May 9, 2025 • 35 mins
Philip Yancey opens his heart and shares the painful journey that shaped his spiritual life in this riveting conversation about his memoir "When the Light Fell." With unflinching honesty, he recounts growing up in a fundamentalist community that opposed movies, bowling alleys, roller skating—and openly preached racism from the pulpit during the civil rights era.
The raw vulnerability of Yancey's story emerges as he describes his father's death from polio after being removed from an iron lung against medical advice, based on misguided faith expectations. This tragedy left his mother a struggling widow who placed enormous spiritual pressure on her sons to fulfill her dashed missionary dreams—eventually leading to a 52-year estrangement between her and Philip's brother.
What makes this conversation particularly powerful is Yancey's explanation of how he emerged from these wounds not as a cynical critic of Christianity, but as one of its most thoughtful voices. He shares a supernatural vision that unexpectedly transformed his perspective during his most skeptical period, revealing how grace broke through his intellectual barriers. "I wasn't trying to really meet God at the time," Yancey confesses, "I happened to be in the middle of a Bible college which I was scornful of...and God met me."
The heart of this episode explores how healthy faith communities foster healing while toxic ones create wounds. Yancey draws from his decades of writing about suffering and grace to explain how church communities should function as extensions of "the God of all comfort and the Father of compassion." For those struggling with religious trauma, his journey offers hope that even the harshest religious upbringing need not determine one's spiritual future.
This conversation invites listeners to examine their own understanding of grace—what Yancey describes as the recognition that, "there's nothing I can do to make God love me more...and nothing I can do to make God love me less." His story demonstrates how God often woos us through unexpected channels like natural beauty, music, and love rather than through fear and judgment.
You can learn more from Philip Yancey through his website and books and you can find him on Facebook.
And don't forget to share this episode using hashtag #Evangelical360 and join the conversation online!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Stiller (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
Makers and influencers havingan impact on Christian life
around the world.
We'd love for you to be a partof the podcast by sharing this
(00:33):
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is Philip Yancey, author of some 25 books with
over 15 million copies worldwide.
His recent memoir, titled whenthe Life Fell, shares the
experience of a painfulupbringing, one I'd have thought
(00:56):
would shut anyone out from aninclination to faith, and yet it
didn't.
This raw and honest account ofa troubled childhood is a
powerful testimony of how, ingrowing up, the past need not be
the final definer of our future.
This episode is the first of atwo-part conversation, so be
(01:16):
sure to join us for the nextepisode.
Philip, so wonderful to haveyou today on Evangelical 360.
Philip Yancey (01:30):
That's great, and I brought my Commonwealth mug
as solidarity.
It'll keep me awake.
It's still early morning here.
Brian Stiller (01:37):
Well, Philip, as I was driving in this morning, I
remembered when I first met youI was in the mid-70s, I guess,
at the Youth for Christ officein the US in Wheaton, and I went
downstairs and I saw thisfrizzy-haired kid who was on
Campus Life staff and that'swhere we first met and over
(01:57):
these years we've so appreciatedyour insights, your writing,
and your book when the LightFell is a remarkable account of
your own personal journey thatmany, many will identify with,
and so today, thank you for thisopportunity of engaging with
you on this account, this memoirthat you put together looking
(02:23):
on your life and how faithshaped it.
It's a pretty raw account ofyour life and I cringed as I
read it and wondered how in theworld you were able to survive
that intense fundamentalism ofyour upbringing.
Philip Yancey (02:38):
Well, I waited a long time.
Some of those stories I had nottold, even though I've been
writing for 50 years, and partof the reason was you hurt
people when you write about them, and I had some stories from
the past.
And then finally, I decided thetime has come and I need to
explain, because there are a lotof people, as you know, brian,
(03:00):
who carry wounds from the church.
The church doesn't always do itright, and sometimes I'll run
into people and they'll tell meoh yeah, I used to be in young
life, I used to go to summercamps.
And then they'll tell me astory about how the church
handled their parents when theywent through a divorce or maybe
a homosexual son or daughter,and I experienced a church that
(03:24):
was usually, in almost everycase, much more severe and
wounding than their church.
And I'll explain my story andsay what I learned was you don't
want to forfeit an opportunityto have a relationship with the
God of the universe, the God whocreated this planet, because of
the way some church treatedyour parents 30 years ago.
(03:46):
That's not a good trait, and soGod has blessed me with.
There were dark times in thepast, but then there have been
many bright times and a time ofhealing, and I felt it was
finally time for me to try toput that together.
Brian Stiller (04:00):
As you were beginning the process of writing
when the Light Fell.
What was your expectation thatthis book would produce?
This memoir?
Was it a way for you workingthrough the upbringing of your
life and how that resolvesitself into a fairly mature
faith?
Or was it an explanation toothers who were also
(04:21):
experiencing the sharp edge offundamentalism?
Philip Yancey (04:24):
It started, Brian , because I was reading a lot of
memoirs and they werefascinating.
So some great books likeAngela's.
Ashes tells the story of a youngboy growing up in poverty in
the west coast of Ireland, orthe books by Chaim Potok tells
about growing up Orthodox Jewish.
The books by Chaim Potok tellus about growing up Orthodox
(04:45):
Jewish and I was part of asubculture that was just as
empowering and just asoverwhelming and that was in my
case.
It was Southern fundamentalismand you and I both shared kind
of the broader evangelicalsubculture.
I had a very harsh niche in itand I wanted to capture what
(05:07):
that was like, because peopletoday, when I talk about a
church that opposed all movies,that opposed going to bowling
because it might serve alcohol,that opposed roller skating
because it looked like dancing,you know, they would say what
are you talking?
about.
And yet it was there and welived through it, and not only
(05:28):
were those kind of trivialthings, there were some big
things like racism.
The church I went to was justopenly racist, from the pulpit
they would call.
I lived in Atlanta and our maincitizen, our major citizen, was
Martin Luther King Jr.
Main citizen, our major citizen, was Martin Luther King Jr, and
they would call him MartinLucifer Kuhn derogatory remark.
(05:48):
And so I had to go through aperiod of sorting out what is
worth keeping from that churchbecause there were many good
things and what do I need todiscard and grow through, and
that's really what I wanted todo.
You run into people all thetime these days who talk about
deconstructing their faith, andI guess that's what I was doing.
You run into people all thetime these days who talk about
deconstructing their faith, andI guess that's what I was doing.
(06:09):
Although we didn't use the wordat the time, it was bit by bit,
trying to take apart my faithand ask myself, as I do in my
books, that's what I have beendoing for 50 years what is worth
keeping, what is the essential,what do we need to cling to,
and what are these littlecultural things that we let kind
of accrete onto us, and how canI grow out of that?
Brian Stiller (06:32):
It seems that your mother had enormous
expectations for you, in termsof both how you behaved and what
you believed, as you recall.
How did you sort that out sothat you weren't caught in the
vice of her own demands?
Philip Yancey (06:49):
Oh, family systems.
We all have them, don't we?
And my mother had a raw deal.
She had a rough start.
She married a sailor in WorldWar II.
In fact he was sailing throughthe Panama Canal when the atom
bomb was dropped on Hiroshimaand within days armistice with
(07:10):
Japan and the Pacific wasfinally declared.
And he came back and they weredevout Christians.
They wanted to be missionariesin Africa.
They raised support.
They had several thousandpeople back in the 1950s on
their mailing list.
And then my father came downovernight with polio and was
(07:33):
completely paralyzed.
He spent the next two months inan iron lung at a charity
hospital in Atlanta and it wasthe only hospital really that
had iron lungs.
But they didn't give good care.
You could yell all day and anurse may or may not appear.
He couldn't do anything.
He couldn't read, he couldn'thold a book.
(07:54):
His arms were paralyzed insidethe iron lung.
Somebody had to feed him.
He couldn't even feed himself.
So I mentioned doing that fortwo months just staring at the
ceiling.
And my mother, of course, wasdesperate.
She had two young children Iwas the younger one and people
thought, well, if they're goingto be missionaries in Africa,
(08:15):
surely God wouldn't take them ata time like this?
And so they believed that Godwould heal my father from polio
and, against all medical advice,they removed him from the iron
lung and he lived for about ninedays more and then finally died
.
And I grew up with the result ofthat, the consequences of that
(08:37):
act of faith.
They wanted God to heal him,but what I learned looking back,
Brian, is that not everyone whoclaims to speak for God does so
.
These were people who weren'tagainst him.
They were for him.
They wanted him to be healed.
But they took a prerogative thatwe don't have to decide who's
going to be healed miraculouslyand who is not.
(08:58):
That's really God's domain andGod's decision.
But it left her with a historyof poverty.
She had no real education, afew I think.
She had a year of Bible college, but nothing more than that,
had never written a check,didn't know how to drive a car,
and we started moving aroundfrom place to place because many
(09:21):
times somebody will offer you adeal the first year and then
raise the rent the second yearand then raise the rent the
second year, and she would justbounce from one to the other
until finally we lived in atrailer, a mobile home, a very
small thing, not a pleasantenvironment, and she wanted us
to kind of redeem that loss, theloss of her husband, and
(09:42):
literally to replace him as amissionary in Africa, and she
staked everything on that.
The advantage I had, I guess youwould say, is that I could see
my mother and brother kind ofduking it out because he was
feisty and they would get intoall sorts of arguments and
fights, and I learned not to dothat but just to kind of stay on
(10:02):
the side and watch what wasgoing on Not to do that, but
just to kind of stay on the sideand watch what was going on,
and that stance of being on theside observing others did well
for me later as a writer.
That's what we do we just watchlife going on and write about
it and learn from it, and itbecame a toxic environment.
In fact, at one point duringthe 1960s, when my brother was
(10:23):
rebelling, dropped out of school, started using LSD and there
was a confrontation and she saidsomething like I never want to
see you again as long as I live,and she didn't.
For 52 years after that theynever saw each other.
And they only heard each other'svoice during that last year
(10:44):
when I got them on a three-wayphone call Unhealthy environment
for sure.
And part of it came from herintense devotion.
She believed, like Hannah, inthe Bible.
She believed my son is going tobe a priest, my son is going to
be a missionary.
And she was wrong.
My brother never did.
And she was wrong, my brothernever did.
(11:05):
And she didn't reallyacknowledge what I do, writing
about my faith, as replacingthat.
You know, I would tell her well, I've been to Africa my books
are there right now and manyother countries as well.
But she didn't take that.
She had her own assumptionabout what God's will was for me
and wouldn't butch from that.
That's what it was for me.
It wouldn't budge from that.
Brian Stiller (11:23):
What is there about faith, Philip, that can
lead to such harshfundamentalism?
Philip Yancey (11:33):
I think it's the story of the Pharisees.
When I wrote the book the Jesus, I Never Knew.
I did a lot of research and asI studied the Pharisees I
thought, you know they arealways cast in kind of a
negative light in the Gospels,but actually they were good
people.
They studied the law, they wereupright, they were moral.
You know they didn't fall for alot of the problems that the
(11:57):
church has over the years, butyet Jesus was always angry with
them.
If you look at passages likeMatthew 23 or Luke 11, you'll
never see.
Jesus more angry.
What was he so upset about?
And I think what he was upsetwas that they were grace deniers
.
Jesus told the story of thePharisee and the publican.
(12:19):
And the Pharisee had this greatprayer, saying oh, thank you,
lord, that I'm not like thatpublican over there, the tax
collector.
And then the tax collector hadone little simple prayer God,
help me, be merciful to me, I'ma sinner.
And Jesus said which prayerwill God answer?
And it's pretty clear what theanswer was to that riddle the
person who comes admitting aneed.
(12:41):
I remember the day I spent afull day with Henry Nowlin up in
La Arche in the Toronto areaand he said to me grace is a
free gift, absolutely free.
There's nothing you can do toearn it, but you have to have
your hands out.
And if you hold your hands outyou'll receive that gift.
But so many people, like thePharisees, would have their
(13:03):
hands in a tight grasp like afist and, as a result, grace
falls to the ground.
And that's what we tend to do.
We want to look moral, we wantto earn our way.
We want God to like us.
We want to look moral, we wantto earn our way.
We want God to like us.
We want God to love us more.
And so we come up with theserules that we're more strict
than you are, we're more holythan you are.
And Jesus said you missed thewhole point.
(13:25):
You tied your kitchen spices,you know 10% of the salt and
pepper and cumin and all thatgoes to the church, but you let
these huge issues of racism andinjustice and these things go
unannounced.
The world sees that.
The world's not attracted to it.
We need to demonstrate our careabout the big things, the
things that Jesus cared about.
It's the old story of theprodigal son, brian, the
(13:47):
prodigal son, did everythingwrong, but he's the hero of the
Pharaoh because he came back andadmitted I have messed up my
life.
It's the elder brother whonever let go.
He had his fist closed tightbecause I'm superior to my
brother.
I did right, I didn't squandermy life like that, and so I must
be okay.
(14:07):
This is how I got God to likeme, and you miss the whole
message of grace as soon as yougo down that path and you miss
the whole message of grace assoon as you go down that path.
Brian Stiller (14:16):
But it amazes me that out of that, the strictures
of that fundamentalism, youemerged, not cynical or angry
but very much spirituallytherapeutic to many people's
lives by telling your story andby understanding the scriptures
and people like Paul Brand andthe discovery of leprosy.
(14:37):
How did you emerge to where youare today, given those early
days?
Philip Yancey (14:45):
I wasn't trying to really meet God at the time.
I happened to be in the middleof a Bible college which I was
scornful of.
And I took delight in sitting inthe patio in full view of a
Bible college which I wasscornful of, and I took the
light, and sitting in the patioin full view of people reading
books like why I'm Not aChristian by Bertrand Russell or
the Secular City by Harvey Cox,just to kind of stick it to
(15:06):
them, these happy-facedChristians around me.
And God met me.
I tell the story.
The story I really haven't toldmuch.
It's the story of asupernatural vision that just
changed my life in one night.
And then, gradually, there was along process of healing.
But God brought me first to mywife, the young woman who became
(15:27):
my wife, who she's a socialworker and I joke with her that
I was her first project becauseshe was willing to take me on
and try to restore me to somesemblance of health.
And then I had great days atYouth for Christ.
Right, I think you did too.
It was just a swashbucklingorganization that gave us
(15:47):
probably more freedom than wedeserve, but it was full of
humor and fun and just a healthykind of christianity.
And then I as a journalist, Istarted meeting people and
profiling them and exploringtheir lives and god just brought
me in contact with some of thehealthiest people out there.
(16:10):
And you mentioned dr paul andI've lectured several places in
Canada on tours about him.
I know he's loved by Canadiansand here was a man who was
brilliant as far as any man Iknow.
He was offered the position tobe head of orthopedics at Oxford
(16:30):
University or at StanfordUniversity and he turned them
down to work among the lowestpeople on the entire planet and
those would be people in India,in the lower castes.
In his days they were calleduntouchables, the Dalits now,
who had leprosy kicked out oftheir own village, kicked out of
their home, just living off ina pile of rocks somewhere.
(16:53):
And he discovered things aboutthe leprosy that really remade
them as human beings, restoredtheir dignity.
And here I started off thinkingoh, I think I'll be a reporter.
That way I can write thesearticles about shysters and
crooks and expose them.
And this was the era ofWatergate, when Woodard and
(17:15):
Bernstein were showing us whatinvestigative reporters could do
.
And instead I decided no, Ireally want to be around people
who can teach me how I should be, what kind of person I should
be.
And I had the example of mybrother who was kind of the
prodigal son who still hasn'tcome home yet, who was kind of
the prodigal son who stillhasn't come home yet, and he
(17:39):
would rebel against the churchwe grew up in and try to break
every rule that the church cameup with and succeeded pretty
well, became addicted to justabout anything you can get
addicted to, and I saw theself-destructive path that he
was on.
I didn't want to go there, Iwasn't tempted, and then God
graciously just brought thesepeople into my life.
(17:59):
That showed me what healthyChristianity looks like, and I
often hear from parents andgrandparents who say what can I
do?
I can't believe for my children.
I tried my best, we tried tofind a healthy church, and what?
can I do, and in terms of mybrother.
What I do is just pray, dear God, bring into my brother's life
(18:22):
healthy Christians so that hecan't deny that they care about
him.
He doesn't know why they careabout him, but they do, and of
course we know why.
Because Jesus said, said go outand find people like that and
show them God's care, god's love.
And that's been happening in mybrother's life.
He is surrounded by healthyChristians who he can call at
(18:45):
any hour of the day or nightwhen a problem comes up.
He's disabled and he needs helpfrom the outside.
He hasn't come back to God.
That's his choice.
But what we can do is pray.
Surround my son, my daughter,my grandchild, surround them
with people who truly do showsomething of the healthy side of
the life that you brought.
(19:05):
Jesus said I came to bringabundant life, life to the
fullest Not a half-life, but afull life.
And the people I've grown toknow and admire and have written
about are people who have thatfull life.
Brian Stiller (19:21):
Let me just cycle back to something you said a
moment ago that there was aparticular moment in your life
where you had this visitationfrom God, some kind of
supernatural moment, and I'mwondering what that was and how
critical that was for theemergence of your life out of
your childhood.
Philip Yancey (19:41):
Yes, I told it in detail, and I hadn't done that
before in my writing, becausewhenever you give a personal
testimony, then people will saywell, that never happened to me.
And it's true, I had anunexpected and even unsought and
undesired encounter with God.
(20:02):
That was a kind of vision.
I was on this team where wewere supposed to go to a
university and witness about ourfaith and I was in that cynical
period of my life and I wouldgo and watch basketball games on
the student lounge.
I didn't witness about my faith, I didn't really have faith at
the time, but I was with a groupof people who were fairly
(20:23):
supportive.
They could have turned me in,you know, and got me in trouble
with the deans, but they didn'tdo that.
We had a prayer meeting everyweek and Joe and Chris and Craig
would take turns praying.
They would pause about fiveseconds to see, you know, to
give me a time if I wanted tosay something.
Of course, I never did.
I didn't really believe inprayer and then one day I
started.
(20:43):
I have no idea why.
I just started praying.
I said God, and the tensionrose in the room because I had
not done this before.
And I said God, you know, we'resupposed to care about these
10,000 students going to hell.
And.
I don't really care if they goto hell.
And the tension really rose inthe room and I said I don't care
(21:03):
if I go to hell.
And then I had a vision.
I had a vision.
It was the Good Samaritan storythat Jesus taught.
So here is a person lying inthe ditch who had been beaten up
, you know, accosted, robbed,and then there was a kind Good
Samaritan who's leaning overthat person.
(21:23):
And I'd seen movies about Jesus, you know, we have these images
in our mind.
And then as I stared at thiskind of inner vision, I saw the
face of Jesus in the one bendingdown and I was the person in
the ditch and every time Jesuswould bend down to help me I
(21:44):
would spit in his face and itwas kind of a shocking thing and
I was talking about it aloudand I didn't know what to do
with it.
And then, finally, I said Amen,amen and got up and left the
room.
But I couldn't get that visionout of my mind, and what it
exposed to me was here.
I thought I was superior,intellectually superior to these
(22:04):
, you know, these half-brainedChristians around me.
I was just a snob and thatvision said no.
Actually, philip, you're theneediest one of all and, as I
learned from Henry Dow and yearslater, grace is free.
God's grace is absolutely free.
Powerful can cover everything,anything we've done, but to
(22:26):
receive it you have to have yourhands open.
And for the first time, I sawmyself as a needy beggar, the
one who had hands open, ready toreceive that forgiveness and
God's grace that I desperatelyneeded.
Brian Stiller (22:40):
Philip, you have delved a lot into issues of pain
and suffering and theoverriding grace of the Lord.
But for people who are in themidst of their own suffering,
their own pain today, and lookon to faith as maybe something
of a cultural being, morecultural than personal, how does
(23:02):
the gospel speak into theirlives?
Philip Yancey (23:06):
Yeah, that's a great question and the church is
key there.
I have a friend down at DukeUniversity, harold Koenig is his
name.
He's a physician and he's beendoing these surveys for years
and he finds out that beingattached to a church community
and it doesn't necessarily haveto be a Christian church, even
(23:27):
it could be a strong Muslimcommunity or Hindu or something
else but being attached to thatcommunity truly increases your
speed of recovery from anaccident or from surgery and it
actually lengthens your life andthere's been a lot of research
about that and it's justinescapable.
It helps you live longer.
(23:48):
How does that happen?
Well, we have these amazinghealing properties built into
our body.
You know the doctors will tellyou they're going to make you
well, they don't make you well.
Maybe they can put a bone backtogether so that you know this
part fits that part, but thehealing takes place in the bone
itself.
Your body is the one doing thehealing and we've got some drugs
(24:10):
and things that maybe help thatalong.
But if your body's not healing,you're not going to heal.
And the best way to heal is tobe free of the things that keep
you from healing.
And surveys will show if stressdoes that guilt, fear, anger.
If you're lying there all dayand hospitals kind of give the
(24:34):
environment that encourage thosethings, you're afraid and angry
and things aren't working right.
But if you're in a churchcommunity that will surround you
and say you know what, philip,don't worry about it.
Taking care of your dog, we'lltake care of your dog until
you're back on your feet.
Don't worry about meals.
We've got this system in thechurch here where we can provide
(24:57):
meals for you until you'refeeling better.
We can take you to the doctorand gradually all those things
that I'm afraid of, that arecausing stress, that are keeping
me from healing, the churchtakes those away and that is the
model that we're given in thegospel.
(25:17):
There's this beautiful phrase in2 Corinthians 1, where Paul
says he only uses twodescriptions of God the God of
all comfort and the Father ofcompassion.
I love those, the God of allcomfort and the Father of
compassion, and he says that we,we in the body of Christ that's
(25:37):
the image he uses we are theones who receive the comfort
from God and take that comfortand spread it to other people.
We give it away and that's whatwe in the church should be doing
.
We should be looking around usin society, and especially in
our own community, about peoplewho are hurting, about people
like my mother back when shedidn't know where to turn.
(25:58):
That's what the church shouldbe doing and instead it's easy
to think when things go wrong,well, that's God being against
me.
And I say just follow Jesusaround If you want to know how
God feels about what you'regoing through.
Follow Jesus.
Every time he was confrontedwith a person who needed healing
(26:19):
, he responded with love andcare and healing.
And this business of God upthere kind of sticking pins in
us.
I don't see that in the NewTestament at all.
God is the father of compassion, the God of all comfort, and we
receive that comfort from himand then give it away to others
in the body and outside the bodyas well.
Brian Stiller (26:40):
Philip, as I've read most of your books and as I
read when the Light Fell, itseems to me that one of your
books what's so Amazing AboutGrace is a particular kind of
insight that seems to flow outof your own life.
That grace, applied into yourown life, had marvelous therapy
(27:04):
and healing for your own life.
Take a moment to unwrap thisnotion of grace, how that
affected your life and broughtwholeness to your own growing up
.
Philip Yancey (27:15):
The original title for that book, Brian, was
longer.
It was what's so Amazing AboutGrace and why Don't Christians
Show More of it?
And my publisher said you know,a lot of books are given away
as gifts and if somebodyreceived that gift they might
feel that's a targeted message.
I said, well, that's all right.
(27:37):
And then they said well, yeah,but you can't get that many
words on the spine of a book,Philip.
I said okay, okay, we'llshorten it.
And it became what somebodysaid about grace.
But my concern was thatChristians were not primarily
known as people of grace.
They were known as people ofjudgment and disapproving of you
(27:58):
.
And I start the book with thiswrenching story of this
prostitute who was in desperateneed.
She was telling me this storyand I said well, did you ever
think about going to church forhelp?
And her shocked response waschurch.
Why would I ever go by there?
I was already feeling terribleabout myself.
They would just make me feelworse, and that, unfortunately,
(28:21):
is the image that a lot ofpeople have of church.
It's a place that makes youfeel bad.
You're not measuring up.
And the story of grace is thatfoundationally.
And the story of grace is that,foundationally, the reason
there is a planet, the reasonthere are human beings, is
because God is a God of love andGod created us as objects of
(28:42):
God's love, and that's one thatI had missed.
So at one point I wrote in thebook I can't really come up with
a definition of grace that'seasy to absorb, but there's
something about it in thesestatements that there's nothing
that I can do to make God loveme more.
No amount of I'm holier thanthou or I'm stricter than that
(29:05):
church down the road thatdoesn't make God love you more.
God already loves you as muchas an infant of God can do.
God already loves you as muchas an infant of God can do, and
there's nothing that I can do tomake God love me less.
God already loves me and nomatter what I do and the Bible
is full of these examples peoplelike Moses and David, who
committed murder, and David alsoadultery, or, in the New
(29:28):
Testament, peter and well, ofcourse, judas betrayed, but
Peter and betrayed Jesus as well, and Paul used to torture
Christians.
They did these terrible things,but God's grace can come.
There's nothing that you coulddo to make God love you less.
God already loves you andthat's not a truth that most
(29:49):
people walk around being awareof that.
I'm here because God loves meand anytime I'm ready to turn to
God, god is there, willing toreceive me.
That's the story of theprodigal son and it's all the
way through the Bible.
Brian Stiller (30:06):
Philip in your memoir when the Light Fell.
That's a metaphor.
How did that come to you andhow can people find light
falling in their own lives today, especially people who are
caught in depression orsuffering or fear?
How can they discover the lightfalling in their own life?
Philip Yancey (30:26):
Yes, it varies person by person.
Now, in my case, I grew up in acompletely religious society.
That was just oppressively.
We would go to church probablyfive different times a week.
It was one of those you nevercan get away from God kind of
environments and it wasn'tworking for me.
(30:47):
I was looking at the hypocrisybetween what was being said and
taught and the way people lived,and I didn't want to be like
those people.
I didn't know what I wanted tobe like.
Looking at the hypocrisy betweenwhat was being said and taught
and the way people lived, and Ididn't want to be like those
people.
I didn't know what I wanted tobe like and in my case, when
they looked at me as kind of arebellious person, they said
God's going to break you one day.
God's going to crush you, God'sgoing to make you regret the
(31:09):
kind of attitude that you'reshowing now.
And I kind of expected that.
Actually I believed in that Godof judgment, that harsh
policeman, God in the sky, andthat's not how God approached me
.
God wooed me and I say therewere three things that really
brought me back to faith andthey were the beauties of nature
(31:34):
when I was lonely, when I wasneedy, I would take a walk in
the woods and I write about howthat affected me and the
beauties of music classicalmusic.
My brother was a great musician.
I had a little practice in thepiano and violin.
And then romantic love, thosethree things.
And as I experienced thosethings, coming out of a harsh
background, I realized thatactually the world's a pretty
(31:57):
nice place.
Those are great things.
And I came across a statementthat GK Chesterton used to quote
.
He said the worst moment for anatheist is when he has a
profound sense of gratitude andhas no one to thank.
And that's how I felt I wasexperiencing these good things.
The light fell on those thingsnature and music and romantic
(32:20):
love and I realized that thatimage of God as a policeman in
the sky just waiting to crushpeople, that was a lie, that was
not the message.
And God tenderly brought me tohimself, first by showing me not
.
I didn't need scripture lessons,I didn't need gospel tracks.
I was up to hear with them.
(32:41):
There's no way they could reachme.
But God used other ways and Idon't know what it would be for
a lot of people.
You know there are a lot ofgrandchildren, excuse me.
There are a lot of grandparentswho look at their grandchildren
.
I say, well, they have no faithand that concerns me.
And then they watch as they getolder.
And just the birth of a baby formany people, the birth of a
(33:04):
baby, this astonishing act wherea new human being comes out of
another human being.
That's something that justarrests their attention.
Or when you try to impart somevalues to a young person.
Once again, where do the valuescome from?
How do you decide?
And I would just say for aperson who wants to just start
(33:28):
trying to figure things out,start with Jesus.
Just read the Gospels, a simpleGospel like Mark, or a profound
Gospel, like John.
Just read them and just see.
This is what God sent to us, togive us an idea of what we
should be like as human beingsand what God is like.
(33:50):
And if that doesn't correctyour image, nothing will,
because that was God's gift tous to come and show us in person
what we should be like and whatGod is like.
Brian Stiller (34:03):
Philip, it's been wonderful having you here today
.
Thanks again for joining us onEvangelical 360.
Philip Yancey (34:08):
Well, I'm glad to hear you're doing a podcast
like this that reaches aroundthe world, Brian, and it's great
to reconnect after all theseyears.
Brian Stiller (34:16):
Thank you, Philip , for joining us today and for
sharing your personal journeyand the power of working out
one's beliefs, and thank you forbeing part of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
(34:39):
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free ebookand newsletter, please go to
brianstillercom.
Thanks again, until next time.
Thanks again, until next time.
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
Makers and influencers havingan impact on Christian life
around the world.
We'd love for you to be a partof the podcast by sharing this
(00:33):
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is Philip Yancey, author of some 25 books with
over 15 million copies worldwide.
His recent memoir, titled whenthe Life Fell, shares the
experience of a painfulupbringing, one I'd have thought
(00:56):
would shut anyone out from aninclination to faith, and yet it
didn't.
This raw and honest account ofa troubled childhood is a
powerful testimony of how, ingrowing up, the past need not be
the final definer of our future.
This episode is the first of atwo-part conversation, so be
(01:16):
sure to join us for the nextepisode.
Philip, so wonderful to haveyou today on Evangelical 360.
Philip Yancey (01:30):
That's great, and I brought my Commonwealth mug
as solidarity.
It'll keep me awake.
It's still early morning here.
Brian Stiller (01:37):
Well, Philip, as I was driving in this morning, I
remembered when I first met youI was in the mid-70s, I guess,
at the Youth for Christ officein the US in Wheaton, and I went
downstairs and I saw thisfrizzy-haired kid who was on
Campus Life staff and that'swhere we first met and over
(01:57):
these years we've so appreciatedyour insights, your writing,
and your book when the LightFell is a remarkable account of
your own personal journey thatmany, many will identify with,
and so today, thank you for thisopportunity of engaging with
you on this account, this memoirthat you put together looking
(02:23):
on your life and how faithshaped it.
It's a pretty raw account ofyour life and I cringed as I
read it and wondered how in theworld you were able to survive
that intense fundamentalism ofyour upbringing.
Philip Yancey (02:38):
Well, I waited a long time.
Some of those stories I had nottold, even though I've been
writing for 50 years, and partof the reason was you hurt
people when you write about them, and I had some stories from
the past.
And then finally, I decided thetime has come and I need to
explain, because there are a lotof people, as you know, brian,
(03:00):
who carry wounds from the church.
The church doesn't always do itright, and sometimes I'll run
into people and they'll tell meoh yeah, I used to be in young
life, I used to go to summercamps.
And then they'll tell me astory about how the church
handled their parents when theywent through a divorce or maybe
a homosexual son or daughter,and I experienced a church that
(03:24):
was usually, in almost everycase, much more severe and
wounding than their church.
And I'll explain my story andsay what I learned was you don't
want to forfeit an opportunityto have a relationship with the
God of the universe, the God whocreated this planet, because of
the way some church treatedyour parents 30 years ago.
(03:46):
That's not a good trait, and soGod has blessed me with.
There were dark times in thepast, but then there have been
many bright times and a time ofhealing, and I felt it was
finally time for me to try toput that together.
Brian Stiller (04:00):
As you were beginning the process of writing
when the Light Fell.
What was your expectation thatthis book would produce?
This memoir?
Was it a way for you workingthrough the upbringing of your
life and how that resolvesitself into a fairly mature
faith?
Or was it an explanation toothers who were also
(04:21):
experiencing the sharp edge offundamentalism?
Philip Yancey (04:24):
It started, Brian , because I was reading a lot of
memoirs and they werefascinating.
So some great books likeAngela's.
Ashes tells the story of a youngboy growing up in poverty in
the west coast of Ireland, orthe books by Chaim Potok tells
about growing up Orthodox Jewish.
The books by Chaim Potok tellus about growing up Orthodox
(04:45):
Jewish and I was part of asubculture that was just as
empowering and just asoverwhelming and that was in my
case.
It was Southern fundamentalismand you and I both shared kind
of the broader evangelicalsubculture.
I had a very harsh niche in itand I wanted to capture what
(05:07):
that was like, because peopletoday, when I talk about a
church that opposed all movies,that opposed going to bowling
because it might serve alcohol,that opposed roller skating
because it looked like dancing,you know, they would say what
are you talking?
about.
And yet it was there and welived through it, and not only
(05:28):
were those kind of trivialthings, there were some big
things like racism.
The church I went to was justopenly racist, from the pulpit
they would call.
I lived in Atlanta and our maincitizen, our major citizen, was
Martin Luther King Jr.
Main citizen, our major citizen, was Martin Luther King Jr, and
they would call him MartinLucifer Kuhn derogatory remark.
(05:48):
And so I had to go through aperiod of sorting out what is
worth keeping from that churchbecause there were many good
things and what do I need todiscard and grow through, and
that's really what I wanted todo.
You run into people all thetime these days who talk about
deconstructing their faith, andI guess that's what I was doing.
You run into people all thetime these days who talk about
deconstructing their faith, andI guess that's what I was doing.
(06:09):
Although we didn't use the wordat the time, it was bit by bit,
trying to take apart my faithand ask myself, as I do in my
books, that's what I have beendoing for 50 years what is worth
keeping, what is the essential,what do we need to cling to,
and what are these littlecultural things that we let kind
of accrete onto us, and how canI grow out of that?
Brian Stiller (06:32):
It seems that your mother had enormous
expectations for you, in termsof both how you behaved and what
you believed, as you recall.
How did you sort that out sothat you weren't caught in the
vice of her own demands?
Philip Yancey (06:49):
Oh, family systems.
We all have them, don't we?
And my mother had a raw deal.
She had a rough start.
She married a sailor in WorldWar II.
In fact he was sailing throughthe Panama Canal when the atom
bomb was dropped on Hiroshimaand within days armistice with
(07:10):
Japan and the Pacific wasfinally declared.
And he came back and they weredevout Christians.
They wanted to be missionariesin Africa.
They raised support.
They had several thousandpeople back in the 1950s on
their mailing list.
And then my father came downovernight with polio and was
(07:33):
completely paralyzed.
He spent the next two months inan iron lung at a charity
hospital in Atlanta and it wasthe only hospital really that
had iron lungs.
But they didn't give good care.
You could yell all day and anurse may or may not appear.
He couldn't do anything.
He couldn't read, he couldn'thold a book.
(07:54):
His arms were paralyzed insidethe iron lung.
Somebody had to feed him.
He couldn't even feed himself.
So I mentioned doing that fortwo months just staring at the
ceiling.
And my mother, of course, wasdesperate.
She had two young children Iwas the younger one and people
thought, well, if they're goingto be missionaries in Africa,
(08:15):
surely God wouldn't take them ata time like this?
And so they believed that Godwould heal my father from polio
and, against all medical advice,they removed him from the iron
lung and he lived for about ninedays more and then finally died
.
And I grew up with the result ofthat, the consequences of that
(08:37):
act of faith.
They wanted God to heal him,but what I learned looking back,
Brian, is that not everyone whoclaims to speak for God does so
.
These were people who weren'tagainst him.
They were for him.
They wanted him to be healed.
But they took a prerogative thatwe don't have to decide who's
going to be healed miraculouslyand who is not.
(08:58):
That's really God's domain andGod's decision.
But it left her with a historyof poverty.
She had no real education, afew I think.
She had a year of Bible college, but nothing more than that,
had never written a check,didn't know how to drive a car,
and we started moving aroundfrom place to place because many
(09:21):
times somebody will offer you adeal the first year and then
raise the rent the second yearand then raise the rent the
second year, and she would justbounce from one to the other
until finally we lived in atrailer, a mobile home, a very
small thing, not a pleasantenvironment, and she wanted us
to kind of redeem that loss, theloss of her husband, and
(09:42):
literally to replace him as amissionary in Africa, and she
staked everything on that.
The advantage I had, I guess youwould say, is that I could see
my mother and brother kind ofduking it out because he was
feisty and they would get intoall sorts of arguments and
fights, and I learned not to dothat but just to kind of stay on
(10:02):
the side and watch what wasgoing on Not to do that, but
just to kind of stay on the sideand watch what was going on,
and that stance of being on theside observing others did well
for me later as a writer.
That's what we do we just watchlife going on and write about
it and learn from it, and itbecame a toxic environment.
In fact, at one point duringthe 1960s, when my brother was
(10:23):
rebelling, dropped out of school, started using LSD and there
was a confrontation and she saidsomething like I never want to
see you again as long as I live,and she didn't.
For 52 years after that theynever saw each other.
And they only heard each other'svoice during that last year
(10:44):
when I got them on a three-wayphone call Unhealthy environment
for sure.
And part of it came from herintense devotion.
She believed, like Hannah, inthe Bible.
She believed my son is going tobe a priest, my son is going to
be a missionary.
And she was wrong.
My brother never did.
And she was wrong, my brothernever did.
(11:05):
And she didn't reallyacknowledge what I do, writing
about my faith, as replacingthat.
You know, I would tell her well, I've been to Africa my books
are there right now and manyother countries as well.
But she didn't take that.
She had her own assumptionabout what God's will was for me
and wouldn't butch from that.
That's what it was for me.
It wouldn't budge from that.
Brian Stiller (11:23):
What is there about faith, Philip, that can
lead to such harshfundamentalism?
Philip Yancey (11:33):
I think it's the story of the Pharisees.
When I wrote the book the Jesus, I Never Knew.
I did a lot of research and asI studied the Pharisees I
thought, you know they arealways cast in kind of a
negative light in the Gospels,but actually they were good
people.
They studied the law, they wereupright, they were moral.
You know they didn't fall for alot of the problems that the
(11:57):
church has over the years, butyet Jesus was always angry with
them.
If you look at passages likeMatthew 23 or Luke 11, you'll
never see.
Jesus more angry.
What was he so upset about?
And I think what he was upsetwas that they were grace deniers
.
Jesus told the story of thePharisee and the publican.
(12:19):
And the Pharisee had this greatprayer, saying oh, thank you,
lord, that I'm not like thatpublican over there, the tax
collector.
And then the tax collector hadone little simple prayer God,
help me, be merciful to me, I'ma sinner.
And Jesus said which prayerwill God answer?
And it's pretty clear what theanswer was to that riddle the
person who comes admitting aneed.
(12:41):
I remember the day I spent afull day with Henry Nowlin up in
La Arche in the Toronto areaand he said to me grace is a
free gift, absolutely free.
There's nothing you can do toearn it, but you have to have
your hands out.
And if you hold your hands outyou'll receive that gift.
But so many people, like thePharisees, would have their
(13:03):
hands in a tight grasp like afist and, as a result, grace
falls to the ground.
And that's what we tend to do.
We want to look moral, we wantto earn our way.
We want God to like us.
We want to look moral, we wantto earn our way.
We want God to like us.
We want God to love us more.
And so we come up with theserules that we're more strict
than you are, we're more holythan you are.
And Jesus said you missed thewhole point.
(13:25):
You tied your kitchen spices,you know 10% of the salt and
pepper and cumin and all thatgoes to the church, but you let
these huge issues of racism andinjustice and these things go
unannounced.
The world sees that.
The world's not attracted to it.
We need to demonstrate our careabout the big things, the
things that Jesus cared about.
It's the old story of theprodigal son, brian, the
(13:47):
prodigal son, did everythingwrong, but he's the hero of the
Pharaoh because he came back andadmitted I have messed up my
life.
It's the elder brother whonever let go.
He had his fist closed tightbecause I'm superior to my
brother.
I did right, I didn't squandermy life like that, and so I must
be okay.
(14:07):
This is how I got God to likeme, and you miss the whole
message of grace as soon as yougo down that path and you miss
the whole message of grace assoon as you go down that path.
Brian Stiller (14:16):
But it amazes me that out of that, the strictures
of that fundamentalism, youemerged, not cynical or angry
but very much spirituallytherapeutic to many people's
lives by telling your story andby understanding the scriptures
and people like Paul Brand andthe discovery of leprosy.
(14:37):
How did you emerge to where youare today, given those early
days?
Philip Yancey (14:45):
I wasn't trying to really meet God at the time.
I happened to be in the middleof a Bible college which I was
scornful of.
And I took delight in sitting inthe patio in full view of a
Bible college which I wasscornful of, and I took the
light, and sitting in the patioin full view of people reading
books like why I'm Not aChristian by Bertrand Russell or
the Secular City by Harvey Cox,just to kind of stick it to
(15:06):
them, these happy-facedChristians around me.
And God met me.
I tell the story.
The story I really haven't toldmuch.
It's the story of asupernatural vision that just
changed my life in one night.
And then, gradually, there was along process of healing.
But God brought me first to mywife, the young woman who became
(15:27):
my wife, who she's a socialworker and I joke with her that
I was her first project becauseshe was willing to take me on
and try to restore me to somesemblance of health.
And then I had great days atYouth for Christ.
Right, I think you did too.
It was just a swashbucklingorganization that gave us
(15:47):
probably more freedom than wedeserve, but it was full of
humor and fun and just a healthykind of christianity.
And then I as a journalist, Istarted meeting people and
profiling them and exploringtheir lives and god just brought
me in contact with some of thehealthiest people out there.
(16:10):
And you mentioned dr paul andI've lectured several places in
Canada on tours about him.
I know he's loved by Canadiansand here was a man who was
brilliant as far as any man Iknow.
He was offered the position tobe head of orthopedics at Oxford
(16:30):
University or at StanfordUniversity and he turned them
down to work among the lowestpeople on the entire planet and
those would be people in India,in the lower castes.
In his days they were calleduntouchables, the Dalits now,
who had leprosy kicked out oftheir own village, kicked out of
their home, just living off ina pile of rocks somewhere.
(16:53):
And he discovered things aboutthe leprosy that really remade
them as human beings, restoredtheir dignity.
And here I started off thinkingoh, I think I'll be a reporter.
That way I can write thesearticles about shysters and
crooks and expose them.
And this was the era ofWatergate, when Woodard and
(17:15):
Bernstein were showing us whatinvestigative reporters could do
.
And instead I decided no, Ireally want to be around people
who can teach me how I should be, what kind of person I should
be.
And I had the example of mybrother who was kind of the
prodigal son who still hasn'tcome home yet, who was kind of
the prodigal son who stillhasn't come home yet, and he
(17:39):
would rebel against the churchwe grew up in and try to break
every rule that the church cameup with and succeeded pretty
well, became addicted to justabout anything you can get
addicted to, and I saw theself-destructive path that he
was on.
I didn't want to go there, Iwasn't tempted, and then God
graciously just brought thesepeople into my life.
(17:59):
That showed me what healthyChristianity looks like, and I
often hear from parents andgrandparents who say what can I
do?
I can't believe for my children.
I tried my best, we tried tofind a healthy church, and what?
can I do, and in terms of mybrother.
What I do is just pray, dear God, bring into my brother's life
(18:22):
healthy Christians so that hecan't deny that they care about
him.
He doesn't know why they careabout him, but they do, and of
course we know why.
Because Jesus said, said go outand find people like that and
show them God's care, god's love.
And that's been happening in mybrother's life.
He is surrounded by healthyChristians who he can call at
(18:45):
any hour of the day or nightwhen a problem comes up.
He's disabled and he needs helpfrom the outside.
He hasn't come back to God.
That's his choice.
But what we can do is pray.
Surround my son, my daughter,my grandchild, surround them
with people who truly do showsomething of the healthy side of
the life that you brought.
(19:05):
Jesus said I came to bringabundant life, life to the
fullest Not a half-life, but afull life.
And the people I've grown toknow and admire and have written
about are people who have thatfull life.
Brian Stiller (19:21):
Let me just cycle back to something you said a
moment ago that there was aparticular moment in your life
where you had this visitationfrom God, some kind of
supernatural moment, and I'mwondering what that was and how
critical that was for theemergence of your life out of
your childhood.
Philip Yancey (19:41):
Yes, I told it in detail, and I hadn't done that
before in my writing, becausewhenever you give a personal
testimony, then people will saywell, that never happened to me.
And it's true, I had anunexpected and even unsought and
undesired encounter with God.
(20:02):
That was a kind of vision.
I was on this team where wewere supposed to go to a
university and witness about ourfaith and I was in that cynical
period of my life and I wouldgo and watch basketball games on
the student lounge.
I didn't witness about my faith, I didn't really have faith at
the time, but I was with a groupof people who were fairly
(20:23):
supportive.
They could have turned me in,you know, and got me in trouble
with the deans, but they didn'tdo that.
We had a prayer meeting everyweek and Joe and Chris and Craig
would take turns praying.
They would pause about fiveseconds to see, you know, to
give me a time if I wanted tosay something.
Of course, I never did.
I didn't really believe inprayer and then one day I
started.
(20:43):
I have no idea why.
I just started praying.
I said God, and the tensionrose in the room because I had
not done this before.
And I said God, you know, we'resupposed to care about these
10,000 students going to hell.
And.
I don't really care if they goto hell.
And the tension really rose inthe room and I said I don't care
(21:03):
if I go to hell.
And then I had a vision.
I had a vision.
It was the Good Samaritan storythat Jesus taught.
So here is a person lying inthe ditch who had been beaten up
, you know, accosted, robbed,and then there was a kind Good
Samaritan who's leaning overthat person.
(21:23):
And I'd seen movies about Jesus, you know, we have these images
in our mind.
And then as I stared at thiskind of inner vision, I saw the
face of Jesus in the one bendingdown and I was the person in
the ditch and every time Jesuswould bend down to help me I
(21:44):
would spit in his face and itwas kind of a shocking thing and
I was talking about it aloudand I didn't know what to do
with it.
And then, finally, I said Amen,amen and got up and left the
room.
But I couldn't get that visionout of my mind, and what it
exposed to me was here.
I thought I was superior,intellectually superior to these
(22:04):
, you know, these half-brainedChristians around me.
I was just a snob and thatvision said no.
Actually, philip, you're theneediest one of all and, as I
learned from Henry Dow and yearslater, grace is free.
God's grace is absolutely free.
Powerful can cover everything,anything we've done, but to
(22:26):
receive it you have to have yourhands open.
And for the first time, I sawmyself as a needy beggar, the
one who had hands open, ready toreceive that forgiveness and
God's grace that I desperatelyneeded.
Brian Stiller (22:40):
Philip, you have delved a lot into issues of pain
and suffering and theoverriding grace of the Lord.
But for people who are in themidst of their own suffering,
their own pain today, and lookon to faith as maybe something
of a cultural being, morecultural than personal, how does
(23:02):
the gospel speak into theirlives?
Philip Yancey (23:06):
Yeah, that's a great question and the church is
key there.
I have a friend down at DukeUniversity, harold Koenig is his
name.
He's a physician and he's beendoing these surveys for years
and he finds out that beingattached to a church community
and it doesn't necessarily haveto be a Christian church, even
(23:27):
it could be a strong Muslimcommunity or Hindu or something
else but being attached to thatcommunity truly increases your
speed of recovery from anaccident or from surgery and it
actually lengthens your life andthere's been a lot of research
about that and it's justinescapable.
It helps you live longer.
(23:48):
How does that happen?
Well, we have these amazinghealing properties built into
our body.
You know the doctors will tellyou they're going to make you
well, they don't make you well.
Maybe they can put a bone backtogether so that you know this
part fits that part, but thehealing takes place in the bone
itself.
Your body is the one doing thehealing and we've got some drugs
(24:10):
and things that maybe help thatalong.
But if your body's not healing,you're not going to heal.
And the best way to heal is tobe free of the things that keep
you from healing.
And surveys will show if stressdoes that guilt, fear, anger.
If you're lying there all dayand hospitals kind of give the
(24:34):
environment that encourage thosethings, you're afraid and angry
and things aren't working right.
But if you're in a churchcommunity that will surround you
and say you know what, philip,don't worry about it.
Taking care of your dog, we'lltake care of your dog until
you're back on your feet.
Don't worry about meals.
We've got this system in thechurch here where we can provide
(24:57):
meals for you until you'refeeling better.
We can take you to the doctorand gradually all those things
that I'm afraid of, that arecausing stress, that are keeping
me from healing, the churchtakes those away and that is the
model that we're given in thegospel.
(25:17):
There's this beautiful phrase in2 Corinthians 1, where Paul
says he only uses twodescriptions of God the God of
all comfort and the Father ofcompassion.
I love those, the God of allcomfort and the Father of
compassion, and he says that we,we in the body of Christ that's
(25:37):
the image he uses we are theones who receive the comfort
from God and take that comfortand spread it to other people.
We give it away and that's whatwe in the church should be doing
.
We should be looking around usin society, and especially in
our own community, about peoplewho are hurting, about people
like my mother back when shedidn't know where to turn.
(25:58):
That's what the church shouldbe doing and instead it's easy
to think when things go wrong,well, that's God being against
me.
And I say just follow Jesusaround If you want to know how
God feels about what you'regoing through.
Follow Jesus.
Every time he was confrontedwith a person who needed healing
(26:19):
, he responded with love andcare and healing.
And this business of God upthere kind of sticking pins in
us.
I don't see that in the NewTestament at all.
God is the father of compassion, the God of all comfort, and we
receive that comfort from himand then give it away to others
in the body and outside the bodyas well.
Brian Stiller (26:40):
Philip, as I've read most of your books and as I
read when the Light Fell, itseems to me that one of your
books what's so Amazing AboutGrace is a particular kind of
insight that seems to flow outof your own life.
That grace, applied into yourown life, had marvelous therapy
(27:04):
and healing for your own life.
Take a moment to unwrap thisnotion of grace, how that
affected your life and broughtwholeness to your own growing up
.
Philip Yancey (27:15):
The original title for that book, Brian, was
longer.
It was what's so Amazing AboutGrace and why Don't Christians
Show More of it?
And my publisher said you know,a lot of books are given away
as gifts and if somebodyreceived that gift they might
feel that's a targeted message.
I said, well, that's all right.
(27:37):
And then they said well, yeah,but you can't get that many
words on the spine of a book,Philip.
I said okay, okay, we'llshorten it.
And it became what somebodysaid about grace.
But my concern was thatChristians were not primarily
known as people of grace.
They were known as people ofjudgment and disapproving of you
(27:58):
.
And I start the book with thiswrenching story of this
prostitute who was in desperateneed.
She was telling me this storyand I said well, did you ever
think about going to church forhelp?
And her shocked response waschurch.
Why would I ever go by there?
I was already feeling terribleabout myself.
They would just make me feelworse, and that, unfortunately,
(28:21):
is the image that a lot ofpeople have of church.
It's a place that makes youfeel bad.
You're not measuring up.
And the story of grace is thatfoundationally.
And the story of grace is that,foundationally, the reason
there is a planet, the reasonthere are human beings, is
because God is a God of love andGod created us as objects of
(28:42):
God's love, and that's one thatI had missed.
So at one point I wrote in thebook I can't really come up with
a definition of grace that'seasy to absorb, but there's
something about it in thesestatements that there's nothing
that I can do to make God loveme more.
No amount of I'm holier thanthou or I'm stricter than that
(29:05):
church down the road thatdoesn't make God love you more.
God already loves you as muchas an infant of God can do.
God already loves you as muchas an infant of God can do, and
there's nothing that I can do tomake God love me less.
God already loves me and nomatter what I do and the Bible
is full of these examples peoplelike Moses and David, who
committed murder, and David alsoadultery, or, in the New
(29:28):
Testament, peter and well, ofcourse, judas betrayed, but
Peter and betrayed Jesus as well, and Paul used to torture
Christians.
They did these terrible things,but God's grace can come.
There's nothing that you coulddo to make God love you less.
God already loves you andthat's not a truth that most
(29:49):
people walk around being awareof that.
I'm here because God loves meand anytime I'm ready to turn to
God, god is there, willing toreceive me.
That's the story of theprodigal son and it's all the
way through the Bible.
Brian Stiller (30:06):
Philip in your memoir when the Light Fell.
That's a metaphor.
How did that come to you andhow can people find light
falling in their own lives today, especially people who are
caught in depression orsuffering or fear?
How can they discover the lightfalling in their own life?
Philip Yancey (30:26):
Yes, it varies person by person.
Now, in my case, I grew up in acompletely religious society.
That was just oppressively.
We would go to church probablyfive different times a week.
It was one of those you nevercan get away from God kind of
environments and it wasn'tworking for me.
(30:47):
I was looking at the hypocrisybetween what was being said and
taught and the way people lived,and I didn't want to be like
those people.
I didn't know what I wanted tobe like.
Looking at the hypocrisy betweenwhat was being said and taught
and the way people lived, and Ididn't want to be like those
people.
I didn't know what I wanted tobe like and in my case, when
they looked at me as kind of arebellious person, they said
God's going to break you one day.
God's going to crush you, God'sgoing to make you regret the
(31:09):
kind of attitude that you'reshowing now.
And I kind of expected that.
Actually I believed in that Godof judgment, that harsh
policeman, God in the sky, andthat's not how God approached me
.
God wooed me and I say therewere three things that really
brought me back to faith andthey were the beauties of nature
(31:34):
when I was lonely, when I wasneedy, I would take a walk in
the woods and I write about howthat affected me and the
beauties of music classicalmusic.
My brother was a great musician.
I had a little practice in thepiano and violin.
And then romantic love, thosethree things.
And as I experienced thosethings, coming out of a harsh
background, I realized thatactually the world's a pretty
(31:57):
nice place.
Those are great things.
And I came across a statementthat GK Chesterton used to quote
.
He said the worst moment for anatheist is when he has a
profound sense of gratitude andhas no one to thank.
And that's how I felt I wasexperiencing these good things.
The light fell on those thingsnature and music and romantic
(32:20):
love and I realized that thatimage of God as a policeman in
the sky just waiting to crushpeople, that was a lie, that was
not the message.
And God tenderly brought me tohimself, first by showing me not
.
I didn't need scripture lessons,I didn't need gospel tracks.
I was up to hear with them.
(32:41):
There's no way they could reachme.
But God used other ways and Idon't know what it would be for
a lot of people.
You know there are a lot ofgrandchildren, excuse me.
There are a lot of grandparentswho look at their grandchildren
.
I say, well, they have no faithand that concerns me.
And then they watch as they getolder.
And just the birth of a baby formany people, the birth of a
(33:04):
baby, this astonishing act wherea new human being comes out of
another human being.
That's something that justarrests their attention.
Or when you try to impart somevalues to a young person.
Once again, where do the valuescome from?
How do you decide?
And I would just say for aperson who wants to just start
(33:28):
trying to figure things out,start with Jesus.
Just read the Gospels, a simpleGospel like Mark, or a profound
Gospel, like John.
Just read them and just see.
This is what God sent to us, togive us an idea of what we
should be like as human beingsand what God is like.
(33:50):
And if that doesn't correctyour image, nothing will,
because that was God's gift tous to come and show us in person
what we should be like and whatGod is like.
Brian Stiller (34:03):
Philip, it's been wonderful having you here today
.
Thanks again for joining us onEvangelical 360.
Philip Yancey (34:08):
Well, I'm glad to hear you're doing a podcast
like this that reaches aroundthe world, Brian, and it's great
to reconnect after all theseyears.
Brian Stiller (34:16):
Thank you, Philip , for joining us today and for
sharing your personal journeyand the power of working out
one's beliefs, and thank you forbeing part of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
(34:39):
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free ebookand newsletter, please go to
brianstillercom.
Thanks again, until next time.
Thanks again, until next time.
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