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.”
To contact Philip,
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email Joannie: pyasst@aol.com
Hello Philip, I’m Brazilian. My name is Ephraim. I was recently bombarded with advertisements, all over social networks, for a book of yours “The Question That Never Goes Away”. After seeing him so much in advertisements I started to ask myself, what question would that be?
I got the book through an app and started reading it. And it’s really very interesting. The issue of suffering and where is God in it. I send this message, as I think it is a very relevant issue, and I would like to suggest it as a theme to be worked on by the group of young people I am part of. But, I lack arguments, and mainly ideas on how to suggest this. And also work on the subject.
I would like to know if the brother would have any more books to recommend me, or any tips on passages that would be a good starting point to study more about the subject
I’ve written a lot about this topic. “Where Is God When It Hurts” and “Disappointment with God” convey some of my thoughts. I believe they are still in print in Portuguese, although you are fluent in English. That’s good you’re asking these questions while young!
Our church (House of Prayer, Blairsville, GA) plans to study What’s So Amazing About Grace in January.
I have purchased the Participant’s Guide (Zondervan 2000) and the DVD (both have the pink cover with pasture and fence).
I have 2 questions.
ONE: What is the difference between the Participant’s Guide and the Study Guide.
TWO: There are several editions on Amazon with the pink cover , pasture and fence. Several different years. Are the contents the same? I want to make sure all of our attendees have the same book. They buy their own books. Please advise
The Participant’s Guide is tied directly in to the video, week by week. The Study Guide is more suitable for someone studying the book more intently, or leading a group study. It provides extra background and may be helpful for you, but isn’t tied in directly to the video group study. All the editions of the book itself, regardless of cover, are the same.
Hi Phillip. Thank you for all you’ve done for the kingdom. My question is: what tradition or expression of the church do you worship in? My wife and I after 2 years of marriage are still in a discernment process about where to worship. We both grew up in fundamental churches and experienced some of the unfortunate aspects of that that you did. I’m feeling a strong pull to Catholicism or eastern Orthodox. She not so much. I life what I’m learning and experiencing as I explore widely, but we also want to settle somewhere.
We currently attend a small Presbyterian church. We’ve sampled several traditions over the years, and choose based on the church community we feel most compatible with.
For a long time, you have been one of my favorite authors, helping me to keep pursuing the faith when church hurt made me want to disappear. Over time, I have seen how the Lord has used my own “dark night of the soul” to cut away at the fluff, shaping my joy to be found in Him alone. As I read your recent memoir (thank you for your honesty in writing), I grieved over your journey, but I also appreciated SO MUCH when you wrote that none of it was wasted. Your sorrow has been used to comfort so many of us. Your books, your insight, your wisdom…after reading, it is easy to see that so much of that was shaped in the valley. It could not have been easy, but thank you for not throwing it away. Death swallowed up in victory is something only Jesus can do, and you point us to Him through it all. Such a gift. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.
Philip,
Just sharing my gratitude for all your writing. It has been such a blessing in my life. I still have the NIV Student Bible my Mother gave me a few months after my Dad passed away from cancer when I was still in college. It is the Bible I recommend most to Parents and Students alike (I’m a NextGen Pastor). You always ask the biggest questions and tackle them in challenging, thoughtful ways. You are a treasure and gift to the Church, whose impact and legacy stretches to all 7 Continents…not just the one your Mother wished you went to serve. Thank you for following God’s path. Blessings. As it is almost Christmas at the time of my posting this, I hope you and your Family have a wonderful Season.