA, a young Philip Yancey tended to view God as “a scowling Supercop, searching for anyone who might be having a good time—in order to squash them.” Yancey jokes today about being in recovery from a toxic church. “Of course, there were good qualities too. If a neighbor’s house burned down, the congregation would rally around and show charity—if, that is, the house belonged to a white person. I grew up confused by the contradictions. We heard about love and grace, but I didn’t experience much. And we were taught that God answers prayers, miraculously, but my father died of polio just after my first birthday, despite many prayers for his healing.”
For Yancey, reading offered a window to a different world. So, he devoured books that opened his mind, challenged his upbringing, and went against what he had been taught. A sense of betrayal engulfed him. “I felt I had been lied to. For instance, what I learned from a book like To Kill a Mockingbird or Black Like Me contradicted the racism I encountered in church. I went through a period of reacting against everything I was taught, and even discarding my faith. I began my journey back mainly by encountering a world very different than I had been taught, an expansive world of beauty and goodness. Along the way I realized that God had been misrepresented to me. Cautiously, warily, I returned, circling around the faith to see if it might be true.”
Ever since, Yancey has explored the most basic questions and deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, guiding millions of readers with him. Early on he crafted best-selling books such as Disappointment with God and Where is God When it Hurts? while also editing The Student Bible. He coauthored three books with the renowned surgeon Dr. Paul Brand. “No one has influenced me more,” he says. “We had quite a trade: I gave words to his faith, and in the process he gave faith to my words.” In time, he has explored central matters of the Christian faith, penning award-winning titles such as The Jesus I Never Knew, What’s So Amazing About Grace? and Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? His books have garnered 13 Gold Medallion Awards from Christian publishers and booksellers. He currently has more than 17 million books in print, published in over 50 languages worldwide. In his memoir, Where the Light Fell, Yancey recalls his lifelong journey from strict fundamentalism to a life dedicated to a search for grace and meaning, thus providing a type of prequel to all his other books.
Yancey worked as a journalist in Chicago for some twenty years, editing the youth magazine Campus Life while also writing for a wide variety of magazines. In the process he interviewed diverse people enriched by their personal faith, such as President Jimmy Carter, Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, and Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement. In 1992 he and his wife Janet, a social worker and hospice chaplain, moved to the foothills of Colorado, and his writing took a more personal, introspective turn.
“I write books for myself,” he says. “I’m a pilgrim, recovering from a bad church upbringing, searching for a faith that makes its followers larger and not smaller. Writing became for me a way of deconstructing and reconstructing faith. I feel overwhelming gratitude that I can make a living exploring the issues that most interest me.
“I tend to go back to the Bible as a model, because I don’t know a more honest book. I can’t think of any argument against God that isn’t already included in the Bible. To those who struggle with my books, I reply, ‘Then maybe you shouldn’t be reading them.’ Yet some people do need the kinds of books I write. They’ve been burned by the church, or they’re upset about certain aspects of Christianity. I understand that feeling of disappointment, even betrayal. I feel called to speak to those living in the borderlands of faith.”
I find the couple of books written by PY challenging, stimulating, interesting etc. In particular the book … Prayer…Does it make any difference?
Incidentally I share his view that I too wish prayer could be a simple, straightforward almost childlike . I accept a complex matter leads to a complex book. I’m uneasy that it is eg beyond the understanding of the archetypal dear old lady in the pew. Has PY written any books that are for those ( and I don’t want to seem condescending) shall we say who are less gifted than he is.
Also on his website here and in the Q & A section, he relates a funny story, renaming his books under ” mold” instead of ” God”. According to POLISH FRIENDS of mine there is NO one similar POLISH word for these two English words. Can he elaborate/ clarify as I ended up with egg on my face. TY….JOHN.
I have read Prayer and it fundamentally changed my prayer life.
I read the Jesus I Never Knew, and it gave me new appreciation for the sermon on the mount.
Last night I finished What’s so Amazing about Grace. Wow. I put it next to Mere Christianity as a must read for old believers.
I wanted to take this moment and tell you the impact this book as made upon me. I am a 38 year old video game developer. I am involved in the integration of Faith & Video Games. Before we, as video game makers, express something with our art, we have to have something to say. And reading your book has convinced me that something is Grace.
The clarity of your challenge “What is the alternative to grace? Ungrace” moved me deeply. It has shifted the question “What is the most graceful action/reaction” from somewhere in the cluttered dusty back of my mind to the forefront. Grace is now something I am trying to let flow into all aspects of my life.
Thank you for waking me up to the greatest gift the Church has to offer the world. I hope to now live worthy of the call.
Dear Mr. Yancey. Over the years I have enjoyed, benefited from and been changed by your writing. Perhaps most life changing was my first read – What’s So Amazing About Grace and The Jesus I Never Knew. However, I wanted to let you know about my most recent read or start. I was in CO recently visiting my son at the USAFA for parent’s weekend and took the opportunity to buy What’s Good About God at the Focus on the Family bookstore. After boarding in Denver to return to Charleston SC via Charlotte, I settled down for the flight, started on my orange juice and began reading your book. I had just finished reading about your accident and the call to come talk in VA, when I began to feel strange and then promptly passed out, much to my wife’s surprise. Thankfully all is well and nothing much happened other than cause a lot of concern on the plane and having to spend the night at an ER in Charlotte. I haven’t gone back to the book yet, but am hoping that I don’t pass out again while reading it. Thanks for committing to writing for the body of Christ. Sincerely. Brandt Shelbourne.
Years ago,early in my faith walk, I read the books you wrote with Dr. Brand & I was blown away. The spiritual insights I learned are amazing.
Your book Amazing Grace stirred me to be more ‘grace-full’ myself. I’m still working on it (being more grace-ful).
I very much appreciate your books, your insights, your stories of others & your own.
Thank-you very much.
I have just “discovered” Philip Yancey and am blown away by what I have read. I started with “Where Is God When It Hurts?” and I just read “Christians and Politics, Uneasy Partners”. And my response is Yes! Yes! Yes! I have been so troubled by my Christian friends who have lashed out judgmentally at, well, at all Democrats! They pass on ugly rumors and they gossip about things that are all stirred up at church, of all places! Let’s be clear here. No one knows a man’s heart, except God. Just because a fellow Christian puts a lesser importance on a sin that is extremely important to you, doesn’t give us the biblical right to bash them and pronounce that in our own judgment they can not be a Christian! Whosoever has not sinned, people! In regard to abortion and homosexuality, these are symptoms of a huge cultural and moral decay in our country, but judgmental Christians are crucifying the sinner, not the sin! We are to love people to Christ and spread Good News, not resort to name-calling and ostracism. Jesus talks about not being able to serve God and Money, yet our culture has glorified the comforts we enjoy – thru money- to the point where when everything doesn’t go our way we decide to fix it. With drugs, with divorce, with anger, with judgment, with holier-than-thou posts on Facebook. Do people not see the hypocrisy between vilifying people who decide to get an abortion and those taking pride in owning a gun to be able to protect themselves by blowing away any intruder who threatens their household? Both are evidence of a spirit of fear! And all of us Americans are addicted to Comfort. I want to lash out too, and say, read Matthew 7:1-5, for Heaven’s sake! Anyway, I know I am preaching to the choir, but it feels good to get some of these things off my chest. Thank you, Philip Yancey for a balanced, Godly look at ourselves. I look forward to reading the rest of your books!