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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Thank you for the honesty and transparency in your blog and books. I am attempting to help a man who says he needs to forgive God. Any suggestion would be appreciated. Blessings.
I recommend 2 books by Lewis Smedes: Forgive and Forget and The Art of Forgiving. Lew knew about “forgiving God.” –Philip
Mr. Yancey, I should have written this years ago when I first read The Jesus I Never Knew! It changed how I perceived life and approached strengthening my relationship with the Jesus that I could relate too, and based on His life, I’m sure He can relate to me. It is truly life changing.
Similar to many others, I understand church hurt but when you knew there is a Christ that can relate and cares. It changed the trajectory of my thinking.
Thank you
As I am around southern evanglicals (I live in small-town Arkansas), it seems, now that Trump has already been elected, that they are looking for just any semi-reasonable excuse for still supporting him. They want to be just as extreme as liberals. Politics these days seems so cutthroat. If you don’t agree with liberals, then we experience unceasing attacks meant for Trump, but received by those who voted him in.
Dear Philip,
Thank you for writing “What is so Amazing About Grace!” As a 63 year old Christian I have been stirred by the topic of grace for the past 3 to 4 years. Just this summer I have been reading your book and it is speaking to me very clearly and refreshing my heart!
The reason I am writing is to request a suggestion from you. I am working with some guys to plan a Men’s Retreat for the last weekend of September. Three churches are joining together to plan and attend – it will be great! Our retreat theme is “Grace in a Man’s Life” and for humor our promo video uses clips from the old TV series MISSION IMPOSSIBLE (see it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b1sr3nroq4ivp25/2018%20Men's%20Retreat%20Promo.mp4?dl=0)! The weekend retreat will have three teaching sessions, each taught by different guys, maybe with sub-themes: Grace from God, Grace between Christians and Grace to the World. I am considering borrowing material from your book for one of the sessions. Not that I feel capable of teaching on the subject, but that I feel guys need to know more about this.
My request is this, of all the aspects of grace your book covers and the hundreds of illustrations it contains, can you suggest a couple sections of the book that you might focus on if you were speaking to a group of men about grace?
Forever thankful for your ministry and help!
I would recommend something from chapters 17-19, simply because our nation is so divided politically. When I wrote the book, Bill Clinton was in office, and now it’s Donald Trump. How can Christians apply what I suggested some years ago in a new cultural and political context? That might stir up some interesting discussion! I wrote a sort of sequel, Vanishing Grace, a few years ago, addressing this very topic. Politics stirs people up, so your group may need to exercise grace even as they learn about it. –Philip
Phillip,
I am a minister that read your Book Whats so Amazing about Grace the year it was published and have never recovered. I still Go to it from time to time. Thank you. I would love to hear you thoughts on word written by the ancient Greek pagan poet Aeschylus.
“And even in our sleep pain that can not forget falls upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the wakeful grace of God.”
These are profound words that leave me with questions. Namely, who is God and what is grace.
Thank you,
Cameron Dockery