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Disappointment with God

book by Philip Yancey

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ22907840 ↗
Source-derived summary

Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud is a book written by Philip Yancey and published by Zondervan in 1988. It is one of Yancey's early bestsellers. Library Journal reviewer Elise Chase called the book "extraordinarily empathetic and persuasive; highly recommended". Mark DeVries of The Christian Century reviewed the book and wrote that, through the book, Yancey "cuts through the pollyannaish denials that so often characterize evangelical treatment of unbelief, disappointment and unanswered prayer". The Christian Bookstore Journal listed Disappointment with God as the fifth-bestselling Christian book in 1989. In a 1991 Ministry review, Daniel Guild calls the book "Yancey at his superlative best". In 2000, Jim Remsen of The Philadelphia Inquirer called the title of the book evocative. A 2001 article in U.S. Catholic states that Disappointment with God demonstrates Yancey's willingness to address difficult questions. In 2002, Mike Collins of the Charleston Gazette-Mail recommended the book for rape victims. In 2005, Christian apologist William Lane Craig wrote that he "enjoyed reading Disappointment with God and found much of it to be meaningful and poignant", but that he disagreed with the thesis of the book.

Editorial summary

“Disappointment with God” enters the record as book by Philip Yancey. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Disappointment, book and Philip can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1988, 1989, 1991, 2000—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1988-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Disappointment, book and Philip.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Disappointment with God” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Disappointment, book and Philip provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22907840. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1989, 1991 and 2000.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Disappointment with God”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Disappointment with God primary sources, Disappointment with God archive and Disappointment research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Disappointment with God”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Disappointment with God” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.