Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek reflects on the devastating news surrounding Philip Yanceyand what it reveals about the persistent problem of hypocrisy within the Christian life. Yancey’s writing shaped the faith of generations, helping many of us trust that grace is greater than sin. When news broke of his long-hidden moral failure, the response was not anger or judgment, but grief, lament, and a sober awareness of our shared human weakness.
Rather than throwing stones, this episode turns inward. Hypocrisyis not simply something “out there” among fallen leaders. It is a temptation that lives close to home. Following Jesus requires honest lament over our brokenness and a renewed pursuit of integrity rooted in virtue and the Spirit’s transforming work. The disconnect between our interior life and our public life, between being and doing, lies at the heart of the problem.
Sin is more than bad behavior; it is missing the mark and undermining who we were created to be as image-bearers of God. Hypocrisy emerges when we seek the rewards of discipleship without embracing the slow, humbling work of transformation. Jesus had little patience for religious performance, confronting outward righteousness that concealed inward decay.
The episode concludes with hope. If you recognize yourself in this struggle, you are not alone. You are not beyond repair. You may simply be a recovering hypocrite—and recovery is possible.
Key Insights
Hypocrisy is not struggling and failing; it is pretending without pursuing transformation.
Sin fractures the harmony between being and doing, making hypocrisy inevitable.
The root of hypocrisy is not merely theological but ontological, that is, a problem of being.
Christian formation requires virtue, humility, and dependence on the Spirit.
Recovery from hypocrisy begins with honest self-examination, repentance, and grace.
Books mentioned on this episode:
From Aristotle to Christ — Louis Markos
What’s So Amazing About Grace? — Philip Yancey
Scriptures mentioned on this episode
Mark 7:6–7
Matthew 23:27–28
HasPeaceable and Kindbeen meaningful to you? Support the show by:
Leaving a review
Giving us a 5-star rating on your podcast app
Sharing this episode with a friend
Order Derek’s new Bible Study Series, God in the Neighborhood:
Book 1: Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us || https://amzn.to/42jSZAs
Book 2: Crucifixion: 8 Lessons on How God Saves Us || https://amzn.to/459bNUk
Book 3: Resurrection: 8 Lessons on How God Restores Us || https://amzn.to/40T0sp0
Did you find this episode helpful on your spiritual journey? Consider helping us out!
Leave a review
Share it with your friends
Give us a 5-Star rating on your podcast app of choice
Learn more about Derek’s work as a pastor and author: https://derekvreeland.com
Interact with Derek on Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, or Facebook
Transcript
Narrator: Welcome back. To another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek Vreeland. Thank you for joining me for this episode. And if you are new to this podcast, we exhibit To plant seeds of peace and kindness in a world of chaos and confusion. And so if you like what we’re doing here at Peaceable and Kind. Let me encourage you to subscribe and to share this episode, or you can share a previous episode with someone else. And if you would leave us a rating and review, I sure would appreciate that. Earlier this month, many of us were shocked when reading the devastating news about Philip Yancey. And I don’t know if you are familiar with Philip Yancey. He has been a Christian author whose words have shaped the faith of generations. I remember reading Philip Yancey maybe 20 years ago, and I know that his books have helped so many people. Believe in the goodness of God and the grace of God, that God’s love reaches farther than our failures. And so as a Christian author and writer, I recognized Philip Yancey as one of the good guys, one of our great authors, producing great books, helping Christians, and building the church But Christianity Today reported earlier this month on January 6th. In fact, I saw the article drop at night. Well, I was reading it at night the evening of January 6th. And in that report, Christianity Today included a statement from Philip Yancey. They reported that Yancey had been carrying on an eight year affair with a married woman, and Yancey himself is married. He’s been married to his wife Janet for over fifty years. Uh Yancey is 76 years old. He was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s. And so it was a shock to read these words. But in the Christianity Today article, there is a confession from Yancey, and so I’m just going to read his words. I don’t want to pick them apart, but let me just read Yancey’s confession, and then I want to share a little bit of my response. But here is what Philip Yancey has to say. To my great shame, I confess that for eight years I willfully engaged in a sinful affair with a married woman My conduct defied everything that I believe about marriage. It was also totally inconsistent with my faith. and my writings and cause deep pain for her husband and both our families. I will not share further details out of respect for the other family I have confessed my sin before God and my wife and have committed myself to a professional counseling and accountability program I have failed morally and spiritually, and I grieve over the devastation I have caused. I realize that my actions will disillusion readers who have previously trusted in my writing. Worst of all, my sin has brought dishonor to God. I am filled with remorse and repentance, and I have nothing to stand on except God’s mercy and grace I am now focused on rebuilding trust and restoring my marriage of fifty five years. Having disqualified myself from Christian ministry, I am therefore retiring from writing, speaking, and social media. Instead, I need to spend my remaining years living up to the words I have already written. I pray for God’s grace and forgiveness. as well as yours, and for healing in the lives of those I’ve wounded. Now the article uh goes on to print a statement from his wife And a few other comments. But when I when I read that on the evening of January 6th, I really was in disbelief. I mean, I I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I felt stunned. And I really didn’t feel angry, but I felt a deep sadness. Sometimes when there is an announcement of a moral failure of a Christian leader, sometimes my emotional response has been anger. But in reading Philip Yancey’s confession, what I felt was grief and a deep sadness I mean, I was I was shocked, but I I wasn’t shocked in such a way that I wanted to just pull out my my guns of judgment and condemnation. my wife was watching TV when I’d read that and I told her to hit pause and I read it to her and we talked about it for a little bit and I just I just sat with the weight of the devastation. And so I had texted a couple pastor friends. And uh then I took to social media to to write. It wasn’t a response necessarily. I just wanted to capture how I was feeling in that moment. So this is what I wrote. I’m stunned and grieved. I have no stones to throw, just a sinking sense of lament and sorrow The scourge of sin leaves such deep wounds. Lord have mercy. We who follow Jesus need both to lament our brokenness and seek the kind of integrity built upon the pursuit of virtue and dependence upon the Spirit’s work of sanctification and transformation. We need to repair the disconnect between our being and doing, between our interior life that no one sees, and our public life on display for all. The ancient practice of Christian virtue is the way forward. God help us. God help me. A sinner In that statement, I was thinking about how much damage sin does. And what first came to mind was this image of the scourge of sin and how it leaves deep wounds. So let’s let’s talk just a little bit about sin. Because sin is not just doing bad things or doing the wrong thing or doing what we ought not to do. Sin, in its essence, is missing the mark. The Greek word in the New Testament that’s often translated sin, harmatia, uh is a word that like many Greek words, is a word picture. And it’s the picture of missing a mark, like an archer uh shooting an arrow towards a target and completely missing the target altogether. And in that word picture, I think, is the real essence of what sin is. Sin is missing the mark. of who we are supposed to be. Sin is undermining who we really are. Because, well, as Christians, we would say we are beings created by God in the image of God to reflect God’s image into the world This is what we are given in the creation narrative in Genesis. And God said, Let us make humanity, mankind, in our image. And that’s an important theological foundation, that every human being who is living and breathing and walking on the earth, they are an image-bearer of God. So Christians and Jews before us have always held to the dignity and the value of human life, because every human being is created in the image of God with worth and dignity And so, because we were created in God’s image, a part of that creation then is we are to reflect God’s image into the world. And what sin does is it shatters that image so that we miss the mark of who we were created to be. who we were designed to be and what our very purpose is as human beings. As we reflect God’s image into the world, we allow the world to see who God is. And through Jesus, what we know is that God is love, that God is faithfulness, that God is fidelity. And so sexual sins like infidelity cause that image to be shattered. It’s missing the mark. Because we’re no longer bearing the right image of who God is. So sin is not just in the action Sin is a fundamental denial of our purpose, and sin is not only in our actions, sin is like a virus that we all carry. And we believe that Jesus has come to rescue us, to save us from our sins, to heal us of the virus, the sickness of sin, but it is a process. In one sense, through Jesus’ atoning, death, and resurrection, there is now the opportunity for us to experience the forgiveness of sins. But the lasting effects of that contagion, of that sickness in us, it continues on. So there is a process of the theological term would be sanctification. Or I much prefer the metaphor of formation or transformation. We’re still carrying around these these floating viruses of sin within our body, and the process of transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit to rid us of that sickness in order to make us whole. So the good thing about acknowledging that, that in Christ we’re forgiven of our sins, but there’s a process of sanctification. Is that when we hear tragic stories like that of Philip Yancey, it gives us the opportunity of self-reflection to look within. And that’s what I was doing and have been doing since the news broke of Philip Yancey’s moral failure. I’m not looking who to blame and and who to condemn and judge. His failure causes me to reflect on my own failures. Causes me to pray once again the Jesus prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And with Philip Yancey and other Christian leaders who have developed platforms and then have large moral failures, it’s not only the sexual sin itself. but also the sin of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is pretending to be something we’re not. It’s Willfully choosing to not practice what we preach. And that is a sin that we have a hard time shaking loose of. It’s a sin that continues to plague us. And the sin of hypocrisy is not just out there, but too often it’s right here in our midst. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing over the last couple years on the practice of virtue. If you missed my interview with Luis Marcos, the author of From Aristotle to Christ, go back and listen to that one. His book, From Aristotle to Christ, was one of the best books I read last year. And for Christians to see the value Of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, particularly how Aristotle gave us language and a framework. to talk about what it means to be good people, that is, through the practice of virtue, is something I think we really need to pay attention to Because Christians have a credibility problem. I know that’s not breaking news, but our hypocrisy And I say our hypocrisy because I want to include myself in that and I want to help to bear the responsibility of the devastation that hypocrisy causes. And so our hypocrisy has broken so much trust Particularly with Christian leaders, and it’s marred the message of Jesus, and we need a way to fully recover from our hypocrisy. And you know that hypocrisy among Christians is a problem. I don’t have to convince you of that I have to pause this episode for just a moment to tell you that the next two Bible studies in the God and the Neighborhood Bible study series are available for pre-order. Crucifixion: 8 lessons on how God God Saves Us and Resurrection. Eight lessons on how God restores us, both release on February 17th, just in time for Lent and Easter. Preorder now. Links are in the show. Show notes. Over the years I have stood before small groups, I’ve stood before uh large congregations, and I have made the same bold claim I’ll say something like, I know the number one reason non-Christian people won’t come to your church Then I’ll pause and I’ll say, because if you ask them why they won’t come to church, They’re gonna say, I’m not going to that church because that church is filled with a bunch of. And then I extend my arms like I’m a choir director. And almost every time, without fail, the crowd responds in unison, hypocrites! Why is that? And it’s uncanny how many times I have done that Unchhristian, unchurched people are not going to come to your church because that church is filled with a bunch of, and they all say hypocrites every time. Why is that? Why are we the followers of Jesus, who is the one who is the very embodiment of truth? Why are we, who are followers of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, why are we not primarily known for our love? for our compassion, for our service in our communities. Why is it that we are known for our hypocrisy Well, it’s a problem. It’s a problem that we have. And because I’m including myself in our hypocrisy, hypocrisy is a problem that I have. I’m embarrassed to even think back to the number of times I have played the role of the hypocrite. when my actions did not line up with what I said I believed. I’m not sure if you are aware of the Enneagram and Enneagram language But I identify as an Enneagram III. And Enneagram 3s are motivated by accomplishing goals, by success. Unhealthy Ennegram 3s would be people who are uh overly obsessed with with image and production And the Enneagram is a personality profile that is really helpful for spiritual formation because the Enneagram doesn’t pigeonhole you as a certain personality type. It helps you see that you have certain dispositions, certain compulsions that then you can become aware of and know how to respond rightly to. So for example, I have a praise-seeking compulsion. Not only do I want to achieve and accomplish goals, I want to be recognized for that. Even the little ones, right? Like if I If I, you know, put clothes in the dryer and and pull them out and fold them, hang them, put them away without being asked by my wife. Um, I hope she notices I did that because I have this compulsion that I want her to say to me, hey, great job. You did laundry. Which is silly, uh, because it’s a household duty that it it’s not just my wife’s responsibility. I’m a grown adult, I can do laundry, and I don’t need to be praised for it. But within me is this compulsion um that seeks praise. Um not just attention, but praise for accomplishing tasks. And because of that Entigram threes can easily take on a chameleon role. Uh entigram threes have an innate ability To project a certain image in a certain social situation where we can be what people want us to be Now, I’m not saying this is good. I’m saying that the Enneagram has revealed to me that these are temptations that I face. And by God’s grace and help, I’ve been able to respond to those compulsions most of the time. uh pretty well. And I say most of the time because I have often given in to pretending to be something I’m not in order simply to impress other people. One example I think about is when Jenny and I were first married And we lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when I was in seminary and she was working full time and overtime so that we could stay out of debt as best as possible. And it was a it was a difficult time. I was working part-time and taking a full load of graduate level studies. And I just went headlong into the study of theology and biblical languages and church history, and I loved it. But what happened during that time is that I slowly began to neglect the simple daily practice of prayer and scripture reading, spending time in God’s presence through prayer And I recognized that. I was embarrassed by it, and I wanted my wife to think of me as a spiritually mature person. I mean, I was in seminary I was training to be a pastor, and pastors pray and they read their Bibles. So I was failing to do it, and and it it it’s embarrassing to even mention, but On more than one occasion, when I would get up in the morning, and often I would get up before her, I didn’t give time and attention to prayer and scripture reading, but I’d find my Bible. I’d open my Bible somewhere in Paul’s letters and I would just lay it on the coffee table. And I would I would find a a a pen, an ink pen, and I’d I’d lay it in my Bible or somewhere close, and I would carefully stage things around my Bible so that when she woke up she’d see the open Bible and think I had read it that morning, even though I hadn’t read a word. And I mean, was this my worst sin? Uh no, probably not, but I recognize it as sin, as missing the mark. And I confess it, and have confessed it, as the sin of hypocrisy. I’m still repenting of it. Because I still have this tendency to portray an image on the outside that doesn’t match who I really am on the inside. So I confess to you today, I’m still in recovery. I am a recovering hypocrite. And I want to repent of it because Jesus has very little patience for religious performance. Jesus reserved his strongest language for those who would harm children and for religious hypocrites. And as you know in the Gospels, Jesus was always wrangling with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were those who were challenging Jesus. It was the Pharisees. Who plotted to kill Jesus and came up with the plan that eventually led to his execution And the Pharisees were the conservative purity movement in first century Judaism They wanted strict observance of the Torah, the Old Testament law, and not only the letter of the law, but also other Commandments and traditions that would specifically tell people this is how you’re faithful to the Torah And Jesus saw through their facade because they focused so much on outward behaviors, they were neglecting real inward piety and transformation. And so when the Pharisees questioned Jesus He responded, and this is in Mark’s gospel, you hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as the commands of God. And the word that Jesus uses there, hypocrite, is a transliteration of a Greek word that means a play actor. That is someone performing a role on a stage. And there’s a section in Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew 23, it’s called the Woes. of the Pharisees, where Jesus confronts their religious hypocrisy, their religious performance, with just an array of stinging metaphors and poetic critiques. For example, this is Matthew 23, 27, and 28, Jesus speaking to the Pharisees says, Hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. In all of these metaphors, Jesus was diagnosing their problem. What they were doing on the outside didn’t match the content of their character on the inside. And for me, the diagnosis was clear. What they were doing didn’t match up with their being. Christian hypocrisy is not struggling to follow Jesus and failing. Hypocrisy isn’t repentance in process. Hypocrisy is pretending to be Christian without making any attempts to become Christ-like. It is seeking the rewards of discipleship, right? The rewards of forgiveness and belonging and a new identity. without embracing the cost of discipleship, things like repentance and self-denial and spiritual discipline And there are lots of different kinds of hypocrisy, but they all share the same fatal flaw, and that is a complete disconnect of being from doing. To me, that is the root of the problem of hypocrisy. Our being and doing are no longer connected. Now, some would argue that hypocrisy is a theological problem That is not believing and rightly responding to the gospel. And I would say that there is something at play there. I mean, theology is important, theology matters. But I believe the root problem is not so much theological as it is ontological Okay, let me define an important philosophical term. Ontology. Now, theology is the study of Theos, Greek word for God. Theology is the study of God. Ontology is the study of reality. Ontology is the philosophical study of being. And I’m convinced that hypocrisy is a problem for Christians Because we don’t really know ourselves. We don’t really know who we are. We don’t really know who we are as men and women created in the image of God. God, our Creator, created us, every human being, to exist in harmony. A functioning rhythm and connection of body and soul being and doing, moving together in a sacred rhythm If we go back to Genesis, what we see is that God created our bodies from the dust of the earth. And then created our souls by the breath of heaven. And God created us Body and soul, that the two components of our humanity might work together in harmony. And so as I diagnose the problem of hypocrisy, I want to think about our being and doing. And for me, being and doing aligns itself. with how God created us body and soul. Doing is what we do with our bodies, and being is the the essence of our souls And the sin of hypocrisy fractures and destroys that harmony God created us for our being to give direction to our doing and for our doing to shape our being. And for this cycle of being and doing to exist in a beautiful harmony with a beautiful rhythm But the sin of hypocrisy breaks that harmony and compartmentalizes our being. That is. the essence of who we are away from doing. And this is how I see hypocrisy at play When I have played the role of hypocrisy, it’s as if I have taken what I’m about to do and completely disconnect that from who I am because I’m trying to do something to accomplish some objective Now, that kind of doing is going to affect my soul, but I want to pretend like it doesn’t. I completely compartmentalize being and doing And when our being and doing are in disharmony, and if this fracture goes unchecked for a while Uh it’s it leaves us with devastating results. Things like shallowness, you know, which is a Christian faith that has no deep roots. The disharmony of being and doing leads to legalism where we put so much attention on the doing, we just look for a list of rules. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do and not do. And legalistic religion never leads to the full flourishing of transformation and sanctification. And when we disconnect our being and doing, it will lead to burnout. I mean, we cannot continue to live a double life forever before we completely burn out. This disconnection of being and doing will sear our conscience where we’re no longer sensitive to the Holy Spirit. And then as we’ve seen with the stories of Philip Yancey, we can experience true moral failure if we persist in hypocrisy. And again, I’m not here to throw stones at all because I know my own weakness. This could be me. The Philippi story could be me And you know, Philip Yancey is just the latest story. We could talk about Ravi Zacharias and Robert Morris and Carl Lentz and on and on it goes. But I’m not here to parade around the moral failures of Christian leaders. I really want to offer solutions But that is going to be a conversation for another podcast episode. So let me wrap up with this. If you’re listening today and you are like me, troubled about the news of Philip Yancey’s moral failure, and you’re thinking, you know what? I struggle with hypocrisy. Let me just encourage you that you’re not alone. You’re not beyond hope. You’re not damaged beyond repair. You, like me, are simply a recovering hypocrite. There is a way to repair The disconnect between being and doing, and there is a way to live an authentic and vulnerable Christian life Where your being and doing are aligned, where you are open and free to share your faults and weaknesses There is a way forward, and that’s what we’re going to talk about in the next episode. So that’s all that I have for this episode. Let me say once again thank you.
Derek Vreeland: For joining me, go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.