Popular Christian writer Philip Yancey has confessed to “a sinful affair with a married woman” that lasted eight years.
“I have failed morally and spiritually,” Yancey said in an email to Christianity Today (CT) published on Jan. 6. “I realize that my actions will disillusion readers who have previously trusted in my writing. Worst of all, my sin has brought dishonor to God. I am filled with remorse and repentance, and I have nothing to stand on except God’s mercy and grace.”
The 76-year-old author of “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” and “Where Is God When It Hurts?” said he would not share more details about the adultery out of concern for the privacy of the other family. Yancey said his actions “caused deep pain” for his wife, the other person’s husband and both families.
Yancey did not elaborate on the other woman’s relationship to him or whether she worked with him in any capacity.
“I grieve over the devastation I have caused,” Yancey wrote. “I am now focused on rebuilding trust and restoring my marriage.”
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The evangelical magazine also published a note from Yancey’s wife, Janet, provided by Yancey. The statement said she is devastated and feels deeply betrayed but is committed to maintaining their marriage.
Janet Yancey said she hoped she could forgive her husband, “despite my unfathomable trauma,” and asked for prayer.
Many of Yancey’s longtime readers reacted to the news online with horror and pain.
“This grieves my heart,” a Free Will Baptist pastor from Tennessee posted on X.
“I have no stones to throw, just a sinking sense of lament and sorrow,” a discipleship pastor at a nondenominational church in Missouri said. “The scourge of sin leaves such deep wounds. Lord have mercy.”
On Facebook, a Bible teacher in North Carolina posted a crying emoji and a broken heart emoji.
“The devil is a liar, man, and he’s coming after you,” the teacher said.
Yancey will retire
Yancey told CT, where he worked for decades as a columnist and editor at large, that he believes his sin has disqualified him from ministry. Now that he’s confessed, he will also retire.
At the time that CT published news of his confession, he was scheduled to speak at a church in California. Yancey was also working on another book — this one about writing. He has written more than 30 books, and 17 million copies of his work are currently in print.
John Armstrong, author of “Can a Fallen Pastor Be Restored?,” told The Roys Report (TRR) that Yancey’s confession and his decision to step away from ministry was admirable.
“The only thing that troubled me is he used the word ‘retired,’” Armstrong said. “Most retirees are still doing things, sometimes in the field that they worked in. I don’t think he left himself a loophole, but the word ‘retired’ was not a good choice.”
Armstrong said that after confession, it’s important that Christian leaders who have disqualified themselves from ministry take the time to address what happened, how it happened and patterns of behavior.
“I’m looking for not just honesty,” Armstrong said, “but accountability.”
Yancey told CT he is committed to professional counseling and an accountability program. He will no longer write, post on social media or speak publicly.
In 2023, Yancey announced he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He wrote that he was being forced to reckon with new limitations and think about his own mortality.
“My future is full of question marks,” he wrote at the time. “May I be a faithful steward of this latest chapter.”
Final books include memoir and work on 17th century poet
In the last few years, Yancey has published a well-regarded memoir and a book on the devotional poetry of John Donne.
Yancey said he hoped the 17th century poet, who wrote in England during a time of bubonic plague, would offer timeless wisdom on “how to live and how to die.” Donne had a conversion experience as a young man and wrote movingly about his love for God, as well as his sexual experiences.
Yancey wrote about sexual sin a few times himself. In 2016, nine years before he confessed to an extramarital affair, he published a piece on his blog about the proper Christian understanding of sex.
He said sex should point people to God and carries a “rumor of transcendence.” That spiritual potency is part of why sexual ethics are so important in Christian teaching, according to Yancey.
“This most human act hints at the nature of spiritual reality,” he wrote. “No amount of immediate pleasure can silence the nagging sense that naked intimacy should involve more than body parts.”
This article has been corrected to accurately report the date of a past writing by Yancey.
Daniel Silliman is senior reporter/editor at The Roys Report. He began his two decades in journalism covering crime in Atlanta and has since led major investigations into abuse and misconduct in Christian contexts. Daniel and his wife live in Johnson City, Tennessee.
131 Responses
Gary Gilley (in his review of “What’s So Amazing about Grace”, written at least 15 years ago) wrote:
“Yancey has a fundamental flaw that runs throughout all of his writings. He doesn’t always draw his thoughts and principles form Scripture. His sources are more likely to be [men and women], his own reasoning, and experience.
He surely quotes C.S. Lewis as often as the Apostle Paul or Jesus. This serious flaw of not basing his concepts squarely upon the Scriptures eventually leads Yancey astray. Yancey does not know the difference between tolerance and arrogance, between grace and license (a study of 1 Cor. 5 would be helpful to him), between boldness and harshness.
By Yancey’s definitions, John the Baptist and Elijah would be men of “ungrace”, but God did not seem to think so. Yancey also does not know the difference between ministering to sinners and condoning sinful lifestyles. Certainly Jesus loved and spent time with prostitutes, but he did so to call them to repentance, not to accept their way of living”.
…Bullseye!!! When appropriate, I am announcing to lifelong friends and associates to no longer refer to me as Christian. The word has so many meanings and usages that it is essentially meaningless. Further, I do not want to be seen in the company of many who have adopted the label. I am a follower of Jesus Christ to the extent I can discern what that means and discern what it asks of me, and those decisions will be based on my analysis, definition, and application. I’ll call that shot. I don’t need or want generic labels applied to me for which there are no commonly held definitions. I’ve just decided to be open and public about it. I find most people uncomfortable with the process. When I ask for a definition, a common answer is “Well, you know….” At times, I’ll let it drop at that point, since what they’ve really said to me is that they don’t know, and one can sense they’d rather move on and perhaps talk about the weather. But to some, I have replied that I actually don’t know, which is precisely why I posed the query in the first place…..please answer my question. Some folks appreciate being challenged on that escapist, oft used “you know” answer; others not so much, so one needs to proceed with grace.
When does this stuff start becoming simply comical? When do we stop pretending that these supposed Christian leaders are any different from anyone else, including the most militant atheist? When does this stuff start calling into question the reality of the whole ball of wax? As a former 50+ year believer, I have found great freedom is honestly admitting to myself, “This stuff just isn’t real. What calls itself Christianity has virtually nothing to do with the historical Jesus or what he was talking about. I’m through pretending.” I am by no means a non-theist, but I am through pretending there is any reality to the type of Christianity promoted by Yancey and his ilk or that he is or ever was in any sense a “Spirit-filled man of God.” He is, and always was, just another guy peddling his wares.
To all Christians: [Lance] “This stuff just isn’t real.”.
Rebuttal: A few years ago, at my former employer, a mega-corporation, a high level director made the exact same remark, that he found Christianity “isn’t real”. He said that he used to be a Lutheran pastor but felt continual guilt about something. He examined the behavior and statistics of non-Christians and concluded that they were better behaved than Christians (fewer divorce, crimes, abuses, tickets etc). So he left the pastorate and eventually ended up with a highly successful career. He said, “it isn’t real”.
This shook my faith because after that I had one of the hardest periods of my life. Among other ‘life curveballs’, I lost my job due to an abusive manager and my career hasn’t recovered. The words, “it isn’t real” kept echoing in my mind and I deeply regretted the time, energy, giving money, personal evangelism and mental focus spent in churchianity and away from my career. I firmly believe that pastors and ministry leaders should get secular jobs (1 Timothy 4:11-12).
But recently I realized that God’s hand has been on my life. Quite a few times, I was saved from physical death. He hasn’t rescued me like he promised, but when I realize that other events have happened in my life which are blessings, then I can see without a doubt, “It Is Real”. So I will say that you should examine your past life and try and see the Supernatural Hand of God at times and Providential Hand of God at other times on your life, and realize for yourself that it is real and that God is watching over you even when he doesn’t bless you with prosperity.
Correction: I just noticed that the wrong verse was quoted by mistake. The correct verse is 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12: “…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
When attending a main line Presbyterian church, I found they were reading Yancey, but when I read it it seemed same old, same old to me. I wanted something like Dennis Bennett. Many churches later, I now read Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible for Young and Old, by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut, that my grandmother used to teach me about Jesus. She was born in 1884. Of course I read lots of other books about the Old and New Testaments, but that one is the best, and it has a lot of pictures.
I think marriage is hard. People marry who are not suited for each other or they bring a lot of baggage into the marriage. Also it takes a lot of work. It can be destroyed by disasters. More power to anyone who can keep their vows through all the trials. God will help, and if we fail, he will help with that, too.
Yancey believed in grace, grace, grace……… “hyper-grace”—that emphasizes the unconditional love and forgiveness of God to the exclusion of other doctrines like repentance, confession of sin, or the necessity of moral effort. Proponents of this view believe that all sins (past, present, and future) are already forgiven, and that God’s grace completely replaces the need to follow laws or commandments to maintain a relationship with Him.
How hard is it going to be for him to truly from his heart repent.
1 cor 3.16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
Well, I’m not her but if I was his wife, I’d say bye bye along with half his assets. With all his book sales to date, I imagine even half will leave him well off. Tho’, I trust future sales will diminish.