Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey’s writing career began in 1971, when he worked as an editor for a young adult magazine. Over those next years he learned valuable journalistic skills—after all, there's no tougher audience than teenagers. As he gradually spent more time in management, however, he wrote fewer and fewer words, and so in 1980 he took the plunge into fulltime freelancing. He moved with his wife to downtown Chicago, where she served as a social worker, giving Yancey plenty of material to write about. They lived there until 1992, when they moved to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Yancey has written over 30 books, most of them still in print. He has probed some of the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, always from the perspective of an inquiring journalist, not an expert. Two of his early books, "Where is God When it Hurts?" and "Disappointment with God," dealt with pain and suffering. As a result Yancey has been called to offer healing words after tragedies in places like Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Newtown CT, Sarajevo, and Fukushima.

In 2021, Yancey published a memoir, "Where the Light Fell," which tells much of his own story. He survived a toxic church and dysfunctional family, went through a period of agnosticism, and then warily circled back toward faith. Many of his book titles hint at that process: "The Jesus I Never Knew," "What’s So Amazing About Grace?," "Reaching for the Invisible God," and "Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?"

Yancey has recently had an eclectic string of book releases, including "Undone," a new rendering of John Donne’s "Devotions," written during a pandemic 400 years ago; then the revised anniversary edition of "What’s So Amazing About Grace?"; followed by a personal account of a contemporary crisis, Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Writing is such an introspective act that Yancey looks for ways to connect physically with the planet. His interests include skiing, trail hiking, mountain climbing (He and his wife have bagged all the 14ers in Colorado), mountain-biking, and golf, as well as international travel (88 countries so far), nature studies, theology (in small doses), politics, literature, and classical music.

To this day, Yancey is still a pilgrim “in recovery” from a bad church upbringing. In his writing he searches for the possibility of a faith rooted in grace instead of fear. He feels blessed that he can make a living exploring the questions that interest him.