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.”
Dear Philip,
Thank you so much for your insightful and encouraging books and responses. I seek your wisdom as I am at one of the lowest points in my life. My father was distant and absent. My mother was very dependant on me so I grew up very quickly, no childhood. We trusted God for everything, was faithful and active in Church, praying and tithing. My husband and I have been trying for years to get pregnant. This year, our Medical Doctor told us that we have an almost nil chance because of my past chronically health problems that never seem to end. I have had 3 pregnancy prophesies by 3 different people who did not know my secret hurt. Nothing yet and I am not trying to be like Abraham and Sarah.
I lost my job (downsizing) and our home is at risk of foreclosure. I have been job searching in my profession and interviewing for months with no success. What happened to my seed and Malachi 3 “opening the floodgates of Heaven”?
My Church is experiencing a major challenge shaking us to the roots. I am in leadership at Church, people come to me for comfort, counsel or prayer but I am in a dry hot desert now. These past two years have been one bad thing after another, all unanswered prayer. I need God to speak and I shall praise God regardless but I am so depressed and anxious because I feel like God is so so distant. His Word is very contrary to almost all aspects of my life. I would love to hear from you. Blessings to you always.
HI!
I am a 42 year old mother who was raised in the church. I have just started reading your book on Prayer. Lately I have been seeking a concrete example of God being present today. It seems to me that all the books, all the sermons I read and hear are just different excuses for why we cannot see or feel God. We can’t handle it, he is speaking through silence, we need more faith, etc…What if you pray for more faith and he doesn’t deliver? I try to see God as my Father but as a mother I cannot understand why (if God is to be seen as our Heavenly Father) he would allow his children to suffer. Say what you will, but there is no concrete example against the fact that he is allowing his children to suffer. So a child with cancer suffers and dies to bring glory to God? I don’t buy it. It seems like God created us to sit back and watch us suffer. Like it is a game to Him. He knew the suffering that would happen and he still created us. Why? Any reasoning anyone gives for this is that we just have to wait until we die and then God will reveal himself. I cannot get past all of this for some reason. I do not find comfort in a God that hides. I need a sign that cannot be explained away. I pray and cry out to God with no response. Why? I do not want excuses…If he loves me why won’t he just answer in a way that will change me? And I don’t want to hear that he is answering through nature or something like that…
Dear Phillip,
Many years ago I read a wonderful article in Campus Life magazine about the “solo” experience of the Vanguard program at Honey Rock Camp. I wonder if you wrote that? Thanks very much.
I did. I went on a special program that brought together juvenile delinquents and federal prisoners, arranged by Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship. A great experience! It whetted my appetite for moving to Colorado and hiking the mountains here.
I have written books with titles like Where Is God When It Hurts, Disappointment with God, Reaching for the Invisible God and The Question That Never Goes Away. I don’t minimize the question you raise; I’ve spent much of my career raising it myself. I won’t add to the formula answers. You’re right: this world is broken, badly. For whatever reason, God has chosen to let natural laws predominate–laws that encompass much good (the body’s healing properties, our immunological systems, etc.) and much bad. My best clue to how God views this world comes from Jesus, who always responded with comfort and healing, and who himself was subject to the same consequences of a broken world. We live on an invaded planet, and trust that God plans restoration someday. “On earth as it is in heaven”–I pray for that, and work for it. Beyond that, what can I say?