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.”
Your words beautifully make the point I tried to express in the blog. Thank you.
–Philip
Christianity Today magazine recommends these books: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/january-february/my-top-5-books-on-mental-illness.html. Like you, I believe we need many more.
–Philip
I am reading your book “Prayer, Does It Make Any Difference”. I admit I don’t know how to pray but want to learn as the disciples wanted Jesus to teach them to pray. However, in Chapter 12, page 159 you write “The secret to keeping company with God will likely not be found in a new set of tapes, another book, a different preacher, a weekend seminar.” I agree. I have read two (2) books on prayer and have yet to hear from God or to even to have learned to pray. So, what is the answer to communicate with God and Him with me” I have even told God that I will be quiet and wait to hear from Him but to no avail.
Hi, Gordon,
I saw your comment and just wanted to say a few words of encouragement. The fact that you want so desperately to communicate with God is a wonderful thing and leads me to believe He is drawing you closer. Please don’t feel that you must do anything special or “just right” to capture God’s attention. Think of someone you love, especially if you have children, think of them. Did you need to read a book to know how to communicate with them and let them know your feelings? (When they hit the teenage years, that is a different story, of course!) Fathers want to hear from their children, no matter the mode of communication! For me, communicating with God doesn’t seem to happen when I am actually “praying.” It is when I am pondering things while in the shower, or walking in the woods, or driving in the countryside. My mind senses and processes things that I am somehow able to determine did not originate from “me”, if that makes sense.
For some people, listening to music opens up the communication lines, for others, going to church. For others, it is in a time of quiet reflection and prayer. To be honest, I have never been in “intentional” prayer and “heard” from God. it happens more for me throughout the day through things I see and experience. Please don’t think God is ignoring you. Keep your spiritual eyes open and rest assured that God wants to communicate with you also! The Bible assures us that we will find Him when we seek Him with our hearts. (Jeremiah 29:13) Sounds like you are doing exactly that – surely your eagerness and desire to speak with God pleases Him greatly! Prayers, my friend!
Good evening Sir,
I have been struggling with my life. I often am discouraged with my life. I want to share with you about my discouraged experience.
I feel disappointed with my own life because I motivated to accomplish in my own life. The happen was divorce then Baptist kicked me out and no support for a long time, rejection with my deaf plus my daughters, lost my job by false accuse, remarried with a wonderful lady but deal with her strong willed and problem with my marrying now, no job now.
It affects me discouraged a lot so I lost my motivation to have relationship with the Lord by not reading the Bible or prayer.
Yes, I know God is valid but I don’t understand what is going on. I would like to know what name of the book you recommend me to read? The disappoint of God by Yancey? or The good of God by Yancey??