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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email Joannie: pyasst@aol.com
Thank you, Philip, for the honesty I see written into your books, not only regarding your faith journey, but your journey as a writer. You well describe the writing life as one of solitude in many ways, of being misunderstood, and seen as rather odd, and all of that has served to affirm that as a writer, I am ‘normal’! Thank you! You have expressed the writer’s life so well, in ways I could not articulate, or even understand about myself until I read your books. Of course, this is not to diminish my appreciation for your openness in finding your way to the real Jesus. I, too, was raised in a rather strict, confusing (Lutheran) church, seemingly focused more on law than on grace, even though the Word was preached by kind pastors. The biggest confusions came from the congregation, and my resultant feelings that we (my family) would and never could be ‘good enough’ to fit the white-picket-fence image of perfection. We simply didn’t fit in, didn’t fit the ‘image’. It has taken me over fifty years to find my way to the Jesus of the bible, and in so doing, to reach out in genuine love and compassion to the hurting, the lonely, the lost, the struggling. What a tragedy, all those wasted years pursuing some kind of ‘Focus on the Family’ image, instead of Jesus. I must admit, it took several health issues to break me, and in my brokenness, I found meaning, and I found Jesus. I now understand that when I am weak, I am strong (in Him, not in myself, my possessions, what people think of or admire about me, etc.) So thank you for sharing your story. It affirms mine. Your books are REFRESHING! Keep writing HONESTLY, because you build bridges to others who are struggling to figure out what the heck the Christian life is all about. You give others permission to question, to probe, to reevaluate what they believe, what they have been taught, and to look at their faith with honesty. And that is where healing and freedom begins.
Thank you for this vulnerable story of a search toward grace, beautifully expressed. –Philip
I am a great admirer and follower of your writing and teaching and your “Grace Notes” daily readings are an essential part of my day, as they have been for the last three years since I was first given the book. One of the recent ones, “Role Reversal” on October 27th, is much in my mind at the moment. You may be aware of the dreadful exhortation by the well known English atheist scientist Richard Dawkins for people to post videos on YouTube of them defaming Christ and faith. My prayer for him is that he may have a “Damascene” encounter and emulate the dramatic change that took place in Paul’s life. If Dawkins was ever able to read “Role Reversal” what might then result?
Great Information…!
Dear Philip, thank you for your insight and inspiration in articulating truth that is palatable to us who have be conditioned by our traditional way of thinking! I came out of Hinduism and have been in Christian ministry for over forty years in South Africa. Started my ministry with YWAM. Served with many para-church ministries in Africa and now run a Foundation to empower rural communities in South Africa through our Foundation. Please visit our website if you can.
Every Blessing upon you and you family!
Abel Govender(Rev).
I did visit the website. What a handsome, happy-looking staff! May you continue to experience joy in serving. Your work is very important.
I am a great admirer and follower of your writing and teaching and your “Grace Notes” daily readings are an essential part of my day. Years ago, early in my faith walk, I read the books you wrote with Dr. Brand & I was blown away. The spiritual insights I learned are amazing. Your book Amazing Grace stirred me to be more ‘grace-full’ myself. I’m still working on it (being more graceful). I very much appreciate your books, your insights, your stories of others & your own.
Thank-you very much.
I’ve just revised and updated two of those books with Dr. Brand, and Hodder & Stoughton will publish them this coming fall under the title (I think) Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image. It’s funny how Dr. Brand became much better known here in the US than in the UK. C. S. Lewis would be another example. Thank you for those exports! –Philip