“What’s wrong, mama?”
My four-year-old daughter and I were riding in the back seat while my husband drove us home after a run to the hardware store. I was scrolling mindlessly on my iPhone when I felt myself gasp. Rachel Held Evans had died at age 37. The news was like a pummeling fist – I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I felt gutted by the shock of such an unthinkable loss.
Evans grew up in an evangelical Christian church in the South. Her questions about God were not always welcome there. But despite her critics, she earnestly wrestled with the teachings of her childhood. In one of her better known works, The Year of Biblical Womanhood (Thomas Nelson, 2012), Evans challenged contemporary conservative understandings of “biblical womanhood” by adhering for a year to both the profound and absurd instructions given to women in the sacred texts.
Through her writing and speaking, Evans opened up space for wonder and granted her followers permission to question core tenets of evangelical Christianity without shame or guilt. She modeled for us a faithfulness that was ever seeking, ever evolving, and ever embracing.
Read the rest of my article from Reflections magazine here.