Jon Bellamy spoke with Philip Yancey to find out

Philip Yancey

Author Philip Yancey has written more than 20 books selling over eight million copies worldwide. A self confessed introvert who spends most days staring at a computer screen, he's managed to impact countless lives for good. Less of a protagonist, more of a journalist in approach, his brand new book is out called, 'What Good is God?' Jonathan Bellamy caught up with him while he was in the UK.

Jonathan: Billy Graham said there's no writer in the evangelical world that I admire and appreciate more. That's high praise, isn't it!

Philip: Well I had to pay him quite a bit of money to make that statement.

Jonathan: I understand Bono from U2 reads your books too?

Philip: He has, yes. The boys in the band read books together and several of mine have made it into that elite group.

Jonathan: What is it about your writing that connects with people?

Philip: A couple of different things. I started my career as a journalist; I'm not a pastor, I'm not a theologian, I'm not trying to tell you something that I'm an expert about. I start with where people are, with questions about things they don't understand. A journalist represents the average person. As I explore things like the problem of pain, or prayer, or just the basic question, what good is God? What can we count on God for? That's the perspective I start from. Not a propagandist on things, but rather the questioning pilgrim.

Jonathan: Can you unpack a little of what your new book is about?

Philip: It tells of 10 different places in six different countries where I found myself in a place where faith was really put to the challenge. It started in Mumbai, India. I was due to speak down town, the night of the terrorist bombings. We couldn't have the meeting that had been planned for months because the whole area was cordoned off by police. Instead a much smaller group of people met in a little church and I remember looking out over their shocked, grieved, fearful faces thinking what can I say to these people to bring some kind of comfort?

In each of the places, whether it's there or the Virginia Tech attack after a massacre, or a group of prostitutes or alcoholics, I ask, does faith make a difference here? Does faith matter and if so, how does it matter? So each location has a chapter where I tell the story behind the story and then at some point I have to stand in front of the group and say, here's what I believe about that.

Jonathan: What did you say to young people at the Virginia Tech, because you had a memorial service for the students who died in shootings in 2007? How do you engage with young people who've gone through such a thing?

Philip: I happened to have just survived my own life threatening accident. I was actually standing in front of them in a neck brace. I had a broken neck due to a car accident and it wasn't at all clear that I would survive, because if one of the neck bone's fragments had punctured an artery then I would not have survived. As I lay there for seven hours that day I realised that so much of what we spend our lives worrying about really doesn't matter when you're face to face with death. I could only come up with three things that matter ultimately and those are, who do I love - who will I miss if I die? How have I spent my life? And am I ready for whatever is next? So I encouraged the students with those three questions.

Jonathan: In all these different locations that you mention, I guess that the people there are looking to receive something from you, particularly if they've been going through a challenging circumstance at the time. Are there any of the locations where you've felt that you've received a lot by being there yourself?

Philip: Probably all of them. One that stands out most strongly to me was when I was invited to speak to a group of former prostitutes. They were all women who had been involved in sexual trafficking and I got a true education. You know it's not like you see on television with the glamour of Las Vegas. If you're a prostitute in Costa Rica or Bulgaria, in one of those places, it's a pretty rough, degrading, abusive, humiliating profession. After hearing their stories again and again it made me very sensitive to what it's like to be at the bottom of the social ladder. I remember one of the women said, 'We're at the very bottom; everybody else has someone to look down on, but we don't, we're at the bottom'. She went on to say that sometimes when you're at the bottom, you cry for help and they told one by one of what it is was like to receive forgiveness and grace, which is a theme that I write about as often as I can.