Philip Yancey’s Fall Forces Evangelicals To Confront Sin And Forgiveness
(ANALYSIS) Asked to judge a woman “caught in the act of adultery,” the Gospel of John says Jesus stooped, wrote something in the dust, then told her accusers: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
Then he wrote again. The silent religious leaders drifted away. What happened next sums up Christian teachings on sin, grace and forgiveness, according to Philip Yancey, long one of America's most popular evangelical writers.
Jesus asked the woman: “Didn't even one of them condemn you?”
READ: Christian Author Philip Yancey Admits To 8-Year Affair And Announces Retirement
She said, “No, Lord," to which he replied, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Fundamentalist preachers often portray God as a "cosmic policeman, someone who's just waiting to smash somebody who does something wrong," said Yancey, during an episode of The Russell Moore Show podcast with the Rev. Russell Moore, editor-at-large of Christianity Today.
That's wrong, said Yancey.
Instead, church leaders should, “Start with Jesus and end with Jesus. ... Jesus wasn't a pushover, by any means, but he was always full of compassion. ... He never turned someone away who had an attitude of repentance.”
Yancey has repeatedly delivered this message during a half century of addressing Christian denominations, colleges and myriad other gatherings. His books, such as "The Scandal of Forgiveness," have sold 20 million copies in 49 languages.
But the Moore podcast, on “The Problem of Pain and Suffering,” was posted only four months before Yancey, 76, announced his retirement -- due to an eight-year sexual relationship with a married woman.
“My conduct defied everything that I believe about marriage. It was also totally inconsistent with my faith and my writings and caused deep pain for her husband and both of our families,” wrote Yancey to Christianity Today, where he was a columnist for decades.
“I have confessed my sin before God and my wife, and have committed myself to a professional counseling and accountability program. I have failed morally and spiritually, and I grieve over the devastation I have caused."
Yancey added: “I have nothing to stand on except God's mercy and grace.”
A statement from his wife, Janet, stressed: "I made a sacred and binding marriage vow 55 1/2 years ago, and I will not break that promise. I accept and understand that God through Jesus has paid for and forgiven the sins of the world, including Philip's. God grant me the grace to forgive also, despite my unfathomable trauma.”
Yancey's confession rocked the tense, divided evangelical world. The New York Times noted he was “not a moral crusader or a political brawler,” adding that President Jimmy Carter, a progressive evangelical, called Yancey his favorite modern author.
“In a sadly ironic twist from the author of the wonderful book ‘The Jesus I Never Knew,’ we were all encountering a Yancey we really did not know,” noted Talbot School of Theology at Biola University Dean Ed Stetzer.
Writing for ChurchLeaders.com, he added: “Philip Yancey was living a lie. But I'm sure it started with a small compromise, finally ending in this devastating moment for his wife and adultery's blast radius. ... We must remember, 'Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.’”
Yancey told Moore that he has always “seen the goodness of this earth, and the goodness of people wherever I go. But it's spoiled. Almost everything we try, whether it's the government, or whether it's sexuality, or addictions — good things get spoiled.”
Once again, he stressed: “I wish the people around us would see God as the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort — many do not.”
Moore asked what Yancey would say to believers, such as victims of church sexual abuse, “who have seen grace ... weaponized” to provide easy forgiveness for offenders.
Yancey replied: “What is to keep a person from abusing grace? The only answer is, ‘Well, God forbid!’ I can tell you the answers, but why would you even think of such a thing? If you think you're getting a free pass for doing things that you want to do, that displease God, you haven't received God's grace. ... It would never occur to you to go around trying to find a way to abuse it, to hurt another person.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.