What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey (Review)
I almost stopped reading What’s So Amazing About Grace? shortly after I started. I was initially hoping for a book that was more of a theological primer on grace. Yet right in the introduction, Philip Yancey explained that his book is most certainly not a theological primer. Despite the split in expectations, Yancey’s book was excellent. There are many anecdotes from his life and a number of varied stories all connecting to grace. The result was not only an enjoyable read but also an insightful one.
Here are some of my observations from What’s So Amazing About Grace?
Yancey used the story of Babette’s Feast to demonstrate the example of grace by the giver. Babette gave all she had—10,000 francs—to bestow a feast upon the tiny community. Grace always costs its giver something, and this element is too easily overlooked and taken for granted. To do so treats poorly the grace that God offers through Jesus.
Yancey defines “grace” as follows: “Grace means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and nothing I can do to make God love me less. It means that I, even I who deserve the opposite, am invited to take my place at the table in God's family.”
Yancey discussed a weekend event he helped facilitate to build community between a group of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. A Jewish representative commented: “I believe we Jews have a lot to learn from you Christians about forgiveness. I see no other way around some of the logjams [between reconciling our groups]. And yet it seems so unfair, to forgive injustice. I am caught between forgiveness and justice.”
Yancey observed that Christians are too often like the exterminator who sprays poison at the insects rather than winning people over as by dispensing the perfume of fragrant grace. I think for many non-Christians, this assessment is correct.
Yancey made a comment I haven’t heard before: “the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.” I don’t know that I would have answered, “what is the opposite of sin?” with the answer of grace. It’s far too easy to fall into the legalism trap that virtue is the right answer when it’s only God’s grace that overcomes sin. This idea is central to living in freedom and not according to rules. The challenging corollary of this freedom is you can’t just follow the rules. Living by the Spirit means being open to His guidance.
The chapter on politics felt like it could have been written today instead of the 90s—startlingly so. Yancey wrote, “The church has allowed itself to get so swept up in political issues that it plays by the rules of power, which are rules of un-grace. In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square.”
It is this final point on politics where I give my strongest endorsement of What’s So Amazing About Grace? Any Christians who have an interest in politics should place this book at the top of their reading lists. The most recent election cycle has been shockingly harmful to the reputation of Christians among non-Christians. Yancey’s book places politics in the right focus, and—for that—I give What’s So Amazing About Grace? a full endorsement. Even though this book was not what I expected, I am incredibly pleased I did. What’s So Amazing is a quick and enjoyable read, and it is one I expect to recommend to others in the future.
