Philip Yancey Scandal: Can We Still Trust Christian Leaders?
Nathan (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:05)
and I'm your co-host, Cameron McAllister. In today's episode, we talk about Philip Yancey, Christian bestselling author who is admitted to having an eight-year affair, declared that he is disqualified from ministry and has withdrawn from all of it. It's a sad subject, but this will be helpful to you as we think through what we do when a beloved Christian thinker falls and how we respond, how we work through that.
As always, like, share and subscribe. And if you want to support the work that we're doing, you can do so by going to www.toltogether.com.
Nathan (00:07)
Cameron, Philip Yancey, and go.
Cameron (00:13)
Big sigh. Yes. So not everybody will have heard this, but Philippe Yancey has admitted to carrying on an eight-year affair. And I believe he's been married for 55 years and has announced that he's withdrawing from all public ministry. He's stated that he is now disqualified from ministry. So he'll be disengaging from all. He's not going to write anymore. He's not going to speak anymore.
Nathan (00:28)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (00:42)
All of the speaking events and all of that have been canceled. He is. Yeah, I'm going to.
Nathan (00:44)
You better say who he is, because I bet there's a significant portion
of our listenership who don't know who he is.
Cameron (00:50)
I will say who he is here. Yeah. He's 76 years old, by the way. It's worth pointing that out also. He is an author and he was originally a journalist. Philippiancy will be best known, I think, to most people for his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, which is a very good title, by the way. He grew up in a racist fundamentalist church and
found his way out of that back to the feet of Christ, which is where the phrase, the Jesus I never knew comes in. He's a very good writer. He's also, I mean, he's written a lot of books. What's So Amazing About Grace was another one. He's just published a new memoir. He's really gifted writer. He was for a long time. He worked as a journalist and I believe he worked for Christianity Today for a while. Still was a ⁓ periodic contributor to them.
Nathan (01:43)
Think so, yeah.
Cameron (01:49)
But so that's, he's in a kind of category for a lot of people. I think where he was, he was one of those figures who helped them recover their faith. That's what makes this, I think, quite painful for some, for quite a few actually. There are several friends I have, by the way, who say, who would say, were it not, I wouldn't be a Christian today, were it not for Philip Yancey. So all that to say, I mean,
Nathan (02:04)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (02:18)
something like this happening, it's always sad. It's always bad. But there are certain people, you know, if this happens with some major, you know, mega church celebrity pastor or something like that, it doesn't come as much of a, it, it, tends to come as less of a shock as it, you know, I think then it does with, with Philippiancy here. I think the first thing's the first thing you said when I relayed this to you, Nathan was, ⁓ crying out loud. So I think.
I think we're getting, I think we're just, there's a weariness that's setting in with, with hearing, with hearing about these kinds of incidents. So, Yes.
Nathan (02:55)
Yeah, numbness. Numbness, think, is a word that the two of us used. ⁓ two...
Alright, well, so one of the things that is interesting that I'll be interesting to see is that one of the differences in this is that I don't know that he was under any duress or like somebody's like, I'm going to leak this unless you say, I don't know that there was the same, there wasn't an investigation that I'm aware of or any kind of, have you heard anything on this or did he just kind of...
come forward and say, hey, this is what's going on.
Cameron (03:27)
I haven't heard,
yeah, maybe new, yeah, new details may be coming to light. I'm not sure. As far as I can see, he came forward of his own accord and he said, I'm disqualified. I mean, I think a sticking point for a lot of people on this, when you want to get into the technicalities is eight years. So nearly a decade long affair of deception and all. It's, just, yeah. So that makes it especially difficult.
Nathan (03:44)
⁓ Yeah.
So
there's a... So I hate this. Also, as I immediately thought of that, I'm also glad he did it. Not the affair. That he came out and admitted it. It's what I wish Ravi would have done. It's what I wish a lot of other people would have owned up to it and taken the... ⁓
Cameron (04:08)
Right. Yeah.
Nathan (04:14)
So this doesn't justify any of it, but I can see how it needed to be done. It struck me as odd. mean, immediately where this is twisted, perhaps, but immediately where my mind went on this was, let's say that you're a well-known, well-recognized Christian leader and you're watching Bill Hybels, Ravi Zacharias. I mean, we could go down through the list and you're looking at the scandals of the sexual sin and you're watching them and in many
Cameron (04:21)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (04:44)
cases needing to make a moral condemnation of a comment on what they're doing while at the same time knowing you're involved in the like man that would be a miserable spot to live in and and when I said that you said something that one of the things that's interesting about sin is not that it's just brokenness but it's delusional as well say more about that
Cameron (04:56)
Right. Mm-hmm.
Sure. Yeah. So you, yeah, you'd mentioned, you know, if you were in some, somebody like Philippians shoes watching all of this and then, wouldn't this bring in some real inner conflict? And as I thought about it for a second, I thought, well, no, not necessarily. That's, that's the terrible nature of sin because it puts us out of touch with reality and brings us into a state of delusion as well. So if we, if we are so far gone at a certain point,
we begin, I mean, this is part of a basic aspect of being in bondage to anything. If you talk to somebody who's an addict, they are out of touch with reality. They no longer understand what is going on. so it's also one of the basic lines of thinking here is, yeah, but it's, it's different for me. I'm different. You know, the circumstances here are more complex. ⁓ That's the mental gymnastic that happens, but it happens, we do it.
Nathan (06:05)
Right, that's the wild...
Cameron (06:13)
We're really adept at justifying ourselves and doing that and rationalizing. So I think it's now, do I know that that's what he thought? Absolutely not. I'm not claiming that, but I'm saying it's perfectly possible to sit there and see other people, other people sin and think, ⁓ that's horrible. But I'm not like that. I mean, some people might, there might seem to be similarities, but people wouldn't understand. It's different for me.
Nathan (06:38)
Mm-hmm. It was instructive to me. I remember when I was a senior in college, I had a professor and there was just a small honors class and the professor came in and I don't even know why he said this to us, but he like put his hands on his head and he was just like, ⁓ he's like, he was so frustrated. He's like, I have a good friend and he's having an affair and he just told me he's going to leave his wife.
Cameron (06:40)
That's a real thing.
Nathan (07:03)
And the husband and wife had been his friends for a long time. He's like, this is so stupid. He's like, and I went to him and said, you are forfeiting. He's like, I couldn't have made it more logically and rationally clear why the choices that he was making are historically, philosophically, morally, like every, I threw the whole barge of arguments against him and it made no difference. He's like, he just can't see what he's doing here.
And, ⁓ and he wasn't arguing this in a particularly like religious or, or, you know, spiritual sense, wasn't using the word sin, but it was wild to like have somebody use. Cause, cause what we run into Cameron is we tend to think that smart people can't do dumb stuff. I said, well, this guy was a great writer. This guy was a good philosopher. This guy was a great preacher. As if being clever makes you moral.
Cameron (07:57)
Mm-hmm. That has, no, unfortunately there is no, there's no necessary connection between great ability, great capabilities, intellectual prowess and moral behavior at all. In fact, if you look into some of the most accomplished people in the world tend to be, this was a point that Walker Percy made in Lost in the Cosmos. says,
Nathan (07:58)
And that's just not
Cameron (08:25)
Yeah, it certainly seems that some of the most accomplished scientists and people out there, how is it that they are the most successful and also the most screwed up people in the world sometimes? We do have a tendency to conflate outward success with moral, with virtue. that's not, now I think something that's a little different here, Nathan, and we should talk a little bit about this, because I think you'll be real helpful here as well.
Nathan (08:35)
Mm-hmm. Or...
Cameron (08:53)
It's one thing if we're talking about Elon Musk, okay? We can point to the discrepancy between his personal life and what's going on there. He didn't write a book on grace. That's right. He didn't write what's so amazing about grace. He isn't known as a public minister and ambassador for Jesus. So that makes this more painful. And again, as you said, Nathan, it is refreshing to see somebody who's
Nathan (08:57)
yeah.
But he didn't write a book on grace.
Cameron (09:22)
coming forward and admitting it and not denying anything. That's a change and it's a good first step, but it's still, this is part of what makes this so painful. We're talking about a minister here.
Nathan (09:32)
Well, I mean, there's another,
yeah, there's another difference between doing that when you're 76 and 36. He's retired, he's made his money, his career, I mean.
I don't know. So I'm, yeah, I'm not.
Cameron (09:47)
He's
established. Yes, that is a salient factor. Of course, and it's fair to bring it up. Yeah, he is 76 years old and established, firmly established. I'm never going to write again. Yeah, you already wrote your bestsellers. But again, the response to that would, okay, but what is he supposed to say? Is he supposed to perpetrate some public book burning? don't know what yeah, what act would constitute of... ⁓
Nathan (10:06)
Yeah, right, no.
Cameron (10:14)
would make, I mean, there's no public kind of self-flagellation that will make this right.
Nathan (10:17)
Okay, so.
So, let's talk about that in second, because he did the right thing, which doesn't make anything better. So, it is a moral choice that doesn't have a pragmatic outworking, as far as I can envision, ⁓ but it's still the right thing to do. So, that's a category we don't often think through either.
Cameron (10:30)
That's a way to put it. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And another thing with bringing in here is that as of this recording, at least his wife has committed to remaining married to him. She's released her own statement. It's worth reading it. Yeah, it's worth reading by the way, but yes, essentially, and I'm not going to put any words in her mouth, but essentially saying I'm devastated, but I believe marriage is a sacred vow and a covenant. I'm, it's pretty, that's a ⁓
Nathan (10:54)
Yes, you wrote a statement. ⁓
I made a covenant.
Cameron (11:12)
very remarkable response, think, regardless of where you fall on this matter. So it's worth bringing that up as well. That's also a point here.
Nathan (11:24)
How, Cameron, do you trust church leaders or authors? Or do you?
Cameron (11:35)
Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think one way to put this, so this speaking as somebody who has experienced, who has been deceived like anybody else, but also has been deceived by a major figure and former employer as well. So that puts us both you and I, Nathan, in a little bit of a different category here. Although you look at most people who go through life, they experience their share of, I mean, this is a fallen world. You'll experience your share of betrayal and deception.
Sadly, just what happens. That being said, walking through life in a state of constant paranoia and suspicion is not a healthy frame of mind. So what I want to answer to you, Nathan, is that unless I have reason to distrust, I don't walk around being highly suspicious of
of Christian leaders necessarily. I don't. Now, I think we need to make some basic qualifications. Philip Yancey, and this is a very Nathan Rittenhouse point to make, so your friendship and influence have kind of rubbed off on me here, but Philip Yancey is a total stranger to me. So I can pick a book of Philip Yancey's up and enter into it in a good faith kind of contract thinking all things being equal.
Nathan (12:49)
Yes, I would have said that.
Cameron (13:00)
I assume this is a sincere work by a sincere Christian. I can appreciate the beauty of the writing and the profundity of the thought. But if Yancey turns out to not be the person I thought he was, it won't be earth shattering to me because after all, I don't know Philip Yancey. He's a stranger to me. So I want to keep that in mind. So the people who, the relationships that will have the most profound effect on my life, I want my life to
I want my social arrangements to be such that the people who exercise the most profound influence on me are people I actually know. So if I'm dealing with somebody in my own life who's a spiritual leader who I know, I'm close personal friends with, that sort of thing, if there's a fall there, it's going to affect me more deeply than it will if it's somebody who's an author whom I've never met. so by and large, I think this is a fallen world. think people make mistakes.
fame and success and notoriety are very, very dangerous things and many people don't handle them well. So those are qualifying matters, but I try not to walk around in a state of constant suspicion, where people are guilty until proven innocent. I think most of us would admit that's not a healthy frame of mind. It doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who are in that position because of what they've experienced. But yeah, I think that's a start to my answer to you.
Nathan (14:28)
No, that's good. Yeah, I'm sort of in the same... I don't want to become cynical to say, the only reason this person could have written a best-selling book is because they're shady. I'm not that ⁓ disenchanted with the world to say that the only way to be successful is if you're up to nefarious things and that it's categorically impossible to handle ⁓ success well. But Cameron, you and I have had the conversation that I said,
Cameron (14:29)
I'm curious about what you, what you'd say. Yeah.
Nathan (14:57)
You know, Cameron, perhaps one of God's greatest gifts to you would be for you to write a book that didn't become a bestseller until after you died.
Yeah, so there there is a little bit I guess there is a little bit in me of like man I So so here's a prayer that I have for myself and for other people that I know who are involved in all forms of ministry public like Lord Don't let me grow in success beyond the character that's required to handle that success And so that there is a way in which I think we can plead with the Lord to limit our influence Until we grow in the character that can handle
that as we go and most of the time that's why Philippians is a little bit of a shocker here is like okay I see it with the Josh Harris's and kind of the people who started the speaking tour when they're 19 years old and all that kind of thing ⁓ but but but there's that the other part of it is is that I you can learn from people without leaning on them and so there are people that you're going to read from that you're going to appreciate the ideas the way they put things together that pointed there are some very thoughtful theologians who aren't Christians
Cameron (15:58)
Hmm.
Nathan (16:09)
whose ability to pull themes out of the Old Testament and harmonize them with the way in which they're integrated in the New Testament passages are, when you look at it, you're like, hey, that's very helpful. Also, I'm not trying to pattern. So somebody who is, that's what I mean by learning from them rather than leaning on them. So the foundation of my faith is not in any individual. Now, I think there is an appropriate,
Cameron (16:09)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (16:37)
Level of pushing back to say yeah, but if the gospel doesn't actually make this type of change in these people's lives Can that be a counter argument? And yes, it is for sure, but it has to be balanced against I think the broader ⁓ element here of that my my faith is not in Christ because of a person other than Christ and so if there are other people who helped me in that way then as I move forward so ⁓ Yeah, I like that distinction between
learning from and leaning on.
Cameron (17:09)
Yeah, that's very helpful learning from leaning on. It's important to point out, I think, and a lot of people have, that if you look at the moral track record of the people in scripture, it's sobering. Because so, and in fact, are books, whole books have been devoted to this subject. So many people start off really, really well. Now this is true in general in life. So many people start off really, really well and end badly. The key...
The real aspiration for us as Christians, especially as we get older, I think Nathan, you and I can really feel this, is perseverance.
faithfulness, long-term faithfulness, because that's all too rare. I bring that up because if we're grounded in scripture and if this is part of what's nourishing our imagination, we'll see that God's word doesn't shrink from this subject, that people who start off serving Jesus often fall into bondage and sin and make terrible mistakes. The Bible doesn't sugarcoat it, doesn't try to hide from that.
It's one of the most encouraging aspects of scripture to me. would say that, can imagine that I am, but that it doesn't, that so many of the heroes in quotes are shown in such a poor light in scripture because it's just so unflinchingly honest. So yeah.
Nathan (18:30)
The other part of that though Cameron is that the biblical vision of
ending well is getting killed It's not retiring with the book deal in the house and the cruise it's the So it's Success is measured
Cameron (18:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But also,
it's worth pointing, this goes to your point as well, Nathan. In America, we're uniquely disposed to what sometimes is called guru culture. I've heard Sinclair Ferguson make this comment once. He was on a panel with Tim Keller, and they were being asked, do you do with people? How do you handle your success, basically? How do you handle it when people just want to do everything you do, read every book you read, and just...
hang on your every word. Sinclair Ferguson, who's got his beautiful Scottish brogue, just kind of said, you know, we're all living in Scotland. We don't have that, this kind of guru culture. You know, in my church, people just don't think I hung the moon. They don't like the way I dress. They don't think I'm that great. it was really, but it was because he was basically just saying, but what he was pointing to, and he's lived in the States and he's lived in Scotland, and it's true, that's often absent in Europe.
He was just pointing out that in America, we are inclined to think, this public figure is in a special category. This is my go-to Christian guy. When your real go-to Christian source should be God's word, first and foremost. It's not Philippiancy. Even if people will say, yeah, so many bad, you know, I've had bad experiences with churches where scripture was poorly used. And then somebody like a figure like Philippiancy or
Brennan Manning finally give me a vision of grace. I have come to see that as a somewhat problematic way of framing it. And some of you will have differences with me here. But if it's, and this is, maybe this is a whole separate podcast, Nathan, but there is a certain way of looking at this where you think there's such a broken category here that I need some of these other voices who are more safe.
than scripture in the church, because that's clouded with Christian culture. I need these kind of beautiful outsiders to help me. I've come to see that that is not a helpful way of framing it. still, and nothing's preventing you, even if you're in an unhealthy church environment, sadly those do happen. Nothing is preventing, mean, Nathan and are good Protestants, we would say this. Nothing's preventing you from picking up your own Bible, praying to the Lord to open your eyes.
and reading it for yourself and taking it to heart, regardless of what's been pounded from a pulpit. But you want your primary points of orientation to be God's word, not people who are ministers who have sold millions of books necessarily. That sounds a bit crude to put it like that, but I think you can hear the sympathy and the compassion in what I'm trying to say here.
Nathan (21:18)
But that-
Yeah,
but I think that there maybe is Cameron a desire to have a priest for a lot of people also. And so they are looking for it's one thing I think to say. ⁓
Cameron (21:44)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (21:50)
You know, open your scriptures, read, study, pray before the Lord. But the person who's grown up in the church and has been doing this and practicing this in their family and in their home and in their community does have a serious advantage over somebody who's coming to this for the first time, trying to make sense of what's going on in the Bible. ⁓ And so whether you do this in an orthodox or Catholic sense in which you desire to have a priest,
Cameron (22:11)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (22:18)
somebody who can lead you an intercessor, or you do it in the evangelical sense, in which you're looking for that author or guru to be that person for you. It's a bit of the same desire there, which can be healthy, think. There are definitely people who are called to be teachers and explainers. ⁓ But again, they become your guide. They guide you, they don't carry you, if that makes sense, in your spiritual growth and formation.
Cameron (22:44)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (22:48)
So, if somebody is carrying you and they fall, you fall with them. If somebody is guiding you and they fall, you avoid stepping on the slippery thing that tripped them up.
And so maybe that's my summarized answer.
Cameron (23:01)
very well said. And that means
Yes, I like that Nathan. If that's the case, you're still able to, some of the insights, some of the discoveries you may have made with somebody like Philippiancy remain then. You can hold onto those. They're not all summarily invalidated. If you've got a balanced perspective on
Nathan (23:30)
Well,
think of somebody that you love that ⁓ has dementia. Maybe your high school math teacher has dementia and they can't remember whatever. Does that mean that the law of cosines is invalid? Of course not. They pointed to something at a point in their life that you could independently validate and found to be useful that whenever somebody is teaching
and they're pointing beyond themselves. If somebody's teaching is pointing to themselves, like that's a problem. That's a cult. That's a... ⁓ And so, I say that and I believe that. But at the same point, I do believe there's a difference between your high school teacher getting dementia and forgetting the Pythagorean Theorem and somebody who is called to... I mean, when you look at Scripture, the qualifications for leadership are extremely high.
Integrity in the moral character and qualities that we want to have there So I'm I'm sort of arguing against myself here as I look at this biblically of saying There's a frustration here that Has to be dealt with by the Lord and you just say teachers will be held to a higher standard For sure, and so God knows God will judge and work all of this out. I can be disappointed. I can be frustrated
Cameron (24:34)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (25:01)
and the same time it doesn't undermine my faith.
Cameron (25:08)
That's well said. Sorry for a sad, this is, I think this is, this is a sad case and it's a sad podcast, but we hope that this is a hopeful kind of way of framing an ongoing issue. There's a lot more that can be, that can be said and perhaps more details will come to light. think it's worth bearing in mind that, you know, when something like this happens, especially if this was somebody who was
did was very meaningful to you in your life and keep them in your prayers. I think it's a thoroughly good thing to do to pray for Philippiansy and for his wife and for his family and for all of those involved. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.