Philip Yancey's featured book Where The Light Fell: A Memoir is available here: See purchase options!

Blog Posts

The Incredible Shrinking Planet

Where I live in the Rocky Mountains, you can see several thousand stars with the naked eye on a clear night. All of them belong to the Milky Way Galaxy, which contains more than 100 billion stars, including an average-sized one that our planet Earth orbits around—the Sun. Our galaxy has plenty of room: 26 trillion miles separate the Sun from the star nearest to it. And traveling at the speed of light, it would take you 25,000 years to ...

Death Comes for “the Arch”

Tutu’s reputation belied his simple charm. Interviewers remember his impish giggle and his corny jokes. Wearing a standard bishop’s uniform—purplish shirt with a white clerical collar—he usually introduced himself as “the Arch,” short for Archbishop. Words were his power, for he commanded no armies other than the thousands who flocked to hear him speak. Only 5’4″ tall, he would bound up the steps of a stage, like an excited schoolboy, to address a protest rally. Richard Stengel, the former managing ...

The Hopes and Fears

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Christmas. As I sifted through memories of the season while writing my memoir, Where the Light Fell, I better understood why. In my elementary school, Christmas called for a major event in the auditorium, complete with a concert by the school band and chorus. For some reason I volunteered to represent the first grade by singing a solo, rather than playing “Song of the Volga Boatmen” on the piano. I chose “O Little Town ...

Thanksgiving Derailed

The year was 1982, one of my first trips overseas. I got a sore neck, turning this way and that to take in the sights of the five-ring circus that is India. A brightly painted elephant walking unaccompanied down the street among the roaming cows. A snake charmer with his wily mongoose and basketful of cobras. Women in colorful silk saris, no two alike, exotic as tropical birds. A monkey dressed in an embroidered jacket and fez sitting on a ...

What Makes a Church Toxic?

When I discuss my recent memoir, Where the Light Fell, often I use the phrase toxic church to describe the extreme form of Southern fundamentalism I grew up under.  I joke that I’ve been “in recovery,” a process of detoxing, ever since. “Tell me,” asked one podcast interviewer, “What makes a church toxic?”  Three characteristics immediately came to mind. FEAR.  Memories of church from my youth summon up feelings of fear and shame.  It was hard to hear the gospel ...