Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 178:709 (Jan 2021)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Matthew S. DeMoss

BSac 178:709 (January-March 2021) p. 107

Book Reviews

By The Faculty And Staff Of Dallas Theological Seminary

Matthew S. DeMoss

Editor

Where the Light Fell: A Memoir. By Philip Yancey. New York: Convergent Books, 2021. 321 pp. $28.00.

Philip Yancey is a well-known Christian writer who lives in the foothills of Colorado with his wife, Janet. His books wrestle with questions of faith, grace, prayer, the church, hope, Jesus; in short, the kinds of questions believers and unbelievers ask. Many people find Yancey’s humility and honesty refreshing and have grown in their relationship with God through his works.

Many memoirs and autobiographies help the reader understand the life history of the author, situating major works within the stages of life and the context in which they were written. Readers who expect that of this memoir will be disappointed. Barely a paragraph or two refer to his award-winning books. Rather, this is the story of Yancey’s childhood and then adulthood, as he came to understand the impact of his family of origin and church experiences. Yancey tells his story and that of his brother; their lives diverged radically as they entered adulthood.

I have been a fan of Yancey’s work since I discovered his Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988). This book helped me wrestle with pain, suffering, and evil in the world and know that not only does everyone struggle with the reality that a good God allows evil to impact his good creation, but also that there is no simple answer to the why questions. His What’s So Amazing about Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) introduced me to the difference between grace and ungrace and put words and illustrations to the power of grace to change the world. Vanishing Grace: Bringing Good News to a Deeply Divided World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014) challenged me to be a dispenser of grace and to live out the story of redemption. Rumors of Another World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003) gave me eyes to see the work of redemption in the midst of the fallenness and brokenness of the current age, that the God who will one day make everything new is currently active in this world. We do not have to wait for the new creation to experience a foretaste, what Yancey calls rumors, of the world to come. I followed his advice in Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church (New York: Doubleday) and developed my own list of mentors, a list that includes Philip Yancey. From Yancey’s Church: Why Bother (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

BSac 178:709 (January-March 2021) p. 108

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