Amazing Grace

It's a long story, but then most novels are. I  won't bore you with the background of Romey's Place; but I will say this: in it's first draft, that novel ended in a cemetery in the Netherlands, where the protagonist bawls in exasperation and anger at the grave of his father, who had suffered a massive heart attack, in Holland, a long distance from home. Romey's Place was no "feel good-er." It had been rejected by some of New York's finest, who were kind but unanimous in their assessment that it wasn't quite what their list was after. I was in a pickle unlike anything I'd ever been in.

I was in the Amsterdam for a three-week Dutch Semester through the college where I taught, and it was great. Loved it. I'd taken two books along to read because both were real winners with the evangelical world I was in at the time. One was A Vocabulary about Grace, by Kathleen Norris, whose personal story in Dakota: A Spiritual Geography attracted me--most of her life lived far, far away from her grandmother's place in far northwestern South Dakota. I read her Vocabulary in the Netherlands. Loved it, too.

The other was a book whose author I'd come to know personally but not well, a young-ish non-fiction writer who'd scored well with some other titles, but really hit the big time with What's So Amazing about Grace? Loved it, too. 

Those two books about grace were so convincing that when I left the Netherlands and came back home, I had determined the first draft's old cemetery climax missed the point because too much of Romey's Place was about grace, not rage. When I get back, I told myself, I was going to write that novel over again, changing to first person and dumping the Dutch graveyard. 

If you stay up on the evangelical news, you know where this is going.

Last week, Christianity Today announced what Philip Yancey--What's-so-Amazing-about Grace-Philip Yancey--asked them to, I'm sure. You can read there what both he and Janet, his wife, offer in explanation. It's news that soured hundreds of thousands of readers, like me, men and women who were wonderfully arrested by that book and the steady stream of more and similar headliners he's turned out since.  

Philip Yancey told me and others once upon a time that he was getting tired of doing the same thing over and over, regaling evangelicals for having lost its way, illustrating that very point with the heart-felt stories of Christians who haven't. If you're looking for a score, think of him this way: conservative in his appraisal of the basics of Christianity, but progressive with respect to contemporary issues. 

Yancey hails from a Southern family steeped in the world of Sunday school and Bible camps, a family that carried with it the notion that Martin Luther King was a political agitator and integration was not at all biblical. His own Damascus Road experiences had to do with walking away from the cultural values that still haunt America's evangelicals, especially its Southern crowd. I remember him confessing his frustration with writing books, one after another, that criticized sharply his most loyal readers. I remember him telling me he wished he could write fiction. 

I'm guessing, right now, some might well assume that all those books about grace were hollow because of his illicit relationship with a woman other than his wife, a woman who was herself married. 

The last time I saw him, he stopped me in the Denver airport, he and Janet on their way to some speaking engagement, if I remember correctly. But I can't say I knew him, knew the persona his work created for him, of course, but not him. I'm shocked and saddened by what happened, but--just shoot me!--much more sad about his Parkinson's, announced some time ago. 

I can't help but think of it this way: Phillip Yancey, a fallen servant of the Lord, knows better than most what's so amazing about grace. What he's forgotten, I'm sure a forgiving Lord will remind him in a way He likely hadn't before.

Tonight, at prayer time, I will remember him and Janet--and the others affected by his fall from grace.

Years ago--I think I was in college then--my mother called me and told me--tearfully, I remember--that a preacher in town had run off with the organist. It's a cliche, I know.

The thing was, this sinner wasn't our pastor. He preached at another church in town, not hers, not ours. I didn't even know the guy, and I'm not sure she did either. 

She cried, and when I asked her why, she just said for what his sin told the whole community of believers. For her, it was a disaster to see one of the righteous fall. She was right, I'm sure. 

But I will not forget that I have Philip Yancey to thank for teaching me more about what's so amazing about grace. I'm sure Philip can learn once again, as we all can and must.