Some of you know the
name Rachel Held Evans well; others, not so much. Regardless, it seems appropriate
to take some time to remember Rachel now, just before the 40th anniversary of her birth
on June 8. I'm greatly saddened that she didn’t live to celebrate the big 4-0,
as she died on May 4, 2019.
Who
Was Rachel Held Evans?
Rachel
Grace Held was born in Alabama but moved with her birth family to Dayton,
Tennessee, when she was 14. Dayton, you may remember, is where the (in)famous
Scopes Trial was held in 1925.
Five
years later, Bryan College, named for William Jennings
Bryan,
the prosecutor at the 1925 trial, was founded in that small city. Rachel’s
family moved to Dayton because her father got a job at the college there.
Rachel
graduated from Bryan College in 2003 and married Dan Evans, her college
boyfriend, that year. Rachel and Dan’s two children were three and one when
Rachel died.
During
her much-too-brief life, Rachel Held Evans (RHE) became a prominent Christian
blogger, author, and speaker. But because of her faith in Jesus, she regularly rejected
the biblicism, patriarchalism, and homophobic ideas of the conservative
Christianity of her youth.
What
Did Rachel Write?
RHE
wrote four books published between 2010 and 2018, the year before
her untimely death. The first was Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who
Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. Four years later it was
republished as Faith Unraveled with the same subtitle.
Her
2012 book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, became a New York Times bestseller in
e-book non-fiction, and her Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and
Finding the Church (2015) also became a New York Times bestseller
nonfiction paperback.
Rachel’s only book I have read is her last one, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again, published less than a year before her death. I was much impressed by it.
Here is just one of the many statements I liked in that book: “The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out but who it lets in” (Kindle ed., p. 186).
Those words embody her central emphasis.
Goodreads.com
has nearly 700 quotes from Rachel’s books that have been placed on their
website by her readers (see here). There have also
been over 10,500 ratings of Inspired posted on Goodreads—which is far
fewer than those for her previous two books!
Why
Remember Rachel?
One
main reason I remember Rachel and encourage you readers to do the same is
because her central emphasis, as indicated above, expresses the truth of one of
my favorite old Christian hymns, “There’s a Wideness in God’s mercy.”**
Here is what others said about her shortly after her death.
Writing for Religious
News Service on May 4, 2019, journalist Kately Beaty lauded
RHE
for preaching “the wildly expansive love of God.”
Two
days later, Eliza Griswold’s article in The New Yorker was titled, “The Radically
Inclusive Christianity of Rachel Held Evans.” (Griswold was a Pulitzer Prize
winner in 2019.)
Also
on May 6, Emma Green’s article in The
Atlantic
referred to RHE as a “hero to Christian misfits.”
Elizabeth
Eisenstadt Evans’s piece about RHE in the June 5, 2019, issue of Christian
Century was titled “Apostle to outsiders.” Journalist Evans (no relation to
Dan) wrote in the last paragraph, “Christianity in America is more lively,
loving, generous, and honest because of Rachel Held Evans.”
Journalist
Green concluded her May 6 article with these words: “Evans spent her life trying
to follow an itinerant preacher and carpenter, who also hung out with rejects
and oddballs. In death, as that preacher once promised, she will be known by
her fruits.”
Yes,
let’s fondly remember Rachel now and give thanks for the many fruits her much-too-short
life is still producing.
_______
**
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy (1862) by F. W. Faber
1 There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
which is more than liberty.
3 But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.
4 For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
(From Voices Together, 2020)
Thanks, Leroy. I did not know Rachel Held Evans, although I’d heard the name.
ReplyDeleteAnton, "Inspired" is a book you could recommend to your conservative Christian friends, unless they have already heard negative things about her--and she has been strongly criticized by some conservative evangelicals. But for those who are open at all, I think they would find much that is helpful, presented in an appealing, non-judgmental way.
DeleteThe first comments I received, quite early this morning, was from local Thinking Friend Bruce Morgan. He wrote,
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for introducing me to RHE. I look forward to reading some of her relevant work that has great appeal to me."
Thank you, Bruce, for reading the blog post and responding so early this morning. While you probably won't find much that is new to you in "Inspired," I think you would find it an enjoyable read and be encouraged by the way she shows how one can move beyond evangelicalism and remain a faithful follower of Jesus. As I said to Anton above, this is a book worth recommending to your conservative Christian friends.
DeleteA few minutes later, another local Thinking Friend sent me the following email message:
ReplyDelete"So, someone else I’ve never heard of, but reading what you wrote about her was inspiring. She did not allow the people that draw the lines to encase thought to deter her from finding embracing perspectives."
Then, I received the following comments from Thinking Friend Jeanie McGowan in central Missouri:
ReplyDelete"Thank you so much for directing our attention to Rachel. The generosity and expansiveness of her love of God and the inclusiveness of her messages shine brightly in a world that is too often cynical, judgmental and lacking in empathy. God used her mightily and continues to do so. I appreciate this reminder that I need to read more of her writing."
Thank you, Jeanie. I thank God for women writers/speakers such as Rachel--and for women preachers such as you!
DeleteA few minutes ago the following brief mail came from Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for featuring her story. I can see that many themes she emphasized match my own thinking and concerns."
Here are comments from Thinking Friend LeRoy Roberts in North Carolina. (I first met him when he was a college freshman at Southwest Baptist College where I was a sophomore.)
ReplyDelete"In the last year I have read several articles about Rachel Evans and several excerpts from her books. Her insights were such an inspiration. If I remember correctly, I believe she became an Episcopalian as a reaction to fundamentalism. It is always difficult to accept she was taken from us when she had so much to share."
LeRoy, good to hear from you again.
DeleteYes, Rachel became an Episcopalian when she left evangelicalism, but for reasons I don't know, her funeral was held at First Centenary United Methodist Church in Chattanooga and the funeral sermon was preached by Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor.
In looking up this information, I also found that the hymn "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy" was sung at her funeral.
Thanks, Leroy for this blog post. The church needs more female leaders and clergy like Rachel, thanks to God's call and grace, the church continues to become more inclusive.
ReplyDeleteI, too, am sorry for the untimely loss of a voice for the God of “wildly expansive love”, the prodigal God. I applaud her as among those trying to “draw the circle wide, draw it wider still.”
ReplyDeleteI like the quote you give, but wish it had “draws in” for “lets in.” The good news of God’s “wildly expansive love” draws people into God’s movement and simultaneously draws the circle of inclusion wider than we think. God has already “drawn us in.” It is we who think people are “let in.”
Which is why I am surprised you did not include the verse of challenge in Faber’s hymn:
“But we make God’s love too narrow by false limits of our own; and we magnify God’s strictness with a zeal God will not own.”
I do not know the source for your version of the lyrics, but if it was the Jubilate UK version, I think I understand the exclusion of stanza 3. Forgive me for guessing. :-)
As always, thanks for drawing us out! :-)
Shalom, Dick
Thanks for your comments, Dick. I appreciate your mentioning the verses of "There's a Wideness" that I did not include. I didn't pay enough attention to the version I used, so I have just posted three verses (out of five) from the new Mennonite hymnal that was published last fall. Verse 3, as you see, is the one that you mentioned--and an important one that I should have included to begin with.
Delete"Thanks, Leroy, for bringing RHE to our attention. The members of the women's book club at Wicker Park Lutheran church read one of her books, but I do not recall which one since I do not participate in women's book clubs. I do recall that the head of the women's book club sent out a sad message about her death.
ReplyDeleteThe titles on her books are certainly intriguing and I hope to find the time to read at least one of her books. . . . Judy may also be interested.
Thanks, as always, for reading and responding, Eric. -- As I wrote, I have only read Rachel's last book, "Inspired," but I think you and your wife would both enjoy reading it. It is quite profound in many ways, but it is very accessible as it is written in an appealing style for a broad audience.
DeleteYesterday I received the following comments from Thinking Friend Kevin Heifner in Arkansas:
ReplyDelete"I read and enjoyed your blog about Rachel. I am familiar with her work but I’ve never actually read in full any of her books. I suspect would agree with much of what she has to say.
"In a personal conversation with my mother last night, we were talking about some aspect of the church and she said in passing something she had mentioned to her pastor: 'Our church will never be blessed if we keep certain people out' I agree with her and would add my emphasis that that would have to include every single person, regardless of descriptor, past offenses, whatever. It is God’s church, not ours. Wideness... God’s (emphasis) mercy, not ours."
Thanks for this remembrance of RHE. She was a great writer with such a good sense of humor. Her A Year of Biblical Womanhood is eye-opening and funny. Every young person with an evangelical background should read it -- especially young women! Her early death is very sad, but while on earth she did much to emphasize that God's love is a wide and open field, not a narrow mean gate.
ReplyDeleteI don't known who are, since you are Unknown, but I like your comments.
DeleteHere's a link to my review of the book Inspired, by Rachel Held Evans
ReplyDeleteThanks, Clif, for posting this about your book review. I read some of your many reviews, but I don't think I had seen this one. I thought it was a good, helpful review.
DeleteYesterday I wrote a brief email to Dr. Peter Held, Rachel's father, expressing my condolences and linking to my blog post about Rachel. Today I received the following warm response from him:
ReplyDelete"Thank you so much for taking the time to reach out. Yesterday I was thinking what a great mom, sister, and daughter Rachel would have continued to grow into. I miss her and am encouraged by the influence she continues to be. I appreciate your sensitive and thoughtful blog."