Monday, August 27, 2007

Philip Yancey: Where are you?

Yesterday I quoted Rabbi Abraham Herschel in my sermon, a neat quote that went like this: "Faith like Job's cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken." I got the quote from Philip Yancey's book, Disappointment with God.

One of my hearers was Prof. John Goldingay, who teaches OT at Fuller and has written a similar kind of book on tough times entitled Walk On. He really liked the quote and, unbeknownst to me, went home and tried to look up its source.

This morning he informed me that he couldn't find a source for it, since Yancey doesn't list one and a Google search was not fruitful. Dr. John thinks it's maybe an urban legend. This got me curious too. So I went to philipyancey.com to see if I could contact him, but it's just a dummy address for the publisher. I also checked Christianity Today, since he's an editor for them (or was?), but they don't have an email listed. Makes sense - but I have a real question, not a fan letter.

So we were contemplating who I might know who'd know Yancey, and then J suggested that instead I post here that I am looking for either the source of the quote (since I know some of you RabbITs read this) (that's rabbi-in-training, my friend Gary's self-description) and/or a contact email for Yancey, so that I can ask him where he got it.

It's possible it's from a lecture or something, but then why not cite the lecture? Very curious. I'm not proposing that he made it up, I just would like to know where it comes from.

So if anybody knows the quote in another context and can source it for me, that would be awesome. Otherwise, I'll keep trying to get in touch with Yancey to see if he remembers where it's from. Since I would like to put the sermon up on here, I want to properly cite the quote.

Thanks, guys!

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