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.”
Dear Philip,
I have read most, if not all, of your books. I enjoy reading someone who is not publishing a “book a month”, and who is a thinker.
I’ve always wondered about the following topic on “Forgiveness” and how it relates to grace. I know we are to forgive others and the reason we should forgive. However, it’s always stunned me that you will see people on TV who have suffered the murder of a loved one, or some other horrible injustice. Many of the victim’s families comment, “I have forgiven him” in an expression of “closure”, or some other “Christian-like” behavior.
I ask, “Has the murderer asked for forgiveness?” Has the “guilty” expressed remorse, at all? This act of forgiveness is backed up by the “command” that Christians must forgive (70 times 7, etc.) their trespassers, and it helps the victimized “let go” of their anger, anguish, etc. so they are not carrying bitterness or resentment.
Then, I search the scriptures and I see nowhere are we asked to give blanket forgiveness as a response to those who have done wrong to us. In the command re: “how many times do I have to forgive someone”, and He says 70 x 7 – but that appears to me that the transgressor asked for forgiveness.
The larger question is that God does not forgive US without our asking for forgiveness and repentance. So, how can I be expected to forgive, as a Christian, anyone who causes me harm and is not seeking forgiveness? In fact, in my thinking, I am giving the wrong message to the transgressor and those like him – almost as if I am condoning his “sin” if he is not asking for my forgiveness, and I bless him with forgiveness when he may not even want it.
I think the burden we carry from being harmed by someone else (who is not repentant or wanting forgiveness) is between me and God to heal, to take away the bitterness and anger…because I don’t believe offering blanket forgiveness for the vilest of men is even sincere. The “Christian” part of us is called to respond with forgiveness if it is sought – we must forgive because we were forgiven (because we also sin).
Grace? We forgive others because He forgave us. (But, we prayed for Him to forgive us!). It’s requisite to becoming a Christian – Christ is there waiting for us to accept Him. If we do not ask, we do not receive forgiveness – we receive hell – I cannot be more holy and righteous than God – I’m his creation saved by grace.
This topic may be worthy for you to write a book!
Thank you – would like to hear your comments.
I wish I could help, Mariana, but it’s impossible for me to send an e-book to another country. To protect copyrights, the e-publisher “tags” the origin country and keeps this from happening. Very sorry! I know my books are in Indonesia, both in English and many in Indonesian language. Perhaps ask a Christian bookstore to order for you? I’m sorry, but my hands are tied.
Excellent thoughts about important questions. I recommend The Art of Forgiving and Forgive and Forget, both by Lewis Smedes. We do, of course, have one strong example of forgiveness offered even without apology or remorse: when Jesus prayed for his persecutors, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
Philip
Dear Philip,
The book you have written revolutionized my theology of grace and other essential doctrines.
I was reading your books more relevant in my preaching.
You may be thinking to visit in Austria. It is a large community of Romanians who would need your help.
Fedor Covaci
Pastor
Bethlehem Graz
I Thank You
Kerry and Brenda,
Your comments very well worth reading. I am a 68 year old male so you can imagine how much religion, society, and politics have changed in my lifetime also I was born and raised in LA. just imagine!
The church of Christ that I am a member of welcomes everyone. The church sees no color or ethnicity we are all Christians or are trying to be. Attend a local church of Christ I think you would be surprised.