Christine Scheller: What Good Is God? seems like a different book to me than your previous books. I don’t recall you ever doing a collection of speeches with commentary before.
Philip Yancey: I couldn’t find a model of a book that had combined journalism and related speeches in context. So, it may be a different book, period.
Christine Scheller: How did you come up with the idea?
Philip Yancey: It came about after my wife Janet and I were involved in the Mumbai situation that I wrote about in the last chapter. I was scheduled to speak downtown the night of the terrorist attacks in which 175 people died. Our meeting was canceled, of course. Instead, a smaller group of people spontaneously came together in a church and asked me to speak to them. I looked out over that shocked and grieving audience—what could I say?
It was such a traumatic experience. When we left, I realized that I’ve been in all sorts of interesting situations. It actually reflects what has happened to my career apart from my desires. I feel most comfortable as a journalist taking notes, interviewing people and writing. I’ve done it for so long and have had so many books published that people started seeing me as a content person, as someone who could guide them. This was an identity crisis for me about ten years ago. One way I resolved it was to accept overseas assignments, because I just don’t like the celebrity culture in the United States. Internationally, people are very grateful to have someone come and speak. Because of the conditions in the places I visit, I generally don’t feel like I’m being pampered. So, it seemed like a healthier way to handle the success I’ve found in writing. …