There is an interesting interview with Philip Yancy on the Christian Post site, mainly introducing his new book “What good is God?”, but there is also some nice insight about him as well:

Philip Yancey grew up in a strict, fundamentalist church in the Deep South.

He spent most of his early life in a bubble, attending a Bible college that in hindsight seems like “an island fortress against the outside world, one with its own private culture.” Even the Sixties’ sexual revolution did not penetrate the college’s sealed environment, he says.

The school’s list of forbidden activities included dancing, playing cards, skating at public rinks and movies, among others. Students could only play music “consistent with a Christian testimony;” women’s skirts were measured; and men could not grow a beard or moustache.

He went through a period of reacting against everything he was taught and later realized that “God had been misrepresented” to him.

Since then Yancey has explored some of the most basic questions of the Christian faith with a worldwide audience. His popular books include Disappointment with God and Where is God When it Hurts. His newest book explores the question “What good is God?”

It really is worth a read – find the full interview here.

Photo by Randal Olsson – copied from the Christian Post site.