Comments on: Faith, Deconstructed or Reconstructed

By: Guy

Guy — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 17:04:45 +0000

In reply to Philip Yancey. Christianity is a cult,a mental illness and a system of mind control that mutilates reality.Practicing Christians commit ritual cannibalism and imagine that the blood magic will make them immortal.No matter how high you’re IQ is if you believe in Bronze Age fairy tales you are fucking retarded.

By: Kristin

Kristin — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 18:50:51 +0000

Just read this after hearing your conversation with Bart on his podcast—I’ve been wrestling with faith and suffering for 13 years, since my 39 year old husband was diagnosed with ALS, and his health has deteriorated. He’s paralyzed and on breathing support. I read your 3 questions book and Disappointment with God book as I struggled to hold onto faith more than a decade ago. I underlined from DWG “If I ever wonder about the appropriate ‘spiritual’ response to pain and suffering. I can note how Jesus responded to his own: with fear and trembling, with loud cries and tears.” In 2017, I wrote in the margin “This is why I can’t quite give up on faith.” But as the disease progressed during the years that followed, and I grew weary, and felt increasingly isolated from community, and didn’t feel the comfort of God in the midst of our suffering, my faith unraveled and now I’m at the point where I just don’t know–and if there is a God, then I guess this is where I’m supposed to be?–because otherwise, why wouldn’t the God who met you and gave you a conversion experience, also meet me in my pain? It seems to be all about experience at a certain point. You got a God-moment. Your brother didn’t. Beth Moore also has a faith memoir where she wrote about an experience of God which kept her in even though she was living with some religious craziness. I enjoyed listening to your memoir and was struck with the thought that your brother’s response to his upbringing seemed more reasonable than yours. Why some people get faith in the first place and why some people feel comfort in suffering/wrestling with theodicy, seems to be quite out of our control, doesn’t it?

By: Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 23:07:36 +0000

In reply to Larry Tyner. Ehrman and I have exchanged a few messages, but we've never met.

By: Larry Tyner

Larry Tyner — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 21:20:34 +0000

Philip, you have been a tremendous blessing to me over the years. I suppose I have read all of your books but “What’s So Amazing About Grace” remains my personal favorite, and one that I have recommended to many friends and acquaintances. This communication with Bart Campolo was an amazing display of grace and manners on the part of you both. (Does anybody remember manners? Seems almost quaint these days). I’m curious as to whether or not you have had any communication with Bart Ehrman. Thanks for your continued help in my walk with Jesus.

By: A

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 23:18:58 +0000

Thank you Phil. There are elements of your story which relate to my own. I look forward to reading more of your works. I remember What’s So Amazing about Grace being very important to me during a suffering season. Thank you for journeying with me during that time.

By: Barb

Barb — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 16:41:16 +0000

This is a question for Bart:

Help me understand why you hold yourself and your dad guilty of having manipulated
people into a Christian conversion, or more generally, into Christian belief.

Blessings

By: Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 03:50:19 +0000

In reply to Ruby Neumann. I love your spirit and believe you're already a bridge builder. Thank you for having an open mind and loving spirit.

By: Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 03:47:53 +0000

In reply to Rob Lilwall. Not yet. But I'll keep it in mind!

By: Rob Lilwall

Rob Lilwall — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 02:24:31 +0000

Thanks so much Philip, I’ve printed this out and tucked it inside “where the light fell” as a little postscript!

Even more than when leaders lose their faith, I’ve always found that when a friend or acquaintance I know personally loses their faith, it really, really shakes me.
Once or twice when I was younger it pushed me to the brink of giving up myself.

I know you have written on the issue of how/why you have kept your own faith in ‘soul survivor’, ‘where the light fell’, but I was wondering if you have written more explicitly about how you handle it when friends you respect lose theirs (I’ve read many of but not quite all of your books!).

Thank you so much.

Rob in Singapore

By: Ruby Neumann

Ruby Neumann — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:09:30 +0000

I discovered the link to this conversation from Bart’s side. I am a supporter of Bart’s podcast “Humanize Me”. He has helped me through the tumultuous journey of deconversion from a religious system, only to find that there are people on both sides of the spiritual fence that want the same thing. Better Love for and in Humanity. I didn’t make it through the 25 reads of PY… but I remember being impacted by “The Jesus I never Knew” and “Grace Notes”. In fact, I was just at my Mom’s this weekend and I snuck “TJINK” off her book shelf for maybe a reread. I want to remember what impacted me about that book. I read it in the heyday of my Pentecostal experience, and now I’m wondering if I can look at it through these agnostic eyes and see something still impacting. Jesus died last year for me and I thought it important to grieve that loss. But as with all other human losses, I still want to keep a memory of what that person meant to me. How do I keep Jesus alive, like I keep my dad alive who has been dead for fifteen years now. That means something so very different now? I don’t want a religious icon. Those days are over. Maybe I want to find something I can keep from a lifetime of embracing the story. I listened to a podcast conversation yesterday and these words stuck out. “God doesn’t get everything in the divorce.” That was recording artist Derek Webb. Somehow that is encouraging to me. Maybe I will even be able to read the bible again… but as a story, not as an inerrant rule book. I used to love the stories.

Bridge building is something I am passionate about, but I don’t know how to do much in my community other than love my people in their space and seek common ground. I am up against a belief system that doesn’t allow its adherents outside of their bubble, because of the fear of losing them to common sense or wisdom of any kind. I just want us to find a beauty in humanity and our diversity in how we navigate this life. The exclusiveness message of Christianity is toxic and needs dying. Love embraces every one. Was that not evident in the life of Jesus? It seems that a lot of Christianity has forgotten it’s leader.

Thank you PY for your conversation with BC. You both have been treasured influences in my journey and I am grateful that you connected.