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.”
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Hello Philip I have read a number of your books and listened to you quite a lot and I love your honesty and forthright way of writing about the Christian life. I’m a trainer and so I work with the four different learning styles: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, read-write. I’m a mixture of all of these as a lot of people are. My biggest one is visual. I’ve been thinking about how that affects my relationship with God. When I read my bible or Christian books I want to visualise the stories. If I talk to someone on the phone I picture their house or what they looked like last time I saw them. I want to SEE God. I know that is not possible and I feel like sometimes that hinders my prayers or my general relationship with Him. I thought I would mention it to you in case you have come across anything about this in your research/writing. I would love to hear what you have to say about this. It would make an intriguing subject.
I wrote a book circling around this topic: Reaching for the Invisible God. It’s an important question, and I’m glad you mention it. –Philip
Mr. Yancey,
I recently watched the film “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers”. This film begins with the quote “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.” Following the quote in the film, it says “Phillip (sic) Yancey, author, Rumors of Another World”. The quote is thus attributed to you, and it is implied that it comes from the book Rumors of Another World. However, I have this book and have searched it thoroughly and I cannot find the quote. I have also checked the internet and not been able to find the source of the quote. Could you please tell me if this quote is from you and what is the source of the quote? Thank you very much.
Elton Hewitt
I have said that quote, or something very close to it, at public speaking venues. I don’t think it has made it into any books, however. It’s always hard to pin down an original source. There’s a good chance I adapted it from something I heard from someone else! –Philip
Hi Mr.Yancey!
I’m Korean living in Florida.
When I was 17, I read your book “Prayer: Does it make any difference?” in Korean.
At first, I didn’t want to grab the book because the book was thicker than I thought
and it’s still the thickest book I’ve ever read in my life.
As I finish reading chapter 1, I told my mom that I’m glad this book is thick because there’s still more pages left.
I am fast reader. I like to finish reading the book at least in that same week.
But I wanted to read “Prayer” as slow as I could, basically decompose every context in the book.
The book is eloquently written so it’s still delightful to reread the same page for 10 times.
Whenever I hold the book in my hands, I can clearly see that you threw away more than 10 pages to make one complete page.
If that’s not what you have done, then you are truly genius…!!
I moved to Florida when I was 18 and ‘Prayer’ was the first book I bought, this time in English.
It’s been more than 7 years that reading ‘Prayer’ comes after reading the bible as my daily routine.
My ultimate goal is to absorb every context in the bible and the book of Prayer.
There are so many more things I want to tell you.
How inspiring and comforting your words are.
I read most of your books and watched youtube videos as well.
If I knew this webpage exists, I would have come earlier.
I found it as I was searching if there’s any of your events I could participate.
Thank you for your work.
Thank you so much for your efforts.
Thank you for your existence..!!!
My name is Jee Kim.
You will see me more because there are questions I really want to ask you and
I don’t think I expressed enough how amazing you are.
Hope you have a great day.
🙂
You are my encourager of the month, Jee Kim. I don’t want to disappoint you, but I don’t throw away 10 pages for every 1 page I keep. Usually I end up throwing away 100-150 pages from each book, however. I am so glad that the Korean translation held your interest! And then you went on to the English version. You warm my heart. I have made four tours of Korea, and no country has treated me better. Your note is proof of that. Thank you. –Philip
Philip,
My father died about a month ago and one of the things he left me was a book — your book, The Jesus I Never Knew, given to me almost 20 years ago. It’s been on my shelf all this time, and I didn’t think to crack the cover until recently. Dad inscribed it, saying he thought my reading it would leave me hungry for more in the way of spiritual things, and that has been true. It is true. A number of things related to his passing away into a sure expectation that he would meet Jesus have inclined me toward a new understanding of and desire for God. I wake up in the early morning and start my day in a quiet house with prayer and meditation on two books — the Bible (currently the Book of James) and your book. It has been life-enriching. So many of the themes you touch on match the things I’m praying about or reading about in the Word. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with all of us. Though that book was written in the 90s, not much about it is dated, and what you write about the relationship between humans and God is as fresh as it gets.
Your father left you a legacy, and you are embracing it. I know he would be (is?) pleased that you honor him in this way. Nothing in life is more important than encountering and accepting the love of God. –Philip
Philip,
I wanted to let you know that I’ve been praying for you. I’m reading through Reaching for an Invisible God, savoring it by only reading a few pages a day and really considering what you say — and it occurred to me that I ought to be praying for this man who has, along with John Stott, been such a constant spiritual guide for me in the mornings when I pray & study the Bible. Funny (and a little sad) that it didn’t occur to me to pray for you & your ministry until after I’d been reading your books for awhile. I also just read about your harrowing car accident, and can now pray more specifically for your spinal condition.
Rod
You’re so very kind, Rod. Yes, writers need prayer, as we work in isolation and it’s a paranoia-producing occupation. We keep at it because of responses like yours.
This year is the tenth anniversary of my accident, and your prayers have been answered–in reverse! No lasting effects, other than a sore neck now and then after sleeping.
Philip
Hello. I’m Korean. I read your book “the question that never goes away”.
I am saddened by the atomic bombings in Japan during World War II.
But we must also consider the damage that Korea has suffered in Japan.
Korean young girls were dragged by Japanese soldiers, and they were terrible.
Korea was able to become independent because Japan lost the war.
I hope you know this history. Thank you.
I know that history well, and also the Chinese version of similar atrocities. Thank you for the reminder.