Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?

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Summary: An intelligently written, stimulating defense of the gospel
Review: Are you one of the many people searching for more signs of heaven here on earth? In Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey, the prolific writer of Christian non-fiction, aims to help readers grasp the reality of the heavenly kingdom ruled by God.

Yancey offers a contemplative, intelligently written commentary of the tensions between the spiritual and the physical, heaven and earth, good and evil, the seen and the unseen, and faith and unbelief. The book flows steadily as Yancey cogently addresses topics that fall into three main categories: 1) What are We Missing? 2) Signs of Disorder, and 3) Two Worlds.

According to Yancey's note, he writes this book for people who live in the borderlands between belief and doubt. In the book, Yancey thinks aloud to answer questions such as "Is the visible world around us all there is?"

Yancey describes himself as being, at times, a "reluctant Christian, buffeted by doubts and 'in recovery' from bad church encounters." For himself and the readers, he explains why he believes in Jesus and the invisible spiritual realm.

I have not read a contemporary Christian writer that incorporates such a plethora of references as Yancey does in this book. Highlights include quotes by C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Milton, T.S. Eliot, Einstein, William James, Blaise Pascal, and many more poets, philosophers, authors and saints.

Perhaps the most effective reference covers several pages devoted to the story of John Merrick, the Elephant Man. Yancey discusses Ashley Montagu's poignant book, The Elephant Man, illustrating how Merrick remained a gentle, compassionate human despite the brutal treatment he received at the hands of most of the people he encountered during his brief life. Yancey uses the story to show how heaven reveals itself in the most unusual places, where we least expect to witness the divine. Yancey emphasizes other points by interspersing similar analogies throughout the book.

Yancey draws on his experiences in nature from around the globe, his interactions with people in the United States and other countries, and his positive and negative interactions in churches. These stories combined with the many references serve to elucidate Christian perspectives on day-to-day activities and on spiritual conundrums. One of the most intriguing chapters compares the world's versus the Christian's attitude toward sex, and another looks at the conflicting ideas of the "good life."

Although the book fails to deliver a crescendo, it coherently provides logical reasons to believe in the substance of the Christian worldview and, most importantly, in the presence of a loving and caring God.

I think Yancey's writing is a gift to modern readers so that we might see past the titillating distractions of our world to the eternal spiritual realm. Yancey draws from many impressive thinkers to articulate a persuasive defense of the gospel. This book is ideal for the skeptic and the fundamentalist, as it serves to strengthen a reader's faith and to soften his or her heart.

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Summary: Penetrating the "incognito"
Review: The always-loved C.S. Lewis once wrote:
"We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate. The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact to come awake. Still more to remain awake".
This book will help you to understand those "signs" of the incognito that we struggle to interpret. Philip Yancey extends an invitation to penetrate some of the riddles or "rumors" of the supernatural world and their meaning for our life. He tosses a call to remain awake and access the presence of God on this earth.

"Rumors" is Yancey at his best style. His thinking is lucid and profound, and his analyses are thought provoking and rich in meanings. As usual, he is fond of a big range of authors and thinkers that helps him to explain insightful ideas and offer examples in accessible terms. He is honest, direct and practical. He has really something to say to understand the interaction between the physical and the spiritual (metaphysical) worlds as proposed by Christianity, especially to the people who, like him, are not afraid of doubts.

The author offers three main discussions in this book:

1) The world we inhabit and what we're missing. What rumors of another world it might covey? He discusses the "sacramental" view of life (where natural and supernatural coexist in one world) on subjects as nature, every day life, and sex (a must read chapter).
2) The apparent contradictions: why doesn't this world look like God's world? Bright analyses of sin (as a backhand proof of God's existence) and of guilt (as a gift from God).
3) The interaction of both natural and supernatural worlds: the meaning for our lives, how to practice that existence of God in a modern world (money, death, moral failures, among others).

If you're already familiar with Yancey's work, this book won't let you down -he keeps raising the bar. If you want to read him for the first time, this is a good place to start. In any case, know that you will soon find yourself captivated by one of today's most suggestive and thought stimulating Christian writers.

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Summary: i love books written by philip yancy
Review: I have read 2 other books by Mr. Yancy. When reading his books I usually read a few pages and then stop and think about his words-- they are both profound and simple at the same time. He speaks clearly to Christians who want to have a strong faith in Christ and at the same time struggle with doubts and questions.I would read anything that he has written , and was very excited when this new book came out. I highly recommend it.

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Summary: Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?
Review: The spiritual world is not obvious, and God does not force anyone to believe in God. There are, however, clues, or "rumors," as author and editor Yancey calls them, to the spiritual all around us. We simply need to be attentive to them. Yancey (What's So Amazing About Grace?; Where Is God When It Hurts?) aims to help readers, especially those who are not religious but suspect that the spiritual exists, to tune into the rumors. Some are familiar, such as the complexity of living beings or the beauty of nature. Others are not so quickly associated with the spiritual, such as sexual pleasure. Yancey makes it clear, especially to those on the "borderlands" of faith, that these and many other rumors are all indications of the spiritual world. His skill as an award-winning author is evident throughout this engaging volume. Highly recommended, especially for collections of Christian inspirational reading

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Summary: Believe the Rumors
Review: In a world full of lust and greed, in a culture fed by media ideals, life seems to be more hurried and confusing. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't technology relieve our load? Shouldn't tolerance eradicate war and conflict?

Yancey refuses to back away from life's tough issues. Tackling them from an intellectual perspective, he doesn't offer easy answers. Yancey writes clearly and with well-managed words. He pulls back the curtain to reveal his own weaknesses and struggles. Along the way, he tunes our ears to the hints and rumors of a world to come. He puts thing in perspective. Pointing to the very restlessness of man's soul, Yancey offers hope in the belief of a second reality, a spiritual reality. He suggests that we are caught in a tension between two worlds--the temporal and eternal.

I'm impressed by Yancey's usage of historical snippets and recent research to turn up the volume of these spiritual rumors. Like C.S. Lewis before him, Yancey helps us face the evidence of a God who has created us with a purpose and a destination. Mere Christianity is all about learning to see how this life coincides with the one to come. After reading Yancey, I'm inclined to believe the rumors.

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Summary: Yancey meanders casually before delivering yet again.
Review: Reading a Yancey book is always an enjoyable experience for me, because of the conversational tones and quiet and unassuming, yet consistently convicting, insights he reveals. This time around my first impression was that he had missed the mark, a follow up read to finish the book months later gave me an entirely different perspective.

I was originally not impressed with the first several chapters, because while it was insightful as always, it was missing the emotional connection of his previous works, and I felt as though I had "heard this all before". The premise is his delve into the dichotomy of the two worlds Christians live in: one the physical world, a world full of desires, and fleeting and ultimately unimportant wants, and the other a spiritual world where we place our sights on things of immeasurable value from an eternal perspective. Obviously, this is not a new topic, but he looks closely in his usual unique perspective, at the various ways the things we encounter everyday reflect this dichotomy. While interesting, it didn't hit on any emotional cylinders for me, and so I put the book down and moved on without finishing.

Months later, after unpacking from a move, I found the book, and threw it my suitcase to finish on a plane. I picked it up in Chapter 12, where he looks into the life of the famous "Elephant Man". So powerful is the imagery and the contrast between the grotesque outward appearance and horrific treatment he endured and the rich, simple, and deeply loving personality of this man, that the message hit home. How do we "see" that which is real, behind or between the exterior illusions? From then on the book hit wonderful chords and sparked yet again the wonder and soul inspiring visionary impact Yancey is known for.

I quickly read the book again, and the pieces came together. Like all of his work, Yancey creates emotional imagery by juxtaposing a variety of source material and overlaying it on a theme. One powerful illustration was how he feels when returning to "home" after a trip out in the wilderness or to a foreign exotic location: "The first day back, modern culture betrays itself as a self-evident lie, a grotesque parody of the day to day life I know. The next day my reactions moderate. A few days later I am breathing the air of lust, consumerism, selfishness and ambition, and it seems normal". This is a wonderful glimpse at the way the current world obscures the spiritual.

Yancey delivers yet again. Highly recommended, even if you have to start with chapter 12 as I did to get to the heart of the issue. Keep writing Phillip, but perhaps look closer at editing, your work is too good to be discarded by too casual an entrance to such an important subject.

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Summary: A Compelling Work with an Abundance of Information
Review: Bestselling author Philip Yancey writes that he penned RUMORS OF ANOTHER WORLD to reflect on what he would say if asked to explain his faith to an unbeliever. But he admits, "I wrote it not so much to convince anyone else as to think out loud in hopes of coming to terms with my own faith," and indeed this book invites Christians as well as unbelievers to look at faith in a fresh way.

For Yancey, the great divide separating belief and unbelief can be reduced to one question: Is the visible world around us all there is? Those unsure of the answer, he writes, are in the "borderlands of belief" --- a place between doubt and faith --- a term he credits writer Mark Buchanan with coining. Yancey sets out to explain why he believes that there is indeed an unseen world, invisible and supernatural. "What are we missing? What do we not see, for lack of imagination or faith?"

To find out what he was missing, Yancey began to listen to his own longings and desires, tracing "dispersed clues (or rumors) to their original source and significance." Then, he opened his heart to the invisible world and experienced what he calls his second conversion: rediscovering the natural world from a new viewpoint. Through classical music, the beauties of nature and romantic love, Yancey discovered new windows to the supernatural.

However, we often ignore these and other windows to the invisible world. Because the Creator doesn't impose himself on us, Yancey writes that it requires "attention and effort" on our part to remember him. He writes of simple things he is doing to perceive the rumors more clearly: from observing the attractions of nature outside the windows of his mountain home in Colorado, to learning from Jesus how to be fully present to others rather than considering them as interruptions. Yancey seeks to find something of lasting value in mundane tasks (alá Brother Lawrence): "Did I treat the airline ticketing agent, the UPS driver, my readers, with the attention they deserve?" And in doing so, Yancey glimpses the relationship that matters the most, and names his goal for growing older: "to care less about how others view me and more about how God views me."

In his self-examinations, he is relentlessly vulnerable. As Yancey plumbs the question of disorder --- "in short, if there is another world out there, shouldn't this one give more evidence of it?" --- he examines the sins that he wrestles with most often: discontent, hypocrisy, pride and greed. However, he no longer envisions God as a cosmic police officer, keeping him from doing things he would enjoy. Rather, he sees God "as a Spirit within, coaxing me to realize fully what I was created to be in the first place."

Yancey writes that he thinks out loud by putting words on paper, and this is in full evidence in RUMORS OF ANOTHER WORLD. As with many great writers confronted with the mystery of faith, he often asks more questions than he answers. One Yancey trademark is that he liberally salts the text with quoted material, which can be enriching for the reader who is introduced to new authors of interest. These include many of the crème de la crème of authors both classic and contemporary: Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simon Weil, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Thomas Merton, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas à Kempis. It is difficult to think of better company to keep while wrestling with questions of faith.

However, this abundance of quoted material also means the reading is slower-paced. RUMORS OF ANOTHER WORLD, like most Yancey books, is best consumed by sipping rather than gulping; underlining and highlighting rather than skimming.

There is much to be underlined and highlighted; many insights that demand deeper personal reflection. As Yancey looks both inward and outward, listening for clues about the God he longs to know more intimately, he invites us --- compellingly --- to open our own hearts to the invisible world.

--- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby

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Summary: Very Good, But Not CS Lewis
Review: Yancey is an excellent writer and Rumors of Another World adds to this reputation. However, it is a mistake to think him in the CS Lewis or Francis Schaeffer tradition. The former was a scholar and creative writer for the ages who could use journalism, especially broadcast journalism, to good effect. The latter was an effective evangelist, sometimes mistaken for a theologian.

By contrast, Yancey is a journalist and a damned good one. Despite how it is frequently practiced these days, journalism can be very thoughtful, articulate, responsible, and capable of sustained reasoning. Think GK Chesterton. Evangelism may use journalistic techniques sometimes but that is not what Yancey is about. And, had he written a scholarly book, he would have lost much of his intended audience: the decidedly non-scholarly person who wonders if his five senses limit what he can know and if he must build meaning only out of these five senses.

Yancey argues out of an enlightened classical evangelical Christian position using some of the classical evidences for the existence of God. But this is an incomplete story. To understand why Christianity is a fully, intellectually as well as spiritually, satisfying answer to questions of existence, you need the Church. Christ's presence in the bread and wine is the best "rumor" we have of another world. It is, in fact, the place where the other world meets ours, tangibly and irrefutably. Yancey well makes the argument about the need of "physicality" to reveal the presence of God. Unfortunately, he does not carry this argument to its conclusion.

Nonetheless, this remains a very good popular argument for the presence of heaven on earth, or better, for the ultimately ineluctable confluence of heaven and earth. As Jesus once said, if you are not inclined to listen to Moses and the prophets, then having a man rise from the dead to tell you the truth is not going to convince you. Yancey is a prophet to this generation, which is not inclined to spending much time in serious reflection or sustained thought. Listen to him.

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Summary: I like it
Review: I highly recommend this book. Yancey doesn't try to preach but takes the reader on a discovering journey. Its written for those that are doubting & for those that aren't sure what to make of the God of the Christian Bible. Its thoughtful, intelligent and will challenge you. He explores the hard issues that aren't discussed often inside the Christian church. I find his style refreshing and I like that he's a critical thinker.

The book explores issues of life, God, the supernatural, faith and Yancey makes them all connect. The best way to describe this book is that it explores the concept of the Christian God. There's more to life than what meets the eye. He also drives the fine point that there is a spiritual world co-existing with our physical world and the two impact each other. It's a book for those that want to explore the Christian faith. I highly recommend it.

I've lately been going through some doubts & I'm not sure about being a Christian so its helped me a lot by reading this book. His writing is refreshing for those that want to ask the hard questions. No he doesn't give you sunday school answers! He doesn't try to preach to you either. You won't find a prayer at the end of this book. Its all about exploring the God concept and its as if he's exploring it with you. Check it out, it'll be worth your time.

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Summary: An interesting and spiritual offering
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I normally would not choose a book by a Christian writer, but Phillip Yancey does not come off as such. He is definitely a philosophical and thought provoking author. This book is spiritually stimulating and well written. I did not find Yancey to be religious or preachy, but rather questioning and explorative.