Blog | Page 23 of 40 | Philip Yancey

Why I Write

June 2016

I just returned from a week at the Frederick Buechner Writer’s Workshop in Princeton, New Jersey. Buechner has always been a model for me, an author who expresses the essentials of faith in beautifully crafted prose, creating new forms as he writes. Spending a week with other presenters and prospective writers got me thinking about why I write. Not long ago I received a letter from Indonesia written in fractured English: “I been reading your book The Jesus I Never ...

The China Syndrome

April 2016

You can hardly pick up a newsmagazine without reading about the resurgence of China. That Asian nation has surpassed the U.S. for the unenviable title of the world’s largest polluter, and will soon become the world’s largest economy. The Chinese government, however, does not broadcast one fact: China also has the largest population of church-going Christians. David Aikman’s book Jesus in Beijing chronicles the story. After more than two decades reporting for Time from more than fifty countries, Aikman resigned ...

The Superhero Prophet

March 2016

A fluke of this year’s calendar has the Jewish Passover and Christian Easter separated by almost a month. Historically, of course, they go together: Jesus celebrated the Passover meal, or Seder, with his disciples just before his arrest and crucifixion. I once attended a Seder meal. Noting an empty chair and extra place setting, I asked, “Are we expecting another guest?” “No. By tradition we set a place for Elijah,” came the reply. “And we leave the door ajar in ...

The Quirky Wisdom of T. S. Eliot

February 2016

Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of T. S. Eliot’s death. The premier poet of his generation, Eliot sent shock waves through the literati of Britain and America by becoming an outspoken Christian. The author of The Waste Land, a work of dark despair, began to accept writing assignments from the Anglican Church. A poet who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature set aside verse to write instead about schemes to improve society. His good friend Virginia Woolf grumbled ...

Born in the U.S.A.

January 2016

A friend of mine, David Graham, recently returned from thirteen years in Ecuador. He had served as general surgeon and medical director of a mission hospital, and I visited him there in 2013. We were on the edge of a jungle and, besides the normal equipment, treatment rooms displayed jars of fearsome snakes and spiders with instructions for the appropriate antivenom. The hospital, in fact, was established at the missionary base from which Jim Elliot and four friends took off ...

Blog Posts

Why I Write

The China Syndrome

The Superhero Prophet

The Quirky Wisdom of T. S. Eliot

Born in the U.S.A.