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.”
I don’t feel very wise, but I do feel old! “Richard” was actually a pseudonym for a real person, and we have been in contact over the years. He is much less angry now, and open to spirituality and the supernatural, though more in a New Age kind of way than traditionally Christian. Thank you for your concern for him.
Hi Dr. Yancey. Thanks for responding and your comment. Interesting about ‘Richard’. I think part of his issue was ‘gimme prayers’ rather than ‘be with me prayers’. When I throw up a ‘gimme’, and the Lord gives, I say ‘Thanks, by the way, if you’ve got an extra million to send down it would be appreciated, finances are tight this month’. I think He is amused. I might not be the best Christian, but I know who I am. I know about the ‘Old’ thing. My brain is 25 and is constantly at odds with my 65 year old body. The body usually wins. Have a great day. God bless.
Jim
we started Vanishing Grace as an adult bible study
only did first chapter
who is Gabe Lyons in the first video session
You should Google him. (See http://qideas.org/contributors/gabe-lyons/) He directs a kind of think tank that works on building bridges between Christians and the culture around them. He’s very in touch with current trends. –Philip
Dear Philip
The reason evangelical Christians are supporting Trump is because they follow Christianity not Christ.
We have had this discussion about Christianity when you came to Dubai a few years back!
Here is a poem from my book: ‘One Secret, 101 Life Changing Poems’ …
Blessings
Frank
RENAME IT CNT
By Frank Raj
WE need to rename an ancient subterfuge passed down the ages
Successfully perpetrated on unsuspecting humans in many stages
A multi headed hydra brilliantly dividing mankind employing sages
Religion still ensures regular mayhem with its confusing messages
ITS strategically chosen alias, is something called “Christianity”
The suffix has birthed a colossus, an organized religious insanity
Diabolically crafted as a mere language construct to fool humanity
And to breed proud fools strutting about with their devout vanity
LET us bell the cat, name the evil to expose its ideological tactics
Denounce it so people know its cunning use of the sacred prefix
Destroy its vast foundation, its splendid global edifice so fantastic
Let brick and mortar churches choose more humble characteristics
RELIGIOUS empires have been built on men’s longing for Truth
Expose the middlemen; let them lose their lofty pulpit livelihood
Compromised, Christ’s simple teachings have not been understood
A religious way of doing life, is strategically employing falsehood
WHY do human beings so easily surrender their precious freedom?
Poisoned carrots are the lure, the gullible receive man-made wisdom
Men cling to spiritual pride like affluence; such a common infection
Pious fools believe that ritual and tradition can achieve perfection
COMMUNISM has fallen, let Christianity be the next to fall apart
Let humanity directly seek the Maker, shun all pious blackguards
Know the unknown God who humbly walked the earth on record
People are saved by grace alone through faith in His precious Word
SCHOLARS have no idea who contrived the term ‘Christianity’
The Trojan horse undermines the Church, imposing its blasphemy
Like all man-made religions, it is the untruth people are used to
Let us give its due and rename it CNT – for it is ‘Clever, Not True.’