Rest In Peace, Rachel Held Evans

“I told them we’re tired of the culture wars, tired of Christianity getting entangled with party politics and power. Millennials want to be known by what we’re for, I said, not just what we’re against. We don’t want to choose between science and religion or between our intellectual integrity and our faith. Instead, we long for our churches to be safe places to doubt, to ask questions, and to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. We want to talk about the tough stuff—biblical interpretation, religious pluralism, sexuality, racial reconciliation, and social justice—but without predetermined conclusions or simplistic answers. We want to bring our whole selves through the church doors, without leaving our hearts and minds behind, without wearing a mask.” 

― Rachel Held Evans,
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving,
and Finding the Church

In such an eloquent little piece of writing, dwarfed by her gargantuan literary presence, Rachel Held Evans speaks for so many of us who pine for reformation in the church.

She stood as a paragon of the voice of the postmodern age. She indeed spoke for many. She’s lost now to us, but never forgotten, and truly immortalised in heaven and also in our psyches here on earth. Her contribution is a baton for us to take hold of, in charging down the runway of life as we boldly live this faith with passionate conviction.

Her legacy is significant. Let that sentence echo and reverberate. Her legacy needs to be significant, as we continue our way on the cusp of time, as we steward the church whilst we are alive. She ran her race so fine.

Rachel Held Evans’ voice stood for truth within complexity, for the expansion of spaces for mature discussion, and for answers that don’t simply sound good to one or the other, but that resonate within the commonality of humanity, even to the acceptance of the mysteries of God.

We live in a time where young people have a lot to say, a time when they are often lambasted for those things that impassion their hearts. Rachel Held Evans was a hero of such magnitude that her loss leaves a hole in the spiritual psyche of so many way-changers; and we desperately need more way-changers. These are people who have the courage of their convictions, and they are not afraid to stand for what they believe.

Rachel Held Evans was a champion for change, and if we learn anything about Jesus in the gospels, we learn that he too was a champion for change. We all need to be champions for change, and Rachel showed us how, and not least is the fact that she was a woman. Oh, this is still so hard to say! Oh, go on… it’s hard enough being a champion for change being a man. But men don’t need to deal with much of the sexist argy-bargy in that kind of space than women do. For that alone, Rachel Held Evans’ courage is synonymous for the exemplary. Sexism in the church ought to be synonymous with the Pharisaism Jesus rubbed up against.

Rachel Held Evans’ led by example and her legacy will linger long into the history to come.

Photo from Washington Post