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
Question for you, sir. I’m preparing to use your 6-session video on Prayer as a class in the prison our church volunteers in. We have about 40 men signed up to take the class with us right now, some of whom are Spanish. I am purchasing a copy of participants guide for all of the inmates in the class. A few weeks ago I saw the guide for sale on Amazon in Spanish, but have not been able to find it again. Do you know if it is still available somewhere and if so, where I could get it?
Thank you!
I’m checking right now and will let you know what I find out.
Philip
Hi Philip, I would like to thank you for your books. I am a 60 year old physician who became a christian while an undergraduate at Michigan State University many years ago. I fell in love and was married before I entered medical school to a young woman who was reared in a very fundamental baptist church. We attended various churches of that background for nearly twenty years of that and eventually left in 2002. CT was definitely not anything I was encouraged to read (to say the least) but in ~2004 we were attending a church with a small group that was using your book “What is so amazing about Grace”. It made quite an impact on both my wife and I and I actually believe if it were not for that book and “The Jesus I Never Knew” we would have abandoned our faith. I now own and have read all of your books. Anyhow, I was wondering about your thoughts about the sexual abuse accusations that have arisen lately, particularly pointed out in the Fort Worth Telegraph. Many more conservative believers have long maintained that such things were not possible. Unfortunately, very credible stories have surface in congregations very close to us personally that are difficult to ignore. I wish that these accusations were not true, but I am about 99.99999% they are. In the one church that we were involved with there was the abuse, then the cover up, now the circling of the wagons mentality. And it is made more egregious by the staff having political connections. Anyhow, it would be interesting if you were to write a blog on this topic.
Your comments touch me deeply. Coming from that background, I know how difficult it can be to sort out what to retain and what to jettison. I appreciate the suggestion for the blog. I have friends who work with the organization G.R.A.C.E. (https://www.netgrace.org/) who have convinced me that many of the accusations are 100% right. In fact, some estimate that the problem is as widespread in Protestant denominations as in the Catholic church, which has attracted far more scrutiny. How sad that the church that bears Jesus’ name turns so many away from him because of our behavior.
Philip, Thank you for your insightful and honest Q & A session at the Writers on the Rock Conference!
I am not an autograph hound, but it was fun to get your autograph on my 1987 Fearfully & Wonderfully Made paperback, and chat about your coming release of you and Dr. Brand’s rewrite of that book with. That is very exciting. With all the new discoveries about the human body since the first book was published in 1980, I am certain the research portion of that was challenging, as well as rewarding for you. I did sign up for the Launch Team, I hope that I can help in that.
I am an engineer with the National Park Service. I am preparing to retire in 672 days (who’s counting) by working on my Masters in Christian Counseling. Hoping to have a second career, helping people receive freedom in a life with Christ.
Be blessed, sir! And keep researching, writing and editing. Thank you!
Philip, I am going through “What’s So Amazing About Grace” for the second or third time, and just finished the chapter about your friend, Mel. Though not historically a model of grace, my church now has an excellent ministry devoted to those who struggle with same-sex attraction and those who (want to) love them. I wanted to share it with you, just in case you were able some day to pass it on to someone who could benefit.
http://www.strengthinweakness.org/
Thank you for what you do, and please keep it up!
I found “What’s so Amazing about Grace?” to be very approachable, clear and interesting. It starts with the story of Babot’s Feast that jolted me and years later I still think about it. Our God is amazing and deserves our response.