What's So Amazing About Grace?

Yancey's just slightly ahead of his time. In 1997 he realizes there's a sickness at the heart of American Fundamentalism's soul, even if he misdiagnoses a vicious pneumonia as a cold. Unlike Gabe Lyons (unChristian) writing several years later, Yancey's honest enough to know that what the cult needs is more than a better PR job. He is even honest enough to allow that Fundamentalism's approach to belief may not be perfect, a difficult assertion for a member of a movement that values obedience to authority above all else to make. He sees so clearly... up to a point, and then, Yancey goes completely blind again. He's happy to question how religious leaders have used and abused God language, happy to note some of the missteps of show more Fundamentalism, but utterly unable to even begin to question the rotted core of Fundamentalist belief. Yancey, for example, can understand that a gay friend is hurt by self righteous Fundamentalists telling him he's going to hell and his sins are unforgivable. Still Yancey will not even for a nanosecond allow himself to wonder if maybe Fundamentalism is known by its fruits, and if its fruits are hatred and bigotry it might be time to pause and reflect. Yancey is quick to tell us that ultimately, he too, has to consign his friend to hell. Realizing that the word "love" has become diminished and exhausted through misuse and overuse, Yancey cleverly suggests that faith be reviewed using the relatively unadulterated word "grace." If only he, or some other Fundamentalist, would go one step further and examine their own beliefs in a new light instead of simply crafting a convenient, non-threatening, definition of grace that reinforces a misguided and unhaopoy set of religious ideas. show less

This is a quite amazing book, one I would recommend to all Christians whatever their background, and to anyone who's interested in knowing about Christianity, or indeed anyone who's been hurt by Christians.

The book's been criticised by fundamentalists; not surprisingly perhaps since Yancey grew up fundamentalist - and racist - himself. But now he accepts that God is found in many places and people, and can be part of all denominations whether Protestant, Orthodox or Catholic. His writing makes such intuitive sense, and is so well expressed, that I find it hard to see how anyone could disagree with it. This is how the church should be, and it's a massive challenge for the 21st century where Christianity is more often associated with show more anger and critisism than with compassion and grace.

Re-read eight years later, and still found it powerful, even if a little over-political in places. show less

In this book, Philip Yancey explores the concept of grace. He does a very good job and this book brought me to tears. It brought me back to my personal reckoning with grace was after see Les Miserables and Yancey discusses this in the book. Yancey discusses how forgiving the guilty really frees the forgiver. So true.

Thought-provoking. I don't agree with everything he said. The author's recent revelation of adultery taints things a bit. But there's some thought-provoking stuff to chew on in this book.

I read this in conjunction with the video series and study at church. I found the concept of the book excellent, challenging and helpful, but as a non-American a generation younger than Philip Yancey, parts of it seemed a bit time and culture-specific. I thought he was best on the personal and inter-personal level; the sections about nations discovering grace felt superficial and unconvincing and the parts about the church and politics (and the slight blurring of the falling of the Iron Curtain with salvation) again probably speak more to Americans than to me.

My favourite idea is a quotation from CS Lewis about the concept of loving the sinner while hating the sin: we have felt this way about ourselves all our life: "There had never show more been the slightest difficulty about it. ... Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things." show less

A wonderful reflection on what grace is, how it seems to be lacking in some churches, and how it appears in the most unexpected places.

Yancey provides lots of great anecdotes on the way to illustrate his points; some of them moved me to tears. He has a wonderful vision of what the church could and should be, and the realism to know what it all too often is.

I once read Brennan Manning's "Ragamuffin Gospel" several years ago and thought it was the best book ever written that best captures and defines the very essence of grace. While it still remains one of my all-time favorite books, "What's So Amazing About Grace?" stands right next to it. Yancey never disappoints with his raw grit stories and life-changing quotes. He tells like it is, and in many cases may make many Christians uncomfortable. Yancey tells of many true-life stories of what grace looks like in the real world. On the other hand, he also tells of many stories of what the other side of grace looks like, he calls "ungrace". Sadly, this "ungrace" comes from many who call themselves evangelical Christian. Fortunately, ungrace show more doesn't have to be the way it remains. Many Christians have shown grace and continue to live it and act it out in ways that have changed the world and continue to do so today. At the conclusion of this book, Yancey summarizes what grace should look like. I highly recommend this book to those who have bad taste of Christians in their mouth, and to those of us who need a reminder of what Jesus exemplified and how we ought to be living like... through the eyes of grace.

Some of my favorite quotes from this book:

Grace does not depend on what we have done for God but rather what God has done for us.

Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.

Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it and I am one of those people.

There is perhaps no one of natural passions so hard to subdue as pride... Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility. (Benjamin Franklin)

Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude.

Some of us seem so anxious about avoiding hell that we forget to celebrate our journey toward heaven.

Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. And, grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. (C.S. Lewis)

If everyone followed the "eye for an eye" principle of justice, eventually the whole world would go blind. (Mohandas Gandhi)

Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. (MLK Jr.)

Law merely indicated the sickness; grace brought about the cure.

Our real challenge should not be to Christianize the United States but rather to strive to be Christ's church in an increasingly hostile world.

Moralism apart from grace solves little.

Of one hundred men, one will read the Bible; the ninety-nine will read the Christian. (D.L. Moody)

A grace-full Christian is one who looks at the world through "grace-tinted lenses". show less