Blog | Page 11 of 39 | Philip Yancey

My Untold Story

April 2021

For as long as I’ve been writing, I have wanted to produce a memoir. I’ve read great memoirs on other religious groups: Frank McCourt’s account of Irish Catholics in Angela’s Ashes, Chaim Potok’s memoir-like novels on Orthodox Judaism, Tara Westover’s bestseller Educated about fundamentalist Mormons. Yet my own tribe of evangelical/fundamentalists, hardly a fringe group, is often misunderstood and portrayed by the media in ways that seem tone deaf. Scholars of religion estimate that 90 to 100 million people in ...

A Time to Weep

March 2021

Some days—September 11, December 7—forever stain our mental calendars, and this year March 11 joined those “days of infamy.” The date marked not only the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic but also the tenth anniversary of a tsunami that devastated a coastal region of Japan. The tsunami surge did its damage quickly and receded; the pandemic surge is still wreaking havoc across the globe. The 2011 tsunami ranks as the most expensive natural disaster in history. Japan ...

A Time to Fear

February 2021

COVID-19 is hardly the first pandemic to strike fear across the world. In the 17th century, the Black Death (bubonic plague) swept across Europe in waves. One of England’s greatest writers, John Donne, fell ill while serving as the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Though desperately wanting to bring comfort to his terrified city, Donne instead found himself confined to bed. His diagnosis bleak, he began a journal of his thoughts and emotions as he faced near-certain death. Struck by ...

Talking with the Other Side

January 2021

I recently listened to a TED talk in which the speaker asked members of the audience, “Raise your hand if you have a loved one, neighbor, or friend who in the last election cast a vote that you can’t possibly comprehend.” Everyone raised their hands. Next he asked, “Raise your hand if you still have a cordial relationship with that person.” Almost everyone again raised a hand. What we do instinctively with those we care about, we are failing to ...

Disturbing the Universe

December 2020

Unlike most people, I do not feel much Dickensian nostalgia at Christmastime. The holiday fell just a few days after my father died early in my childhood, and all my memories of the season are darkened by the shadow of that sadness. For this reason, perhaps, I am rarely stirred by the sight of manger scenes and tinseled trees. Yet, more and more, Christmas has enlarged in meaning for me, primarily as an answer to my doubts, as evidence of the ...

Blog Posts

My Untold Story

A Time to Weep

A Time to Fear

Talking with the Other Side

Disturbing the Universe

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