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.”
By all means introduce yourself at Westmont! And thank you for this most encouraging “grace note.” –Philip
Through the years I have read and number of your books, and I appreciate your perspective in many areas of life and theology. I read Wher Is God When It Hurts and I just finished your book a Question That Never Goes Away. When evil man hurt innocent people, we cringe and are very upset. We call it evil. One question that just won’t go away for me is the story of Israel conquering the Promised Land. Why was that “genicide,” that killing of men, women, and children, that enslavement of survivors. . . why do we call that good? Muslims try to wipe out Christians, and that is evil. I am a believer who has been in ministry until I retired; I’ve read about Saul being instructed to not even spare the animals of Amalek; I’ve read of Joshua’s instructions, etc., but I still can’t answer thes nagging questions.
Hi there, Mr. Yancey!
I am taking a psychology class that focuses on Biblical integration with psychological practices. Part of our assigned reading was to read your book, “The Jesus I Never Knew”. We were discussing the content in class, and one of the students brought up the chapter about temptation and Jesus in the desert, where you speculate perhaps the devil did not know Jesus was the Son of God and was tempting Him to see if He was. We were wondering, did you mean that literally or were you speculating?
Thank you!
That idea came from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, in a sermon he wrote. It was speculation, and rather creative speculation. Satan doesn’t have unlimited knowledge–the close calls in an attempt to kill Jesus in his infancy prove that. I’m sure he knew something major was happening in the universe, but exactly what?
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!