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I as a Christian say, You're absolutely right. That is not the way the world is supposed to be. That is a kind of rumor.

One of the things that I hope people who are followers of Jesus hear in your whole idea of rumors is that these rumors are the portals for conversation.

Jesus was good at picking up on rumors in his time and exploiting them into conversations about the stuff that people wanted to talk about, but didn't know how to talk about.

I was brought back to faith after being badly scarred by those rumors. If you asked me, "Okay Philip. You had this terrible church you keep complaining about. Why do you believe? Why did you come back?"

It wasn't Billy Graham, and it wasn't the Bible, and it wasn't a gospel tract. I was pretty inured to those kinds of things.

It was three things really: the beauties of nature, classical music, and romantic love.

And I came across a quote from G.K. Chesterton: "The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank."

I realized that the world was not the world I had heard about in this tiny little angry church growing up. The heart of the universe was not a frown, it was a smile.

God was not my enemy, God was wooing me, and He was wooing me through these rumors, these signs of goodness that were all around me.

How do you summarize the message you're trying to communicate in your book?

I am convinced now, for the first time really in my life, that God has the very best life in mind for us. A lot of Christians—and I have been there—go around with their head down thinking, Well, we only have two-thirds of a life. Those other guys are having all the fun, you know. But I can't imagine someone following Jesus around and saying at the end, "Boy, think of all he was missing out on." In fact they would say, "Think of all I'm missing out on."

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Visit DickStaub.com for audio and video of his radio program (4-7 p.m. PST), media reviews, and news on "where belief meets real life."

Yancey's Rumors of Another World is available from ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

See also today's excerpt from Rumors of Another World.

Yancey is a columnist for Christianity Today.

Christianity Today has earlier excerpted several of Yancey's other books, including Reaching for the Invisible God, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church, The Bible Jesus Read, and What's So Amazing About Grace?

Recent Dick Staub Interviews include:

Ken Gire's Lord of the Dance | Patch Adams and T. S. Eliot teach us to twirl with Jesus, says the author (Sept. 23, 2003)

Jerry Jenkins's Solo Apocalypse | His new novel, Soon, imagines a world where religion, blamed for war, is banned (Sept. 16, 2003)

Why Frederica Mathewes-Green Loves Icons | Yes, we ask the saints to pray for us, she says. They are still living members of the church after all. (Sept. 9, 2003)

Sheila Walsh Says Stop | The author, singer, and popular speaker talks about learning to put praise above performance (Sept. 2, 2003)

Trusting in a Culturally Relevant Gospel | Os Guinness says that evangelicals have never strived for relevance in society as much as they do now. Ironically, he says, they have never been more irrelevant (Aug. 26, 2003)

The Long War About Science | Larry Witham, the author of Where Darwin Meets the Bible and By Design, talks about faith, science, and how the battle has evolved. (Aug. 19, 2003)

Kevin Leman Talks About Sex, Baby | The author of The Birth Order Book looks at the private lives of Christian couples in Sheet Music: Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage. (Aug. 12, 2003)

Why God is like Jazz | Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, talks about why Christians need writers who honestly deal with their faults and why penguin sex is an apt metaphor for believing in Christ. (Aug. 5, 2003)

A Gerontologist Gets Older | David Petty, author of Aging Gracefully, has long taught about the process of aging. Now, he is personally learning that one of the most important aspects is the spiritual side. (July 29, 2003)

Carmen Renee Berry's Unabashedly Consumerist Handbook to Ecclesiology | The author of The Unauthorized Guide to Choosing a Church helps seekers find their best congregational fit. (July 22, 2003)

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September (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47