Blog | Page 6 of 40 | Philip Yancey

The Long View

June 2023

Her own mother, my grandmother, was born in 1898 and lived 102 years. The year she turned 94, an election year, we had an extended conversation about politics. “Who was your favorite president?” I asked. She thought for a moment and declared, “Roosevelt.” “I can understand that,” I replied. “After all, he led us during World War II, and started many important programs, like Social Security…” “Not that Roosevelt!” she interrupted. “I mean Teddy Roosevelt.” She told of taking a ...

A Cry of Grief

May 2023

That first day, I awoke at sunrise in their basement guest quarters. Soft morning light filtered through the trees as cheery birds announced the new day. I opened a book I had brought along for a Zoom book group: In This World of Wonders, by Nicholas Wolterstorff, a renowned Christian philosopher who had taught at Calvin College, Yale University, and the Free University of Amsterdam. After writing many acclaimed works of philosophy, a few years ago Wolterstorff published this personal ...

Sharpening the Faith Angle

April 2023

Ask a New York- or D.C.-based journalist what they know about evangelical Christians and you may well get an answer like, “They’re the ones who voted for Donald Trump.” The typical reporter tends to view society through a political lens and has little exposure to religion. Carl Cannon, Editor of the news website RealClearPolitics, acknowledges the problem. “I was practically born and raised in the news business, and know firsthand that newsrooms are exceedingly secular places,” he says. “But the ...

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Jimmy Carter

March 2023

Generations who read about Carter only in history books may miss the drama of his meteoric rise to the presidency. He grew up in rural Georgia, in a home without indoor plumbing or electricity, and walked three miles to school and back. His family could have been scripted by Hollywood: his mother did a stint with the Peace Corps in India and his sister Ruth had some renown as a faith healer. And then there was Billy, who hung out ...

Dislabeled

February 2023

My memoir, Where the Light Fell, tells the saga of my older brother, in whose shadow I grew up. Marshall was blessed with an off-the-charts IQ and preternatural musical gifts, including absolute pitch and an auditory memory that enabled him to play any music he’d ever heard. Everything changed in 2009 when a stroke cut off blood flow to his brain. One day he was playing golf; two days later he lay in an ICU ward, comatose. Only a rare ...

Blog Posts

The Long View

A Cry of Grief

Sharpening the Faith Angle

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Jimmy Carter

Dislabeled

Connect