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,
A father is lecturing his son when his son interrupts him to say, “I know Dad” to which the frustrated father yells in reply, “No, you don’t know because if you knew you wouldn’t have done it!”. Your book, “What’s so Amazing About Grace” is my seventh book in my quest to immerse myself in the topic of grace. Its a beautiful book. Thank you. At the same time, it seems all I am accomplishing is to become more aware of my ungrace. I feel like both the father and the son with myself. When I share my frustration with Christian friends they relate but are also resigned to that just being the way it is this side of heaven. So I keep searching. What does it take to move beyond wanting to change to actually changing? I guess I will try “Vanishing Grace” next.
Hi Phillip
I have read everyone of your books and genuinely appreciated the transparency of struggle that your journey of faith has provided. Its an honest representation of what a Christian walk really is. As a 53 year old male who is happily married and extremely satisfied in every aspect of my life, the struggle remains in following God’s primary command— to love God with all your heart and soul. More than 30 years of committed faith coupled with countless hours invested in scripture, bible group study, supporting books and prayer have still led to a frustrating distance from a God who professes unconditional love and acceptance. If this is supposed to be the most important relationship of my life, then its not netting out so well in progress I’d always heard that as we age we tend to draw closer to God but I’m finding it increasingly more difficult to embrace and sustain a passion for something that remains so abstract and unclear. No need to respond— I primarily wanted to say that your books have helped and I wanted to thank you for that…. please keep writing them.
I identify so well with what you write. No doubt you know of Mother Teresa’s long drought of the presence of God. Yet we soldier on, hoping, trusting, clinging. I’m honored to be a fellow pilgrim with you. I described my own challenges in “Reaching for the Invisible God.”
We are going through you book and study materials, “What’s so amazing about Grace?” I am finding it a profound experience. As a retired Mennonite Pastor, I can resonate with many of the stories you use to highlight what is so amazing about grace. I was especially moved by your chapter that touched on homosexuality. I want to thank you for writing this book and for your ministry of writing. May God bless you and keep you.
A poem by Leonard Cohen says it well:
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
Philip