Vanishing Grace, by Philip Yancey

First of all I want to thank Zondervan publishing for allowing me the chance to read an advance copy of this text. The book that I am reviewing will be released on October 21, 2014. You can pre-order it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or your local Christian Book Store.

This new title from Philip Yancey is a follow-up book to his title, “What’s so Amazing about Grace?” which he released years ago. At that time the Christian Church read with great interest his premise and concerns regarding “Grace” and how we find it amazing that God would extend “Grace” to a sinful people.

In this book Yancey states that when he sat down to write it, “I began with a concern that the church is failing in its mission to dispense grace to a world thirsty for it. More and more, surveys show, outsiders view Christians as bearers of bad news, not good news.”

Yancey starts with a premise that the church today for the most part is preaching a gospel that expresses doom and gloom. He feels that preaching is focused more on the condemnation of sinners and the travails of hell rather than expounding on the life changing aspect of grace in the lives of sinners.

He points out that when surveyed most Americans will say that they feel the church is filled with condemnation, intolerance and a set of moral values that are in contradiction to “the good life.” While all those items can be found in scripture and expounded upon to help a society see where it is failing it also needs to come with the message of hope, mercy and grace.

As a general point of his text he wants the church to learn ways to express the love of God to our culture in ways that can effect change to our views of moral depravity. As he stated above, the world is thirsty for grace! I would go so far as to say the world is thirsty for mercy as well.

As a society we know we are evil. We know that morally we are not the best that we can be. We know that we are failing. We don’t need to be punished week after week with concepts that we are dirty rotten sinners and deserve nothing but hell. All to often that is where sermons or evangelism in some churches stop. They don’t go on to extend the concept of mercy and grace, the concept of the forgiveness of sins.

Yancey believes that the society is hearing more often, you are unacceptable to a loving God who has no other desire than to extend judgment and condemn you to hell. But when we come with a message of God loves you and desires to see a change in your life for the better and to extend forgiveness and grace and mercy then people will respond because we give them a drink of what they are thirsty for. It doesn’t mean that we don’t express their need to put aside sin.

Jesus when he was with people would address very directly their sin. But then He would just as quickly provide healing for their illness, or a miracle of huge importance to a sinner such as restoring sight, or making the lame to walk. But in each case Jesus would also say to the individual, “Go and sin no more!”

Maybe the best way to sum up this book is to quote Yancey when he writes, “Our challenge as Jesus’ followers is to align ourselves with the true gospel, and to reclaim the force it has released to a world in desperate need.”

If you are curious about what Yancey believes is the “True Gospel” then you are going to want to pick up a copy of this book and give it a careful read. I know that you won’t be disappointed.