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’m so glad. Next, I’d recommend What’s So Amazing About Grace.
Mr. Yancy,
I was given your book sole survivor because it reminded a my friend of me and my story. I’m going to start reading it and seeing if there are any parallel things. I also plan on emailing you further with a few highlights. Everyone I know is still alive and so I’m trying to honor my mother and protect christs bride. I’m a Jesus lover and freak with a faith that doesn’t make sense of why i have such an unbreakable faith. But it’s JESUS! He was there for me when I was that child, teen, young adult and now. Everything has been thrown at me I’ve fallen through every crack in some of americas pillar Christian’s . You may even know my parents being in Chicago. Thank you for having such courage to write such a book and I want to know how you did it.
I sure had my eyes opened reading your book “What’s so amazing about Grace”. When I became a Christian everything was black and white. I went to a fundamental Church and sent my children there. When our children would ask us questions of why this or that we would just say whatever the Pastor and or the school said is right. I fell now I will have to say I am sorry to my children after reading your book. I am 74 and realize I should have to talked to them and listened to them. I really was taken back by what you said about skirt lengths and hair length etc. The Pastor of the church we attended ended upon running around on his wife and eventually committed suicide. There is so much more I have learned I wouldn’t know where to start. Thank you so much for writing such a book that causes people like me to think for themselves and extend Grace to people instead of always judging them. I have learned a lot.
Phillip,
I loved reading your book The Gift of Pain. I am writing a book about addiction and recovery and would like to quote some passages in this book. Is there someone I can contact for permission? I have worked in medicine for 30 years. The message from that book made me rethink how I viewed not just physical pain but emotional pain. I would appreciate it if this is a possibility.
Thank you for all you do.
Scott Malm
There’s a “fair use” understanding in copyright that lets you quote around 250 words without applying for permission, as long as you credit the source. If longer, write us a pyasst@aol.com.
I’ve often thought of the parallels between physical and emotional pain. Worth exploring further!