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.”
This warms my heart, Lindsay. You may enjoy the book Without God, Without Creed, by James Turner, which explores how careless language raises expectations about what an encounter with God should look like. Bless you in your honest journey. –Philip
My brother Philip,
We will most likely never meet in this lifetime, but someday in glory we will have to sit and chat and laugh at the goodness of the Lord and rejoice at the wonderful lessons He allowed us to learn, and I will thank you in person for putting pen to paper and making sense of my recent hurts and woes. I have spent my adult life in ministry, raised a large family, but recently went through a nasty divorce after 30 yrs due to my wife having mental health illness. Some of my children are far from the faith, some former colleagues have pointed out I am “disqualified” from ministry, yet today I can still smile. Jesus never left my side and you helped me see and understand that. I have experienced some of the life struggles you also have had and you have encouraged me to see God and His word in a new, fresh and relevant way, so THANK-YOU. I will be purchasing a few more of your books as I only have 3 or 4, but know that you are in my prayers daily as I read a portion of your books. My ministry is now more to encourage people one on one and to show God’s love that way (I have also been a paramedic 25 yrs so I bring that dynamic to my “ministry”), but I often tell folks that Philip Yancey is one of my favorite authors because he understands the dynamics of how Jesus taught, thought and walked. So, until we meet, thank-you for your work and may the Lord keep blessing you.
I picked up your book, Reaching for the Invisible God, and am three-quarters through it, and love it. There are so many great references to other famous writers, many of whom were Christians who have struggled in their faith. Besides that, I love the honesty about your own struggles. I have read others books by you, but this one strikes a special chord with me. I am a retired pastor, working on a book of my own, where God has clearly intervened in my life time and again, and yet some days I wake up in a dark place, like you have described. Thus this book has particularly interested me.
Hello Philip,
With life issues coming up on daily basis, The Las Vegas shooting killing 58 and over 500 injuired; only yesterday the Texas Church shooting killing 26 and many more event in 2017. One will be desired to read more from your knowledge of write ups.
I could not keep thinking about yesterday shooting at Texas Church, a family of 8 killed, a pregnant Woman with 3 children killed. What questions would be in the minds of that community.
Hello Mr.Yancey!
I was just wondering how are your days. Recently I got obsessed with Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe and his books. Then I thought it would be awesome if I ever get one chance to talk to Goethe, the man who died in 1832. It was only my dream but then you were on my heart next to Goethe. How blessed I am to live in this era… that it was possible for me to at least express how much I appreciate your works and how much I love you as an author. I’m already excited to think that I am able to send this message and you will be able to read and reply. I will try my best to take this privilege as often as possible.
I am planning on going to London and paris then Korea early of next year. Wishing that I might be able to see you in person one day by wandering around the world.
I wish you the best.