By Tyler McKenzie
Ravi Zacharias.
Bill Hybels.
Robert Morris.
Reggie Joiner.
Michael Tait.
Carl Lentz.
Mike Bickle.
James McDonald.
Jerry Fallwell Jr.
Tullian Tchividjian.
… Just to name a few.
Philip Yancey extramarital affair: A sober test of faith, power, and grace
Tyler McKenzie reacts to news of the Philip Yancey extramarital affair with disappointment, anger, fear, and hope. He argues that public failures don’t disprove God’s power; they should drive humility, confession, and renewed dependence on grace.
Takeaways:
- The Philip Yancey extramarital affair invites honest self-examination and guarded hearts.
- Bringing sin into the light through confession is part of repentance and the path toward mercy.
- God’s transforming power is often most visible in the humbled and desperate—those who know they need grace.
And now, Philip Yancey … an eight-year extramarital affair. His wife wrote, “I made a sacred and binding marriage vow 55½ years ago, and I will not break that promise.” But she went on, “God grant me the grace to forgive also, despite my unfathomable trauma.” That was her response. I have shared my own below. If you can’t suffer it to read all four, skip to my last paragraph before moving on. It’s what I actually came to say.
I am really disappointed. For me, this one stung more. I have a stack of Yancey’s book What’s So Amazing About Grace in my office. When I was a freshman in college going through a time of significant spiritual renewal, this book spoke to me. Ever since, I’ve been in the habit of handing copies of it to people who need to feel the grace of God at a heart level. Yancey never seemed like a candidate for a public moral failure. If anything, he felt like the sort of guy you would send a failed Christian leader to afterwards for counsel, care, and help.
I am kinda angry. I recently got the chance to talk to Yancey in person about his memoir Where the Light Fell. In the book, he narrates the rigid, racist, fundamentalist brand of Christianity that raised him in the American South. His story of turning away from a Christianity marked by fear and fire to a Christianity marked by grace and love is one that I’ve shared with so many. Now it feels disingenuous. It’s another piece of ammunition for those attacking the vitality of the church. I was once asked by a skeptical friend, “If God’s power is real, how do so many leaders with so much knowledge, platform, and experience fall?” It’s a question worth grappling with. How much power is there really if guys with decades of exposure can have decade-long cover ups? I thought the Spirit bore fruit like self-control and faithfulness? I thought the Word of God was a double-edged sword that cuts and convicts? I thought the grace of God trains us to renounce worldly passions?
I am a little scared. The more I watch this happen in others, the more my main character energy turns into humility. I realize that my hero-complex is a myth and this could one day be me. Every once in a while when I’m scrolling Instagram, I’ll have a moment where I shudder thinking about what the algorithms already know about me. I’m not having an affair, but the algorithms are watching where my eyes linger a little longer than they should. They know what makes me laugh that probably shouldn’t. They know what stoke the fires of my outrage. They know who I hate. And they are recording all that activity in the “private” spaces online to weaponize against me. I wonder … if all that data was revealed today about you, would you be publicly shamed and disqualified? Even if you wouldn’t be, we should all recommit to guard our hearts against these forces who know us better than anyone and are using all that knowledge to distract, addict, and deform us.
I am still hopeful. Philip Yancey is 76 years old, what hope does he have now? He shared that he is self-imposing a disqualification from further ministry and writing. I respect this. I’ve seen many others who simply can’t step out of the spotlight. But isn’t his life now over in the aftermath of such a grand implosion? Well, not exactly. Perhaps, now he can truly begin living. “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” “No one who conceals transgressions will prosper, but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
When sinners bring that which has been shrouded in darkness out into the light, it begins to lose some of its power. Crazy thought … while we mourn the loss of Yancey’s integrity and voice, I wonder if God celebrates the return of a prodigal son?
I’m not sure how it works, but maybe this is the exact moment in the story where God puts the ring on his finger, the robe on his shoulders, and the sandals on his feet! While we all stand in disgust, the Father shouts, “Kill the fattened calf! He’s alive, not dead. He’s found, not lost. He’s my son!”
It seems our Prodigal God lavishes the riches of his transforming grace most on his lost children with broken wills. That’s why to anyone, like my friend who uses failures like Yancey’s to question God’s power, I point to the transformations that I see firsthand every week. For every example where we can say, “If God was powerful, how could he ever fall?”, there are many others where we can say, “If God isn’t powerful, how could he ever stand?” It is my observation, from both Scripture and my life, that God’s power is unleashed in the most profound ways on those who are at rock bottom and know it. He blesses the poor, the hungry, and the weeping. He blesses the poor in spirit, the mourners, and the meek. He seeks and saves the lost. He doctors the sick. He runs to and restores the rebel.
The public failure of famous Christians doesn’t prove that God’s power isn’t real. Instead, it reveals to us where we should and shouldn’t expect to find the most remarkable displays of God’s power. Maybe the reason why those at rock bottom are able to experience so much of his power is because they are so desperate for it. And maybe the reason why us at the top are able to evade it is because we are not. Selah.
Author: Christian Standard
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Excellent thoughts! My feeling is that Yancey would not have gone public with this confession unless he sought his wife’s forgiveness, and Gods. As he repents and seeks both, God the loving Father welcomes him with open arms. Will there be pain and consequences? Certainly. But also renewal.
People are not puppets that God manipulates. People make their own choices. If people are listening to God, they make God-honoring choices. That’s where God’s power is manifested — in the God-honoring choices.
The sad part is the damage done to the church that often can never be recovered.
I must admit that I live in this world but am not of it. I don’t care who Philip Yancey USED to be one little bit, but who Philip Yancey IS must be what God sees. If I look even a little bit and he is a changed man, how is he any different than I? I can judge a sin as sin but my life labels me a Dalmatian. I wear as many spots as that dog. God loves me, some people hate me, but I am a sinner, have told God and am now blameless of any of those spots I wear. Others may see spots before their eyes, but God doesn’t now. The beauty of God’s grace is that it doesn’t depend on popular opinion or change with time. All I needed to do is repent to Christ and accept that grace, be obedient and go on to learn and tell others of that grace and love. My redemption doesn’t depend on the grace of others.
Thank you for this! I say a hardy Amen! Sadly, too many of my pastors and mentors have fallen off of their pedestal through the years. One thing I have learned…it doesn’t always negate the truth they spoke. Yancy’s book is still a profound testament to God’s grace and a Truth many people need and long to hear! And wonder of wonders…we now all know it applies to him, as well! I hope he goes back and reads it and reclaims those truths for himself.
Good words. Thank you. So much of our American Christianity has robbed itself of grace. We forget where we all came from.
I’d like to see a book by Yancey and his wife about restoration and being truly all that God intends.
From Philip Yankey’s public statement:
“I have confessed my sin before God and my wife, and have committed myself to a professional counseling and accountability program.”
He could have omitted it. But there is no mention of a church that he belongs to or church leadership that he has submitted to. I hope that he is a member of congregation and that he has an accountability structure that can support him.
I’m sorry… why is one victim named in your list of predators?!
One additional concern I want to name is how quickly these narratives can center a leader’s potential redemption while minimizing the very real pain inflicted on others. True repentance is not measured by how compelling a comeback story is, but by ownership, appropriate consequences, and a re-centering of care around those who were harmed—not the restoration of a platform.
Language matters because it shapes whose suffering is prioritized. If the church wants to be a place of healing rather than retraumatization, we must tell the truth clearly about power, abuse, and impact—even when doing so disrupts redemptive narratives we’d rather celebrate.
The ministry is such a sacred trust. I have lingered, as well. Most honest preachers would admit to this. I believe it was Bob Russell who said, ‘99% of all men have a problem with lust. The other 1% has a problem with lying.’ But for the grace of God, there go we.
Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden and they still took what was forbidden.
Why are we surprised when people fall?
I like how you have put this.
I feel mostly for his wife, he made terrible choices for tears, choices that will completely question everything about him and their marriage. Betrayal is one of the hardest things to recover from.
Keep handing out those books. The words contained within can still be used to help others. Current situations do not negate the good his writings have done in the lives of many, yours included, and still can do. What’s so amazing about grace? That it’s available to everyone, including someone who wrote a book about it.