{"id":15700,"date":"2026-01-08T03:11:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=15700"},"modified":"2026-01-08T03:11:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:11:38","slug":"philip-yancey-steps-down-from-ministry-after-revealing-long-term-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=15700","title":{"rendered":"Philip Yancey steps down from ministry after revealing long-term affair"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Philip Yancey<\/span><\/p>\n

Renowned Christian author Philip Yancey has announced that he will withdraw from public ministry, following the revelation of a long-term extramarital affair.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yancey, the author of\u00a0What\u2019s So Amazing About Grace?<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Jesus I Never Knew<\/em>, has been married to his wife, Janet, for 55 years and has been a prominent voice in evangelical publishing for decades.<\/p>\n

The disclosure was made in a statement to Christianity Today<\/em>, the US magazine Yancey has contributed to since the early days of Campus Life in 1971.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his remarks, he admitted that \u201cto my great shame, I confess that for eight years I wilfully engaged in a sinful affair with a married woman\u201d, adding that he had \u201cconfessed my sin before God and my wife, and have committed myself to a professional counselling and accountability programme\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yancey apologised to his readership and noted the conflict between his conduct and the moral convictions expressed throughout his work. He said that he had \u201cfailed morally and spiritually, and I grieve over the devastation I have caused\u201d, acknowledging that his actions \u201cwill disillusion readers who have previously trusted in my writing\u201d.<\/p>\n

He further reflected that \u201cworst of all, my sin has brought dishonour to God\u201d, describing himself as \u201cfilled with remorse and repentance\u201d and declaring that he has \u201cnothing to stand on except God\u2019s mercy and grace\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As part of his withdrawal from public life, Yancey has stepped down from speaking and ministry engagements and has also deleted his social media accounts. He concluded his statement by saying, \u201cI need to spend my remaining years living up to the words I have already written.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yancey\u2019s wife, Janet, also released a statement to\u00a0Christianity Today<\/em>\u00a0in response to the disclosure. She spoke of being \u201cin a place of trauma and devastation that only people who have lived through betrayal can understand\u201d, yet affirmed that she had made \u201ca sacred and binding marriage vow 55\u00bd years ago, and I will not break that promise\u201d.<\/p>\n

Janet, who has been acting as her husband\u2019s carer since his Parkinson\u2019s diagnosis in 2023, expressed her Christian belief in the possibility of forgiveness, writing that she \u201caccept and understand that God through Jesus has paid for and forgiven the sins of the world, including Philip\u2019s\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, she noted the personal difficulty of processing the betrayal, saying, \u201cGod grant me the grace to forgive also, despite my unfathomable trauma,\u201d and concluded with a request that readers and believers \u201cplease pray for us\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philip Yancey Renowned Christian author Philip Yancey has announced that he will withdraw from public ministry, following the revelation of a long-term extramarital affair.\u00a0 Yancey, the author of\u00a0What\u2019s So Amazing About Grace?\u00a0and\u00a0The Jesus I Never Knew, has been married to his wife, Janet, for 55 years and has been a prominent voice in evangelical publishing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[3853,2284,1108,4165,4781,1281,4780],"class_list":["post-15700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-affair","tag-longterm","tag-ministry","tag-philip","tag-revealing","tag-steps","tag-yancey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}