Facing the Canon with Philip Yancey

[Music] you welcome to facing the cannon and I'm delighted that my guest is Phillip Phillip great to have you here in Chorley words England I love coming to England I don't do it every year but I do it as often as I can to discover my roots my people came from this part of the world and for somebody who lives in the wilds of Colorado charming England is a place to go where where were the roots from best I can tell people in my family who have tried to track it take it back to Wales and that's not quite England but it's close yeah it's close so where were you born I was born in Atlanta Georgia and you grew did you grow up there I did yes we have some some famous citizens of course Martin Luther King jr. Jimmy Carter people like that and when I grew up Atlanta was was just beginning as a city and it took off I think I remember there used to be a sign a digital sign waiting for Atlanta to get its one millionth citizen and then you know nine hundred ninety four thousand nine hundred and they would count down each day the digits would change and it finally got 1 million I think it's up to about 5 million now so it's it's boomtown that when you were growing up what kind of a church environment did you grow up in you hear stories from people who say I was converted from alcoholism I was converted from drugs I was converted from the church it was a toxic Church I call it and I've been in recovery from it ever since as I look back it was a church that was on the wrong side of every issue that I care about it was an angry racist legalistic judgmental hate filled Church in a lot of ways and if if you grow up in a church like that it's easy to get a bad spirit about the church and actually to confuse the church with God one of the things that was important for me in my own spiritual journey is to separate God from the church because I think there are some churches that are as likely to turn people away from God as to turn people toward God and then when you were a 1 year of age your father got polio he did that was back it was 1950 I'll give away my age and the polio was the great dreaded disease back then swimming pools would close schools would close something like 50,000 people a year were dying in the United States from polio my father was was 24 years old he was planning to be a missionary in Africa and contracted polio there were two of us my brother was three I was one year old he was in an iron lung was unable to move he could move his head just a little bit but unable even to breathe on his own people in the church looked at this and they thought well this isn't right here's a guy who wants to be a missionary he should be healed so they all got together and and prayed very hard and convinced were convinced that he would be healed so against all the doctors advice they had him removed from the iron lung and he wasn't healed he died and the shadow of that its effect on my mother and and ultimately my brother and I our own faith as we grew up was something that we've had to deal with ever since so looking back over those years what effect did it have on you as you viewed the church and as you viewed God it made me it convinced me the importance of thinking right about God the good theology these were well-meaning people they thought they knew God's will and they were wrong and in fact the church I grew up in thought a lot of things that were God's will and they were wrong for instance say they taught from the pulpit that people of color African Americans we call them in the United States we're inferior they're good as a servant class but they're not equal to the whites this was in the days of segregation before civil rights and they were wrong about that of course well there was a period of time where I thought love they're wrong about my father if they're wrong about race maybe they're wrong about God maybe were wrong about the Bible and I threw it all away and then only gradually piece by piece and I'm able to do this as a writer have I been able to take little bits of it and look at each one well what what is this what should I hold on to what is what does the Bible really say what does God really like and that's what I do in my books so how did you rediscover your faith it wasn't through the Bible I was fed up to here with the Bible it had been hammered into me as a child it wasn't through Billy Graham rally's gospel tracts you know anything that smacked of religion I didn't want anything to do with as I look back on it I identify three things that brought me back to faith the beauties of nature always very important to me music classical music in my case I played the piano as did my brother and romantic love those three things softened me because when I when I encountered them I realized that the view of the world that this really tiny uptight church had given me was wrong they had misrepresented the world they had misrepresented God it was about that time that I came across a quotation that GK Chesterton uses he said the worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank yes I felt grateful for the beauties of this world and what I was experiencing the beauties of nature and love and music and I wanted to know the one behind all of that I wanted to know it's like appreciating a great work of art I'd like to meet the artist I'd like to know more about this artist and I realized that the church had misrepresented God and I wanted to find the God who was also responsible for these good things I was experiencing so God was using nature music love as vehicles to you almost like experiencing it that's right you know I later found out the theologians have a term for that they call it common grace yes and grace is is my favorite word in the English language I call it the last unspoiled word because it appears in a lot of places but it's always in a good context I live in the Rocky Mountains I go hiking up in the mountains and I'll turn a corner and see a carpet of wildflowers and I may be lost I may be well off the trail which often happens it the flowers are there whether anyone is there to observe them or not and that for me is a picture of God's grace he lavishes this planet with beauty it says now it's up to you to enjoy it and some of you will eventually want to know the one who gave it to you gift of grace tell us more about romantic love what do you mean I think it's it's hard for us to feel loved unless we've been loved feel loved by God unless we've been loved by another person there are a lot of people I know who are listening who came from a very unhealthy family a dysfunctional family didn't really feel love I know many people women particularly who who maybe were raised by an abusive father have a very hard time thinking of God as father yes and I came from of course I had no father it was not a healthy family I didn't feel loved I didn't feel worthy and when I was loved by the woman who has now been my wife for almost 42 years then I thought maybe maybe I could experience God's love as well maybe there's something worth loving in me it was a new thought when teaching your wife we were at college together now it was that but that was Bible school it was a Bible College yeah I I don't like to give the name because they don't tell stories I tell stories about it they don't always like rock yeah and the reason you went to Bible School what well it's because you got reconnected with God it was actually at the school where I do get reconnected with God I went in as a skeptic rebellious it was the only school I could afford frankly and my brother had gone there it was just the next thing to do after our high school as soon as I got there I wanted to transfer away I started filling out applications for other schools but God has a great sense of humor and in in that place where I'm kind of the target the local rebel that was the place where I started to experience who God truly is and ended up staying for the full for the full sentence excuse me turn turn and you met your wife Janet that I did yes and you got married soon after two days after graduation yes really yeah and 42 years right congratulations thank you yeah well done so you've got the silver you've need got the gold that's great what did you do after you left Bible School we were in the south and we wanted to get away from the south for some of the reasons I've referred to so we moved to the Chicago area I went to a graduate school Wheaton College which is known in some parts here and I started working part-time really for a magazine a youth magazine called campus life I was not one of these people who grew up thinking I want to be a writer when I grow up I didn't know what I wanted to be but this magazine needed somebody on a campus to report what was going on this is you know the late 1960s things were pretty exciting back then and so they took a risk they hired me and I started writing for them I look back on there's a tremendous experience training ground I ended up being editor of the magazine was there for 10 years because I can't imagine a more demanding audience than teenagers getting a Christian magazine you know I think they get this thing from their mother who wants them to go to church what is this thing and and I've got one sentence to capture their attention and then one more sentence and and I learned it's it's the reader who's the boss not the writer and I've got to somehow write in a way that engages that reader but you started writing you discovered that you had a gift in writing and that led you to you know start writing books that's right and if you look as I look back on the books I've written and the titles they tell you where I was I call I started with books like where is God when it hurts disappointment with God you know books that are out here along that line about that time God brought into my life a remarkable man one of the one of the great people I've ever met dr. Paul brand yes citizen of Great Britain of course who was a surgeon in India working with leprosy patients the smartest guy I've ever met the wisest person I've ever met who worked among the lowest people on the entire planet I mean there's there is no one on a social stratum below a person of the untouchable caste in India who has leprosy that's that's the bottom and here was this brilliant man who could have won a Nobel Prize that kind of quality who spent his life among these people my own faith was was being formed at the time and I I remember speaking at his funeral he died a few years ago and I said that that while I was giving words to his faith he was giving faith to my words yes because I couldn't have easily written about what I believed I wasn't sure but I could with great integrity and confidence right about what dr. brand believed because I investigated he stood up to scrutiny and I could tell the truth tell us that tell us a story of dr. brand that that highlights something of him yes dr. Brown was the one who discovered that this old and dreaded disease leprosy had been misinterpreted for thousands of years we all have these images of people with leprosy who have missing fingers or missing toes and scars and and they're blind and dr. bran after considerable experimentation learned that all of that abuse came about simply because leprosy patients don't feel pain yes all that leprosy attacks is pain cells and then we literally those with leprosy actually destroy themselves maybe they'll use a tool with a splinter in it and get an infection or they go blind because that little pain cell that makes us blink every 15 seconds or so fall silent and they don't blame they keep their eyes open all day long and the eyes dry out and it go blind so it took a long time to convince the medical establishment of this now of course everyone knows that truth about leprosy but it was it was dr. Brandt's commitment toward what Jesus called the least of these as I mentioned that's as low as you can get and he was the only orthopedic surgeon and in in the entire world working with 12 million leprosy patients discovering ways to remake their hands remake their feet and give them new life amazing so going back to the book that you mentioned where is God when it hurts do some of these titles reflect where you are on your own personal journey absolutely and I feel blessed to be able to to have my pilgrimage as a Christian my journey and my career be the same thing because I'm able to work it out and put it in print and I I do I write my books for myself not really for my readers because I'm I always choose a topic that I don't know the answer to if I knew the answer before I started writing a book I'd get bored after a couple of weeks and it takes me a year to write a book so I deliberately choose something that I want to figure out a few years ago I wrote a book called prayer does it make any difference and that's why did I write that because I'm a great person of Prayer no because I'm a lousy person of Prayer and I want to be a better one so if I if I have a field like that I want learn more about go to the experts go to the masters then I write a book about it so having thought it through and you know distilled your thinking on it where is God when it hurts I've been to a lot of places where that question is right at the forefront I remember a call I got from Virginia and a campus pastor of Virginia Tech University called and said Phillip you wrote this book years ago I remember reading it and now that's the only question on our campus because 33 people were killed in that and that massacre by a deranged student could you possibly come and talk to us about this question and if I had to answer that in one phrase I would say whether the real answer of that question is where is the church when it hurts because we we are Christ's body on earth we are the representatives of God on earth and if the church is on the front lines if it's doing its job if we're bringing comfort as I've seen again and again Mumbai Virginia Tech Japan these places where great tragedy happens the church is often the first group there and they are bringing not just words but they're bringing actual practical help so if I go through an experience of suffering I want that kind of community around me where is God when it hurts what God for whatever reason chooses primarily to express himself through people like us through ordinary people through the church sometimes they fill it you know we live in this world of miracle and mystery don't we where we see the miracle of God and yet there's a mystery to it all that sometimes does puzzle you so prayer you know does God answer that does it work does it it works but not necessarily in the way that we would want it to work in fact this relates to our last question - I remember hearing the musician Bono YouTube telling about his trip to Ethiopia I know you've been there and worked in orphanages well he went to an orphanage this was not one of these photo op drive-bys he and his wife Ali went for six weeks and worked in an orphanage right at the beginning of the AIDS crisis and as he told it he came back and his prayers had changed they were prayers of outraged anger God don't you care about those kids there may be 15 million AIDS orphans eventually in Africa don't you care about them and then gradually he heard the answer yes Bono who do you think gave you the idea of going to Ethiopia in fact I'd like you to lead the campaign to help those kids hey now wait a minute Bono said I'm not a preacher I'm not a social worker I'm a rock star and then he heard God say yeah but you've got connections Bono and Bono went around to people like George Bush george w bush and and Tony Blair and Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton and eventually ended up almost single-handedly raising 15 billion dollars to fight AIDS in Africa and I think that's the pattern so many of our prayers that we toss it God and say God why don't you do something about this God says yeah why don't you we want God to do it for us often God wants to do it through us and so prayer for me is as much listening to what God wants done in the world as telling God what I want God to do in the world sure but listening Phillip sometimes even that's hard isn't it because there's so much we're being bombarded with so much that you get very overwhelmed by the needs of the world and it's sometimes kind of prevents you from doing anything yes that is a danger but what I find is that is is that when you start doing something when you start being with people who are truly in need a lot of these theoretical things just kind of fade into the background yeah because you you understand your need you understand the value of what you're doing and in the same way you know being a parent is not all fun right there's a lot of work involved and they don't always say thank you so much mother father for what you did to me today you know and by the time you get the hang of parenting your children have left home that's right that's right and yeah I remember hearing a quotation from Ruth Graham Billy Graham's wife who who had just recently become a grandmother and she said I've decided that being a grandparent is God's reward to you for not murdering your own children I know we're all trying to navigate aren't we Phillip really we're trying to navigate and and connect with God and connect with the world and I suppose we're all struggling to find the way to do that we are one of the privileges I have as a journalist and I know you have in your travels is that we get to parts of the world where the gospel really sounds like good news yes you know here in in Europe little less so but along the same line in the United States we've kind of heard it before we were raised in the churches you turn on your radio you can you can hear a preacher now and then and we get used to it we forget the good news miss of the gospel that God loves the least of these think God doesn't just love good people God loves sinners that's that was the message that Jesus brought and that there is a future for us there is a future life with God and that and that God is a God of justice and fairness and a lot of what we see in the world is is not God's ideal for the world and we're supposed to be on that side well you go to places like the Philippines Brazil parts of Africa even rural China and and they get it it's there they've been oppressed they've lived under injustice and and they understand the goodness of God and I think it's part of what I do it's part of what you do to bring back those stories of fresh life that are popping up all around the world right now going on and yet if you're in an old church or you know place like Europe the United States we've lost some of that freshness we need that infusion and immigrants help help provide that too they certainly do in my country as you mentioned you you've visited various countries hey how many of you visited we made a list the other day I think about 70 right around the world right oh one more than me and you've obviously seen God at work you've seen the work of God's Holy Spirit kind of residing in different places and people any stories from your travels yes in fact the one that occurs to me is of a person who had leprosy we were in Nepal it was a hospital called green pastures hospital Nepal is a Hindu kingdom but there is a lot of growth going on in the church first Christian was in 1951 just one first Christian and now there are close to a million Christians in Nepal so a lot happened he's remarkable it is remarkable and a lot of it is because of these faithful missionaries who in some cases never said a word but they were there binding wounds distributing food and in this case is in this case in this hospital ministering to people with leprosy we were given a tour by a doctor and we walked past this courtyard I looked across the courtyard and there was a woman I'd have to say she's the ugliest woman human being I've ever seen she she had no fingers left she had had leprosy for a long time no no toes on her feet her face was full of scars her eyes were calloused she'd been blind for years her her nose had eaten away you look at her and you saw right into her skull and we kept walking past and the doctor gave us a tour of the hospital we ended up coming back 20 minutes later by that courtyard and this woman had made her way across the courtyard she couldn't walk so she would plant her elbows and drag her body behind her like an animal well I I thought I must be a beggar because a country like Nepal that's really all somebody like that can dude so I I reached into my pocket to see if I had any nepali coins that i could give her well my wife had a much different and more holy reaction I must say she was a social worker in Chicago so she worked with the down-and-out and while I was fumbling in my pocket she went over and put her arm around this woman and the woman started singing we didn't know Nepali but we didn't have to we knew the words it was Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so and the doctor said to me oh let me introduce you to Don Maya she's no beggar she's the closest thing to a saint we have around here and he started telling me story after story he said do you have anything you need prayer for she's a prayer warrior and I went away thinking here is a woman who by any measure that that the world puts on as a failure she has no money she has no beauty she has no success no resume and yet she was a person in whom the Spirit of God found a very comfortable home and and that is the message of hope that we have to offer the world it's easy you turn on the television and you hear again and again the message what counts is how much money you have how beautiful you are what kind of figure you have that's not what ultimately counts Don Maya was wealthy wealthy she died a few years ago but I think she had a glorious reward waiting for her Wow so she exude the presence of Gaunt she did and that that is the good news that we have it's the gospel that that God loves all of us it's it's so the world is based on merit we have to make our way we have to rank we have to be worthy and the gospel is the gospel of grace it's not based on merit a few years ago Philip you had a serious car accident tell us about that what actually happens I was on a on a book tour book tours can be dangerous and it was in a neighboring state New Mexico and I was driving back early one Sunday morning in the mountains of Colorado I deliberately took a out-of-the-way road just to enjoy the scenery and it was in the month of February it had snowed a few days before without being aware of it I hit a patch of ice and the vehicle I was in started spinning around and then ultimately went off the side of the road and this tremendous crashing noise rolled over and over five different times and landed fortunately right side up and I got out finally undid my seatbelt and got out and started fumbling around for my camera and my laptop computer and different things and soon to my surprise and another car came who happened to be the head of the medical services for the whole county and they were there were Mormon missionaries they were starting a church and just that that's the only reason they would anybody would be out at that hour on a Sunday morning and they they stabilized me took me to a hospital and they did some initial cat scans and found out that I had a broken neck and they were quite concerned because the break was right next to a major artery fact I I don't know if in medical school I don't know if they teach courses in bedside manner but if they do this doctor did not any flunk because he came in and said mr. henchy uh got some very bad news for you you have a broken neck oh that's bad yeah it's bad but it's not right next to your spinal cord so you're not in any imminent danger of paralysis oh that's good well that's good but it's actually right next to a major artery so you're an imminent danger of dying oh that's bad yeah that's bad and it's in here I've got a mobile phone you should we've got a jet standing by to fly you to Denver for surgery if we find out that the artery has been nicked but [Music] just in case you should call the people that you love because between you and me you won't make it to Denver if and and so for the next hours seven hours is it turned out I'm lying flat on my back strapped down thinking this could be my last day on earth and it was it was one of those times in fact I I told you a little bit about the church at maracas and I always wondered in when faced with something like that with those old fears that smell of sulfur start coming back and and thankfully they did they did not come back yes I have learned to know a god of grace in love and I felt well if this is my last day on earth it's been a good life and I'm grateful for it and I'm ready for whatever is next so that it was a very poignant time you you can never predict exactly what's gonna happen when you're in a situation like that and I now look back on it as as a great gift to be pressed up against life and death and yet to be able to eventually recover and resume my life so the future though how do you know what's next well we don't know what's next do we but what we do know is that we need to make our choices based on what God has revealed to us not there's a matter of faith involved I don't know what my future is going to hold I mean any of us could be paralyzed tomorrow as a result of an accident or have or lose a child you know there are all sorts of things that could happen we can't predict those things but we can we can prepare by by learning to trust the kind of God that I faced at that moment it is a God of grace in mercy and love you used the word grace quite a lot and you've written a book about it how do you understand that word what does that word mean to you the best I could come up with was was this phrase and that is that there's nothing that we can do to make God love us more a lot of Christians think if I could just do this if I just got up earlier in the morning if I just did this series of if I fight it's just more strict in my life then God would love me more no that's not grace there's nothing that we can do to make God love us more and there's nothing we can do to make God love us less that no matter what I've done murder adultery look at King David a man after God's own heart the Bible says there's nothing I can do to fall out of the bounds of God's love God operates by different rules God extends his love constantly to us and just asks us to turn around and face it and receive it grace is a free gift but the only way a gift works is if you have your hands open otherwise it just falls to the ground and in Jesus day it was the religious people who had their hands closed tight in a fist I don't know about this guy he's from Nazareth Easter he's got speaks with a funny accent you know and so they I don't need God's love I don't need I'm doing very fine by keeping these rules and grace falls to the ground there were some people who are already at the low at the bottom who would hold out their Saint hands and say I have nothing to offer and God says I can deal with that your hands are open and they can receive God's grace why is it that we find it so hard to receive God's grace oh I think part of it is is human pride we like to deserve things we like to earn them we like to to feel good about ourselves and and Grace put yourself at the mercy where you have nothing to offer I I spoke one time to a group of prostitutes I was attending a conference on sexual trafficking and the people who were working with women all women who were caught up in sexual trafficking had brought together about a hundred of their of their kind of prime people they were working with women from 40 different countries and when they asked me to speak I said I'll only speak if I can also listen could I have a whole session where I heard their stories and they said sure we can arrange that so for three hours I sat in a room and listened to two prostitute sex workers tell these stories incredible stories of degradation and humiliation and shame and toward the end I said to them did you know that Jesus talked about you and some of them didn't they were new to the faith I said yeah he said he said the prostitutes and tax collectors will come first in the kingdom of God ahead of the religious professionals why do you think he singled you out and you could kind of see them scratching their head trying to why would Jesus say something like that and then this woman from Bulgaria spoke up and very broken English and and she had already told her incredible story of abuse and violence and tragedy and and in her English she said you know everybody everybody they have somebody to look down on but not us we are at the law she said nobody none of our mamas say honey when you grow up I want you to be best prostitute in town they shame of us they kick us out we don't know our family and sometimes when you are at the low you cry for help and I said boy that says it doesn't it you know if you think I've got it I've done something I'm worthy I deserve it then when God comes along with these incredible offers of yes grace you could just say no thanks I'm doing just fine on my own thank you but when you're at the law and you've got nothing to offer you cry for help she made me cry Wow come on how did you follow that then did you then give a speech after that not at that moment now but later that that evening that I was asked to speak about grace because the people who invited me said that's one thing that that these prostitutes have a really hard time receiving because they're filled with such shame and such guilt and such burden they don't know how to let it go well turn me loose you know all of Jesus stories have the wrong person as the hero when you think about it he talked about a rich man and then a beggar named Lazarus he who's the hero of that story it's not the rich man we don't even know his name it's the beggar he told a story about a Jewish rabbi and Levite and a Samaritan this heretic this mixed-race heretic who's the hero of that story the Good Samaritan you know it's a good rabbi and then he told a story about a family with one obedient responsible son who obeyed his parents and was successful and did what he was supposed to in one prodigal son who spit in his parents face went and squandered his inheritance who's the hero of that story the prodigal son and that's the message of grace is Jesus message that he just found different ways to tell with every audience we need to embrace it don't we more Philip we need we need this message more and more I think the church needs this and in my experience of my travels I if you if I went out on the streets of London for example this weekend and started asking people what is a Christian what does somebody who goes to church they would probably they wouldn't talk about grace I've done this before they would talk about oh they're they're strict people there are people who who don't do certain things that we enjoy doing they're people who keep rules they're virtuous people those are good things but every religion has that that's nothing new Jesus is the most radical person who lived on earth and that's not a radical message that God loves good people tell me duh tell me something I don't know you know Jesus had a much more radical message and that is God loves bad people I'd love sinners yes in fact I will prove it the most famous verses Bible for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son and that that's the message we need to get across yeah the the people that Jesus went to he said I came for the sick people not the well I came for the sinners not the righteous and I wished those people in the streets of London or Denver Colorado near where I live I wish they would automatically think of that God came for needy people God came for me at my worst God God came for sinners God came from me yes I read somewhere that in the recent kind of economic crisis around the world the you and your wife were personally affected by that and that you actually lost much of your savings we did in addition you may have heard that publishing is going through a little bit of a transition and stores are closing right and left and our income now our income this year will be half of what it was a couple of years ago so but I tell you what what I went through with the accident kind of helps because I realized as Jesus said what does it profit to you if you gain the whole world and lose your soul that that's not really worth spending much time worrying about oh well we lost a lot of money we're still living we still get to travel to England can you beat that and I am still free to spend my time writing about the things that matter to me most so I feel very wealthy even if the income keeps going down it's living by priorities isn't it it is not the thing it is there's a there's a phrase about moving from success to significance yes and I as a journalist I got to tell you that that probably did more to confirm my faith in anything else when look back over the people I've interviewed they tend to fall into two categories one category I call stars they're the famous people you know the rock stars and the presidents of the United States and the actors and the sports professionals and we all want to be like these people we put them on the covers of our magazine we want to know everything about them well I've gotten to know them as a journalist and frankly I don't envy their life I don't want their life in fact many of them don't like themselves the reason they became famous is because they're trying to get somebody to like them they don't like themselves and then there's another category of people that I call servants and dr. Paul brand I mentioned earlier is at the top of that list people who could have achieved all of this stuff but instead gave themselves away whether it's building houses in Haiti or working with leprosy patients in India the one statement Jesus made that is repeated in the gospels more than any other goes something like this and paraphrasing he said you don't gain the world by accumulating more and more you gain your life you gain the world by giving it away in service to others and I have found that principle right on that is a true principle the most contented fulfilled people I know are people like the Paul brands who give their lives away and in the process of doing so they gain their lives and a lot of these people over here that we think are so great shine a spotlight on them are still searching searching searching and and as a journalist I thought huh I guess Jesus is right maybe I ought to start paying attention to more things that Jesus said and brought me back to faith does it feel a little bit like that you know you you write these amazing books that so many people around the world are reading but in many ways you're you were like a pastor teacher too you know quite a large church do you ever think of it like that that's a terrifying thought to me no I don't ever think of it like that writing is is an isolated act I can't do it if there's someone in the same room with me I've got to be alone and so whenever you hide away I do I go up to into the mountains all by myself I don't shave all week long all three meals together take a total of 30 minutes I don't cook I heat in the microwave you know and if ya just focus focus focus and so it's just it's just me and the pad of paper or the computer screen I'm a pilgrim trying to figure this thing out like pilgrims progress I'm walking down this road I've made a lot of wrong turns I've made a lot of mistakes but I want to keep walking and when I fall down I'll just let God pick me up and and resume the walk that that's how I perceived myself and when I take a topic in one of these books it's not as uh I'm an expert I have some things to tell you it's a I'm a raw beginner there's some things I want to learn would you like to come with me as I explore that that is my my role and it fits Who I am it's authentic to who I am and you're locked away writing all day you have us like a routine it divides it depends on and what phase of the book I'm in I may spend months researching interviewing other people before I write a word and then I'll lock myself away and in a flurry because that's where all the pain is trying to get something down on paper and then sit back and relax and and try to make it better fix things up and that the middle part I have to be alone and I have to have that focus and that writing is a hard thing to do but all the pain is right in that middle part I enjoy the research I enjoy the cleanup put in the words and paper stuff we've mentioned a few of your books book what good is God what good is God you'll have to read the book yes but you know I was being interviewed on on a radio program about that and and obviously the interviewer had not even looked at the book and he said can you just tell me in a couple sentences what good is god yes and I said well I as I reflect on the stories I tell in that book I would answer on several levels God can transform individuals prostitutes alcoholics untouchables in India so in an individual level on a community level I've been to places like Virginia Tech like Mumbai like New Orleans where you you go through a hard time you want a community around you and and God can use that community to bring comfort and healing and then on a societal level I like to tell the story of Sweden that's wonderful yeah country that's honest and charitable and clean and it's just a good place to visit the first time I went there I happen to be reading a book of church history and it said that for 200 years most prayers in Europe ended with this line Lord save us from the Vikings amen so what happened to change this nation of raping pillaging warriors into modern-day Sweden well the gospel happened it took a long time but eventually it percolates up individual community a whole society the gospel is is a transforming power that's what good god is yeah absolutely finding God in unexpected places and you've found that to be true that's the fun part of being a journalist I can I can go on a search I can go on a hunt and over the years I have found all sorts of places like prisons for example some of the liveliest churches I have ever been in are in death rows and prisons and I get to go as a journalist through people I know and and write stories about them and then bring them back because you know most of us live pretty ordinary lives and we we don't really have the eyes to see all that God is doing around the world that's my job as a journalist I get to go out there find those stories bring them back and bring that kind of hope and encouragement to those who can't which which is the most unexpected place that you've discovered god FRA I would have to go back to one of those prisons and I tell the story in there of Pollsmoor Prison in South Africa where Nelson Mandela spent eight years and this the cell where you have to be a Christian you have to agree to a pretty rigorous course of discipleship and training to go in the cell and in here one by one I heard the stories of these men there were fifty of them in a room about the size of my living room fifty triple tier bunk beds mattresses on the floor and one by one they went and told they went around and told their story of murder and and gang rape and incredible stories and each one ended but I'm so grateful that I ended up in this place because even though I'll spend the rest of my life in this hellhole I'll spend it trying to be a disciple of Jesus so thank you prison for having come into my life it was just amazing I could hardly stand up the odor in this room and yet those guys who would spend the rest of their lives in that room had a sense of gratitude just for life and for the grace of God that they had received deeply Soul Survivor yes you could see the subtitle of that book it's called how my faith survived at the church and and that is my journey I told you a little bit about the aunt I grew up in and yet I in spite of that and in reaction against that I found the faith that I now believe so are you much more positive about the church now I am for this reason there are a lot of people I know who say ok god I like Jesus I like Church No thank you I can do without and I understand that because I grew up in a very unhealthy church but again and again I have seen that to quote one of the early church fathers he said a a coal removed from the fire loses its heat quickly yes and I've seen that happen with Christian after Christian I don't need those other people and so they pulled themselves away I've actually learned that that I need those other people I need to be around old people and young people and people too who don't think like I do and people who have different tastes than I do and the churches is a place to bring together people who are very different but have one thing in common that is what word we don't get together because we have it all together we get together because we know we don't and we come together in acknowledgment that we don't and maybe by worshiping together learning about God together as a community we can help each other on that path I need that I need the church we do well the st. Augustine said you cannot have God as your father without having the church is your mother and yeah it's making that work is that mm-hmm and we've mentioned this book already but prayer does it make any difference and as you've said Philip and that it does my philosophy on prayer is push PU SH pray until something happens huh you can borrow that okay thank you I'm not in maybe you should be the one to help make it Emma yeah I like I just like that story of the persistent Widow yeah you know and Jesus used that as an analogy for prayer so I think sometimes you've just got to be persistent and in the meantime do what you can isn't it really I read someone who said you can summarize everything jesus said about prayer in three words keep it short keep it honest and keep it up and that's the story of the widow is it's true absolutely looking back on all your books you probably don't have this problem I regret some of the books I published I think they're rubbish but one or two of them are really good but but you know which is there a book that for you sticks out that you feel yeah I thank --fill I wrote them all but there's one that I felt was a significant word I thought you're gonna ask which one should be in the rubbish bin thank you the one that that gave me most joy as I was writing it is the book sole survivor because I wrote about my heroes these were people there 13 of them some about half of the night I knew and interviewed and about half of them are are people like Tolstoy Dostoyevsky John Donne obviously I didn't interview them but they're they're my heroes they're my guides my mentors they were my pastors really and I I feel so honored and privileged that I could sit down and for a year try to figure out why am i different because of my heroes I I envy that I mean I I wish everybody in the room and listening could have that opportunity to spend a whole year thinking about why am i different because of the the people I admire and look - well as a writer that was my job I was able to do that and I get tired of writing about myself it was great to write about other people about my heroes the future how do you perceive it how do you view it what are your expectations as a writer the one thing that I I want to do is a memoir that tries to stitch my life together yeah that's we write why do we write I don't know more than a lot of other people I just have a point of view that's different it was formed by the church I grew up in it was formed by the family I grew up in the people I've met along the way my encounters with God my travels overseas and I want to stitch together that in a way that makes sense for me I write my books for me and if someone else can identify with parts of the journey this this strange wacky collection of people that are God's kingdom then if they can plug in at a certain point great but I want to do it for myself just to stitch together what I've learned about life and God I'm thinking to myself oh I write my sermons for me and if you can listen in on them maybe it's I suppose the challenge of what we do preaching teaching writing is that really it's the practice what we try and preach yes and I do public speaking too and but yet I think there is a difference when I look out on an audience I think okay I've got to come up with something to say but when I'm alone with my computer do I have anything to say yeah it's a it's a different experience it's standing on a platform it's very different than sitting in a room with a laptop and I feel I've done both I feel much more comfortable here Finnick I I've read oh I've read all your books except one actually we can fix that we can fix that that's next on the list I I find you you're very perceptive if you're very discerning find you very refreshing I I think you're like a modern-day prophet that's taking the experience of God and experience of the world distilling it and helping us I love the way that you you you make things so simple in your books but it's not simplistic and that you're you're feeding that both the church and those outside of the church and it's been just the real joy just to be able to have this conversation with you and hear a little bit about your own journey and we wish you well for the future and it seems to me that you've got you've got potential so if you just keep doing what you're doing and keep writing well we'll be grateful thank you very much hi I'm Jay John I support compassion and compassion supports facing the Canon please enjoy the film [Music] [Music] well we're here at a compassion project in Ethiopia and just the work that compassion is doing is just absolutely extraordinary the amazing thing is that each child that gets sponsored doesn't only get health care education and their needs met but they also get introduced to Jesus and the faith that these children is just extraordinary it's just quite incredible to think about how we're actually meeting these children who have been found by the local church the church is gonna found the children who are in the greatest need they've given them the start in life and most importantly they've introduced into Jesus yesterday we saw some students that have gone through the entire program and they are world changers and they're they're staying in Ethiopia because they want to change Ethiopia for the better they want to stamp out poverty and these are people who've gone through this program just because someone tows to sponsor them 421 pounds a month I mean it's nothing basically 21 pounds a month just thinking about what we spend and 21 pounds on any in England it is an absolute privilege for us to be able to to help these children and their to sponsor them the work that compassion is doing is changing this country but more importantly it's changing these children's lives [Music] [Music]

Channel: Facing the Canon

Views: 39,926

Rating: 4.8532109 out of 5

Keywords: facing the canon, j.john, interview, jjohn, j john, philo trust, philo, trust, christianity, Jesus, Lord, God, Holy Spirit, Philip Yancey (Author), The Jesus I Never Knew

Id: DkuPflBXIi0

Length: 57min 54sec (3474 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 14 2014