Michael Phillips

Michael Phillips is a prolific bestselling author, with sales of his fiction, nonfiction, and devotional writings exceeding seven million copies worldwide. A leading authority on the works and message of George MacDonald and their connections to C.S. Lewis, he and his wife Judy are former bookstore owners and split their time between George MacDonald’s Scotland and their home in California.

Featured Books By Author

Discovering the Character of God

Following the enormous response to his updated editions of George MacDonald’s novels in the 1980s, Michael Phillips felt the need to introduce MacDonald’s fiction readers also to the Scotsman’s poetry and theological perspectives. At the time none of MacDonald’s non-fiction writings or poetry was available. Phillips therefore compiled two anthologies of selections, topically arranged, from those writings. Almost thirty years later, the two volumes—Discovering the Character of God and Knowing the Heart of God—remain classics in the MacDonald bibliography that have helped multiple thousands probe their understanding of God more deeply. These two clearly organized and understandable illuminations of MacDonald’s wisdom distill the essence of MacDonald’s thought in manageable topical groupings suitable for devotional reading or more extensive study. Each chapter also draws upon selections from the novels and poetry to illuminate MacDonald’s vision of the infinitely loving and forgiving Fatherhood of God.
Read more

Out of the Wardrobe

I am writing this as an open letter to a few select individuals who are dear to my life and heart. I hope and pray that anyone else into whose hands it chances to come may find it interesting, and may in some way benefit from it.

All my life I have been what is loosely called "evangelical" in my general outlook and spiritual perspective. As such, in order to breathe freely in my spirit and keep my brain and heart thriving and growing, I have found it necessary to re-think many of the doctrinal particulars of belief in which I was raised.

What follows is not an autobiography by any means of that journey. It is rather an attempt to place my sojourn into a wider context, and to explain this "necessity" I have felt to explore Christian thought beyond the boundaries of the teaching I received at various stages of my life.

Read more

Your Life in Christ

In spite of a gradually expanding awareness of George MacDonald and his influence on the faith and writings of C.S. Lewis, most Lewis devotees, as well as many readers of MacDonald’s fantasies and fiction, remain largely unacquainted with the theological foundations of MacDonald’s corpus and its influence on Lewis’s spiritual development. When intrepid readers attempt to probe MacDonald’s sermons, however, most find the going extremely difficult. Expecting Lewis’s gift of straightforward clarity, many readers find MacDonald’s Victorian method and syntax from the previous century daunting and impossible to decipher. Dense theological progressions, sentences of 100-200 words, and an archaic linguistic style, prevent MacDonald’s wisdom from shining through with clarity. In his two volumes Your Life in Christ and The Truth in Jesus, Michael Phillips addresses this difficulty with the same editorial expertise that distinguish his editions of MacDonald’s novels. Assisted by insightful introductions based on his extensive knowledge of MacDonald’s writings and thought, these two volumes provide an understandable entrée into the expansive world of George MacDonald’s theological writings.
Read more

Books By
Michael Phillips