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 Mr. Yancey.
Thank you for visiting Korea and giving a precious message.
I am one of prayer who is praying for Korea to be united in Jesus Christ and also to awe the Lord. Although I’m praying this continuously, I felt somewhat anxiety.
But by your message today, I found “Hope” in our country. Although our nation is going through “Winter Season”, if we continously pray with hope, the “Spring Season” will soon arrive. When I saw the picture of “Spring Season” , lovely flowers spread all through the ground, I do found “Hope” in our country.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Yancey, you are, and will always be, one of my favorite writers. God bless you.
Dear Mr Yancey,
I thank God for the wonderful inspiration you have. I have read “Where was God when it Hurts” ? This book has given me reason to see God’s hands, moving along with me in all my ordeals in life. God is always there when the eyes of faith are open.
Thank you and May Almighty God continue to bless you.
Mr Yancey-
I am overjoyed to once again have the privilidge to share your words, experiences and inspirations in your books. I am currently on the third book of yours that I have read and find myself thinking deeper than ever while I take in your words. I hope to come to meet you in November while you are on your book tour in Ohio. I pray that God continues to work thru your heart and hands to inspire all of us Christians in a modern society deeply needing such truth, as you share it.
As much as I appreciate your dedication to the Lord, I have to say that your comments in CT recently are off base. You say that Jesus came full of grace and truth, and that, “We’ve done pretty well with the truth part. But let’s restore some balance.” So you have chosen to over-emphasis grace, as evangelical churches have been doing for decades and Protestant churches have been doing for centuries. It’s the easy way to try to sell a book because who wants to hear the true gospel that requires sacrifice and calls for repentance? It’s so easy to call on believers to say the right thing instead of asking them to follow the gospel in actions that offend the world and is considered judgmental.
The problem today is the lack of truth in the church. The emphasis is almost completely on grace (which leads to homosexuality being accepted and its sinfulness being ignored). People are allowed to freely sin without consequence and sermons are touchy-feely inspiration that won’t offend anyone because, as you seem to emphasize, we need to reach sinners by not offending them. Sorry, sir, but that just makes for really bad Christians and weak converts. We haven’t done well with the truth part at all–the truth would shine a light on their darkness so they repent, not hand over a light for free and then have them misuse it. Watch as TV preachers, Kathie Lee Gifford, reality show stars, theology professors, student ministry leaders, and even emergent pastors claim to be “grace” filled people that show no regard for what’s truth, living life as if it makes no difference whether one is a Christian. It’s a sad state that the church is in today. Your book should have been “Vanishing Truth.” Please stop over-emphasizing grace at the expense of living out the true gospel. The misrepresentation of grace is actually the death of truth. Thank you for your consideration.
1 John 3:18