R.I.P. Rachel Held Evans
Her earthly race is all run.
RHE – blogger, book author, speaker – ecumenical Episcopalian, ex-evangelical, biblical anti-literalist, feminist – U.S. Southerner, Bryan College alumna, daughter, sister, wife, mother – and much more – has suddenly died at thirty-seven (my own age). Her body seems to have reacted severely against routine treatment for infection and flu.
I used to read her blog when I lived in Ithaca. I liked watching her wrestle, in near-real time, with difficult questions of biblical interpretation, theology, and practical ethics. I liked the humility with which she responded to critics. I liked how she made room on her blog for respectful Q&A sessions with representatives of different faith traditions.
The last couple of days, I’ve been skimming through entries that I missed after I stopped reading her blog around 2013.
She wasn’t formally trained in the topics she wrote about, but she was a persistent student. We can see this from her notes on Justo L. González’s The Story of Christianity, vol. 1 and vol. 2. Reading the latter volume, she learned that …
(Yes, alas, this sometime Proverbs 31 aspirant normally clothed herself in hipster garb. But she wore it lightly.)
Since few of us are professional scholars, it was valuable to have someone publicly exemplifying what she did, which was to approach serious questions with candor and humility, as a confirmed amateur, untainted by the presumptions of the guilds …
… which she skewered, graciously, in another blog entry, “Why a Seminary Degree Doesn’t Have to Make You a Jerk.”
She wasn’t afraid to take authoritarians to task. She was a skillful gadfly, judiciously choosing her targets, as we can see from her entry “The Bible Was ‘Clear’ …”
Playing the gadfly brought her enemies, maybe especially from among the Southern Baptists. Here is what one of them says. Without spelling it out, he insinuates that RHE has been sent to hell.
I’m not nearly so pessimistic. Whether her race was well run is for God to decide; but, having read much of her blogging, I have reason to hope that the best for her is still to come.
I’m terribly sad, though, for the husband and two young children she leaves behind.
(Photo by Dan Evans)
Update: Here are three of the better tributes to RHE, all on one page. (Hat tip to David Swartz.)
Update: Here’s a merciful conservative Christian reaction to RHE’s death. (Hat tip to my pastor.)
Update: One more article (this one from the Atlantic).
RHE – blogger, book author, speaker – ecumenical Episcopalian, ex-evangelical, biblical anti-literalist, feminist – U.S. Southerner, Bryan College alumna, daughter, sister, wife, mother – and much more – has suddenly died at thirty-seven (my own age). Her body seems to have reacted severely against routine treatment for infection and flu.
I used to read her blog when I lived in Ithaca. I liked watching her wrestle, in near-real time, with difficult questions of biblical interpretation, theology, and practical ethics. I liked the humility with which she responded to critics. I liked how she made room on her blog for respectful Q&A sessions with representatives of different faith traditions.
The last couple of days, I’ve been skimming through entries that I missed after I stopped reading her blog around 2013.
She wasn’t formally trained in the topics she wrote about, but she was a persistent student. We can see this from her notes on Justo L. González’s The Story of Christianity, vol. 1 and vol. 2. Reading the latter volume, she learned that …
… at a time when Christians were condemning, expelling, and killing one another over doctrinal differences, a guy named Georg Calixtus had the crazy idea that perhaps one could hold to one’s convictions (his were Lutheran) without condemning as heretics those with whom one disagrees. He argued that there was a difference, after all, between heresy and error. This made far too much sense, and Calixtus was largely written off by his contemporaries. But he sounded cool to me so I gave him hipster glasses and a hat:
(Yes, alas, this sometime Proverbs 31 aspirant normally clothed herself in hipster garb. But she wore it lightly.)
Since few of us are professional scholars, it was valuable to have someone publicly exemplifying what she did, which was to approach serious questions with candor and humility, as a confirmed amateur, untainted by the presumptions of the guilds …
… which she skewered, graciously, in another blog entry, “Why a Seminary Degree Doesn’t Have to Make You a Jerk.”
She wasn’t afraid to take authoritarians to task. She was a skillful gadfly, judiciously choosing her targets, as we can see from her entry “The Bible Was ‘Clear’ …”
Playing the gadfly brought her enemies, maybe especially from among the Southern Baptists. Here is what one of them says. Without spelling it out, he insinuates that RHE has been sent to hell.
I’m not nearly so pessimistic. Whether her race was well run is for God to decide; but, having read much of her blogging, I have reason to hope that the best for her is still to come.
I’m terribly sad, though, for the husband and two young children she leaves behind.
(Photo by Dan Evans)
Update: Here are three of the better tributes to RHE, all on one page. (Hat tip to David Swartz.)
Update: Here’s a merciful conservative Christian reaction to RHE’s death. (Hat tip to my pastor.)
Update: One more article (this one from the Atlantic).