Tag Archives: Philip Yancey

The Out of Step Jesus

The writer Philip Yancey (www.philipyancey.com) in his book, Soul Survivor, says he often feels like the most liberal person among conservatives and the most conservative person among liberals.

This statement resonates with me. I was raised in a Southern evangelical church. Fortunately, unlike Yancey’s childhood church, this church was a loving congregation, led by a pastor both caring and intelligent. The lower middle /working class church forgave him his sometimes scholarly sermons because he loved and cared for them.

Thus, I had no need, as I grew up, to rebel against a die-hard fundamentalist culture. For me and the other young people, the caring of the adults allayed the path of rebellion sometimes chosen by young people in less loving churches.

In my adult years, spent in myriad cultures and regions, my politics became more liberal. Because of my fortunate childhood, this liberalism was one of growth, not of rebellion. It is not rebellion against the childhood-taught faith I continue to practice.

I remember a song we children sang in loud abandonment: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white; Jesus loves the children of the world.”

On the wall of our Sunday school room was a picture of Jesus walking joyously with those children—red, yellow, black, and white.

My childhood church no doubt included people we would call racist. Certainly the majority held, I’m sure, quite conservative beliefs. Over time, Jesus’ teachings, if taught sincerely, may not necessarily lead to political liberalism. They certainly will result, however, in a repudiation of hatred.

Where the Light Fell

When the author Philip Yancey was a baby, his father contracted polio and died. Today, few Americans give thought to that horrible disease, arriving without any seeming purpose, crippling some, killing others.

Yancey doesn’t remember his father’s death. He only learned as a young man of his parents’ decision to remove his father from the hospital and its life saving equipment “against medical advice.” The couple had planned to be missionaries. They believed God would heal Yancey’s father so the couple could carry out what they believed to be their mission.

When the father died instead, Yancey’s mother dealt with this crisis of faith by offering up her two sons to be missionaries in the couple’s place. Yancey comes to realize: “My brother and I are the atonement to compensate for a fatal error in belief.”

Yancey’s book is the story of the sons’ journeys through this awful blood sacrifice. His brother, a talented young man, chose a devastating route out of the destiny his mother planned for him.

Yancey also fought against the legalistic straight jacket placed on him by his mother and some of the churches and colleges he attended. He began his own study of books and writings that opened both his mind and his spirit. He fell in love and knew a joy he had never known before.

Unexpectedly, in a college prayer meeting, he opens up and actually prays—at first defiantly against a God he doesn’t care for—but something happens. His honest prayer begins what is perhaps his first true experience of God’s grace.

Yancey’s story (Where the Light Fell) and his other writings bridge the gap felt by many who struggle within legalistic churches that too often have failed to understand what Jesus lived and taught.

 

The Dilemma of Having Convictions and Acting Stupid

“Generally speaking, I like the people in favor of abortion better than I like the ones against it, but I`m on the side of the people against it.”
—Andy Rooney, Chicago Tribune, 1985

In his thought-provoking book, Vanishing Grace; Whatever Happened to the Good News? Philip Yancey further quotes Rooney: “I’ve decided I’m against abortion . . . But I have a dilemma in that I much prefer the pro-choice to the pro-life people. I’d much rather eat dinner with a group of the former.”

Why did Rooney find so much to dislike among card carrying Christians? In the case of abortion, at least, it didn’t spring from being on the wrong side of an issue that passionately stirs them.

Maybe it’s because Christians sometimes act like spoiled children upset at being replaced by younger siblings. Christian culture is no longer the favored child.

Christians now are asked to explain themselves: How did the South become the Bible Belt even though its pre-Civil War white Christian citizens accepted slavery as God’s will? Why, when slavery was abolished, did they create segregation? Why do some Christians become ballistic over climate change instead of allowing reasonable debate? Spew hatred of gays? Identify so closely with politics that they draw harsh lines against those with different political opinions?

Quoting Yancey again: “The issue is not whether I agree with someone but rather how I treat someone with whom I profoundly disagree.”