How Rachel Held Evans Helped Me Lose My Faith—And Why I Think She'd be OK With It

With Rachel at Ohio Wesleyan University on November 7, 2014.

  
I still remember how I heard the news, one year ago today: I was sitting up in bed after sleeping in on a Saturday morning and scrolling through Facebook on my phone...when I saw the news that made me gasp in disbelief.

Rachel Held Evans was gone.

I had heard she had taken ill, that she'd been hospitalized, that she was in fact in a coma. But I remember not having been too concerned. I'm sure I assumed she would pull through. We never think it's going to happen to the people we care about. 

What I don't remember (as I wrote in 2013) is exactly how I first discovered Rachel (though I suspect it was Twitter). But as I read her first two books, Evolving in Monkey Town (now sold as Faith Unraveled) and A Year of Biblical Womanhood, and her blog, her voice became a welcome influence on my thinkig. 

She was a believer...who also had doubts, and wasn't afraid to express them. (Or if she was afraid, she shared them anyway.) She tackled tough Bible passages and tough issues. She called out the evangelical church on its bullshit. She cared about social justice and actively used her platform and influence to lift up the voices of the marginalized. And she did it all with such grace and humor. I believe the word "winsome" applies.

When she gave voice to her doubts, she was, without knowing it, also giving voice to mine. She made her blog a safe place to share those doubts, and she never once responded to me judgmentally. And I came to learn firsthand that she treated those whose doubts led them to different places than hers had...as kindred spirits, even. In fact, when I met her in person for the first time, she acted like we were already legit, IRL friends. She could not have been nicer to me. (And later, when I tweeted a link to the post I'd written about meeting her, she not only retweeted it, she also included in her next "Sunday Superlatives" post a sweet word about meeting me, a link to that post, and the photo we'd taken together. Incidentally, her sharing links to my post led to its views skyrocketing; it remains my most-viewed post of all time by far.)

And during the second—and as it turned out, final—time we met (photo above), we got to spend a little time together, just the two of us. And when I told her that I'd become agnostic, she didn't flinch or judge me or try to pressure me to change. She simply continued treating me like a friend.

In the years between that meeting and her passing, I got to the place where I wasn't really seeking out Christian content anymore (and Rachel's work wasn't any exception). I had largely moved on. But I still valued her voice and how she was continuing to use it. 

After she passed, I read many articles about her and about her death—straightforward news pieces, obituaries, and some of the numerous tributes posted by friends and fans alike. I read quite a bit of the #BecauseOfRHE hashtag. And I was surprised that among all of that I found not one mention of how, in addition to helping many people retain or return to their faith, she helped others eventually leave faith altogether and become OK with it, to become OK with, in my case, uncertainty.

And while my life is far from perfect, I am so glad to be free of religion, to have a vastly different—and more benevolent—view of the world than I did before. I believe there's a higher power, but I don't know what form it takes or what it looks like. And I no longer think it matters if I get it "right." Nor do I believe any longer that I'll be punished if I don't.

And, as it turns out, I am not alone. 

From Missy Hunsberger, "She gave me permission....":

• "This book [A Year of Biblical Womanhood] gave me permission to see the Bible in a different light...."
• "She gave me permission to be angry. To be bold. To express that anger."
• "She gave me permission to be proud of my vote for Hilary Clinton... all I can think about when I see that picture being shared of her everywhere, is that this was the picture she posted when she wrote about all the reasons why she voted for Clinton and not Trump. There was a time I believed you couldn't vote Democrat AND be a Christian. She helped me see past that." [links mine]
• "She gave me permission to be angry at the church and to take some [time] away if that's what I needed. She made me feel like I wasn't alone."
• "Perhaps most importantly, she gave me permission to believe that being gay was okay. I was largely there, but she gave me permission to go all the way, even before I knew my own queerness."
• In Faith Unraveled, "She spoke the words to so many of my questions in this book. I don't even know if she answered any of them, but the importance of someone writing down and also wrestling with these same questions was invaluable to me. She gave me permission to question."
• "She also gave me permission to walk away. She didn't shame me, question me, and she wasn't concerned for my soul. She trusted my journey, my hurt, my disbelief and she understood.

From Amanda Marie Salas:

Rachel was a lifeline.... As I delved into her work I was so hesitant because I had been warned about the likes of her. About the slippery slope I was about to go down if I listened to her. I heard all about the dangers of too much love and too much grace.... I didn’t think I would have the audacity to take such a leap [leaving church], but reading Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church that Spring gave us the push we needed to leave by Summer. It’s been three years since we left that world behind and we haven’t looked back.... The last part of the subtitle in Searching for Sunday reads Finding the Church. I don’t know if that will ever happen for us. If it does, I know it will be because Rachel laid the groundwork by leaving guideposts along the way of what is possible when the toxicity of evangelicalism is removed from the equation. She left behind hope that those of us who feel hopeless don’t have to wait for the religious establishment to offer us a seat at the table. We can offer it to each other here– now.

From Sharideth Smith:

She is somewhat responsible for my atheism. She made it safe for me to question and I just took it a little too far like I do everything else. But she never judged me for it. She loved and laughed with me through all my weirdness. I miss her so much.

— Sharideth Smith (@sharideth) April 30, 2020

And from my friend Ashleigh Miller:

I can’t tell you the exact moment I found her; all I can tell you is that her life and blog changed my life. I have always seemed to live in the in between. Rachel was the first person I encountered that seemed to do the same. Her blog and the community she created gave me hope.

 Growing up in a conservative Mennonite community, questions were not encouraged from anyone and much less so from women. I always had them. When I found her blog, I remember thinking, "You mean other people think these things, have these questions?" The peace that came with that was incredible. Later in my deconstruction, she helped me to feel so sure that the god I was raised to believe in was not who god is. I remember an epiphany I had that year: I admitted that if that god did exist, I didn’t want to spend eternity with him.

 

Meeting her and hearing her speak was one of the great privileges of my life. I got this opportunity on three separate occasions, the last of which was at the very first Evolving Faith Conference. The blessing of seeing her preach boldly with a baby on her hip is something I will always cherish. This was also the place where she gave me permission to admit that I was no longer a Christian. I remember walking up to take communion, knowing that it was my last, at least for now. The inclusion she strove for was so incredible and inspiring and it gave someone like me so much hope and joy, even as I grieved for the things I was letting go of. The things I no longer needed.

The day I heard she had died, I wept. The world lost someone so important, and there would be no one else like her. I lost someone so impactful to my journey and my deconstruction. Dan lost his partner. But mostly I grieved for her babies. These two beautiful littles that now had to grow up without their momma. The trauma I knew too well that touched their lives. It was May 4th when she passed on; it was May 12th twenty-four years before that my papa passed, when I was five. This loss for her babies brought my own loss more to my mind than it had in some time. I’m so glad that they have access to things I never did. So many tangible ways to remember her, so many people to share her legacy. So today I do grieve for my loss, for the world's loss, but especially her family's and those babies' loss.

 Rachel, thank you for all you are and all you gave to the world; thank you for all you gave to me. I wish so much you could be with your littles. You are a woman of valor. May the Fourth be with you. Blessed Be.

Rachel: You will always have a place as a major signpost along my journey. I'm not sure if I ever told you this. So I'm telling you now: Thank you. I don't know if I'd be where I am without you. You are and will continue to be sorely missed.

Evangelicals: I SEE YOU, AND I SEE YOUR HYPOCRISY. I SEE IT.

Source: theblaze.com.

So Jerry Fallwell, Jr. (president of Liberty University), one of evangelicalism's first and most enthusiastic endorsers of Donald Trump, was interviewed on NPR on Thursday.

INSKEEP: What have you heard from other evangelical leaders about supporting Donald Trump so early and so strongly? 

FALWELL, JR.: You know, it was funny that rank-and-file evangelicals were ahead of all the leadership.

Great. If that's true, it's way, way worse than I than I'd thought.

[FALWELL, JR., cont.]: They saw for decades conservative Republicans had made promises to them on issues that were important to Christians and conservatives when they were running for office. But when they won, they didn't keep those promises.

When did you ever think they were going to keep their promises to you? When did you ever think that making this country "more Christian" was really at the top of their priority lists? Oh wait—for a long time, I know. So I guess the better question is: Why? WHY did you ever think that?!?

And wait—wasn't Jesus always having to remind people that His is a spiritual kingdom and not about the politics of the day?

John 18:36: Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

 Also, the phrase "kingdom of God" appears 54 times and "kingdom of heaven" 31 times in the Gospels alone (of the New International Version).

So...maybe—I'm just going out on a limb here—maybe Christians shouldn't trust political leaders to make this country more like, say, themselves...and should instead focus on the spiritual kingdom, perhaps by fulfilling the first and second greatest commandments, the ones on which all "the law and the prophets" hang? Just a thought.

For anyone listening in who may not be familiar enough with the Bible to know, here are the two greatest commandments:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (from Matthew 22:37–40)

 Love God and love your neighbor. That's it. And in case anyone wondered who his or her neighbor was (so they could get away with making certain people not their neighbor), Jesus told an entire parable to clear up that one.

[FALWELL, JR., cont.]: And I think, you know, like the song by The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again," I think they just decided no more. We want somebody who maybe makes mistakes and maybe sort of talks off the cuff and may not get it right all the time, but at least he's not bamboozling us.

 Noooo, Trump's not bamboozling you at all. Not even one tiny little bit.

INSKEEP: Is his personal life or any candidate's personal life relevant to you?

FALWELL, JR.: Well, I think Jesus said we're all sinners. When they ask that question, I always talk about the story of the woman at the well who had had five husbands and she was living with somebody she wasn't married to, and they wanted to stone her. And Jesus said he's - he who is without sin cast the first stone. 

Um...No. If you're going to use stories from the Bible—the book you supposedly believe to be the most sacred of all—and if you're going to use them on a national program, and if you're going to use them to, of all things, justify your support of probably the most unChristian* presidential candidate in American history...at least get those stories right.

There was a woman at the well. And she had had 5 husbands. But a) no one wanted to stone her, b) Jesus talked to her about spiritual stuff—He didn't try to get her elected to public office (there's a ginormous, important difference), and c) Jesus talked to her even though she was both a woman and part of an outcast ethnic group. (Think about it.)

The one about whom Jesus said, "he who is without sin cast the first stone" was the woman caught in the act of adultery, for which a bunch of religious establishment dudes wanted to stone her to death. And...oh yeah, she was, like, a totally separate person.

[FALWELL, JR., cont.]: I just see how Donald Trump treats other people, and I'm impressed by that.

Oh, so you’re impressed by a man who disrespects women, mocks the disabled, and stereotypes people based on country and religion (rather than, say, welcomes the stranger as the Bible says to do)? (And those were just the examples that sprung to mind. We both know there are more.)

Wow. Just...Wow.

* * *

If Trump has done anything "for" us, it may be that he revealed the true nature of many evangelicals (and a lot of other people in this country). As Jonathan Merritt put it in an excellent piece for The Atlantic (emphasis mine):

Evangelicals are acutely aware of their waning cultural influence and shrinking share of the population. These religious leaders care about their principles, yes. But they care about something else even more: power. While not every evangelical leader is enthusiastic about Trump, many are starting to express warm feelings toward the candidate.

 I really believe that rather than causing misogyny, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia among his supporters, he has merely exposed it. He has somehow "given people permission" to bring all that ugliness out into the open. As bothered as I am by Trump, I'm bothered even more by the fact that he has supporters—and enough to have actually won presidential nomination.

* * *

Back to Jerry. Does he represent all evangelicals? Certainly not. (He doesn't even completely align [politically] with his own brother, who happens to be the pastor of their late father's church.)

But he represents a lot of them. Trump met with 1,000 or more evangelical leaders last month, and he received plenty of praise from them, as well as endorsements from many who once vehemently opposed him. (Source: Merritt's piece, linked above.)

So—I am speaking here to Jerry and to those evangelicals he does represent:

Dudes, your hypocrisy has finally come out.

There had to be at least a strain of this hypocrisy there all along if this—THIS—was ever going to be a result.

Are you proud of yourselves?

Because I'm pretty sure that Jesus is not.

——————————————————————

*I've got a newsflash for ya: Being a Christian is not required to be a good president. It's not even required to be president at all. It's possible for a person of another faith or even—gasp!—of no faith to be principled enough, to have all of the right qualities, and to make an excellent president. It really, really is.

P.S. The title of this post is paraphrased from Jon Stewart's epic, not-to-be-missed takedown of hypocritical conservative media and Republicans.

Evolving in Monkey Town, Part 1: On Slants and Evolution

"I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can,
to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.
Do not now look for the answers.
They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.
It is a question of experiencing everything.
At present you need to live the question.
Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it,
find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." 

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet¹

* * *

Note: This post is part of my occasional series Books That Made a Difference.

As I've said before, I don't remember exactly when or how I first discovered Rachel Held Evans. And I don't remember how I first heard about her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town. I just know that at the time, I didn't really know what it was about; I'd just heard about it and was intrigued. Maybe I'd caught wind of some controversy around it? Seems likely. Anyway, it's fair to say I bought it mostly out of curiousity. By then I was quite familiar with Rachel through her blog and just really loved how she espoused what I'll call a different kind of Christianity. By which I mean a (very) different kind  from the kind I inherited.

And as it turns out, that's what the book is about—that different kind of Christianity and how Rachel transitioned to it...as the back cover says, "from certainty, through doubt, to faith...." I could talk here about how, for me growing up, practically everything was about certainty—it is fundamentalism's core; certainty and faith were the same thing. But...I would be getting ahead of myself.

The book's title is a takeoff from the fact that Rachel's town, Dayton, TN, was the site of the famous Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925.

This book has been so eye-opening for me, I knew I had to write about it. So in this and in future posts I'll be sharing my thoughts on it.

* * * 

In the Preface, Rachel shares a series of things about herself to let the reader in on the "slant" she brings to Christian faith and the Bible. Which is great, because I think everyone brings their own slant, as much as many would like to claim otherwise. Some of them are amusing, like, "The Stuff White People Like blog is painfully representative of my lifestyle and habits" (page 13). Some are serious, like, "I'm judgmental of people I think are judgmental" (page 13) and this set: "I've been hurt by Christians" and "As a Christian, I've been hurtful" (page 14). I love that she included those last few, because they're real, honest, and humble. Who isn't at least somewhat judgmental? (Brené Brown says, "We all do it [judge others] and most of us do it all the time."²) And it can be really easy to talk about how you've been hurt, without acknowledging that you've dished it out too.

Near the end of the preface, Rachel says,

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not exactly an impartial observer. My culture, my childhood, my gender, my prejudices, my hopes, my imagination, my virtues, and my vices—these things color my view of the world and infuse it with meaning. I've got baggage just like everyone else, and it's as much a part of my faith journey as the high peaks, the low valleys, and the long, lovely stretches of road that I wish could go on forever.

I'm a lot of things, but fair and balanced I am not. (page 14)

And again, I would say: who is?

My first real "Whoa" moment came with the title of the Introduction, "Why I Am an Evolutionist." At this point, I am not an evolutionist. But then again, origins is not one of the things I've specifically re-examined yet. Creationism (of the literal, 6-day variety) was pounded into me in my fundy upbringing and evangelical college. Of course. What else would a good Christian believe? A particular standout in my memory is a "Back to Genesis" seminar put on at my college by people from the Institute for Creation Research. At that time, Ken Ham was among them (he is now the Answers in Genesis guy). He had a whole session, which I believe was called "Creation Evangelism," where he posited that the entire Christian story is based on a literal interpretation of the events in Genesis. And that otherwise...the whole thing falls apart. And I bought that; I bought it hard.

Rachel relates that, like me, she was "...told that belief in evolutionary theory and belief in a personal, loving Creator are mutually exclusive, that if the Bible cannot be trusted to accurately explain the origins of life, it cannot be trusted for anything at all, and the Christian faith is lost" (page 16). And now...here she, an evangelical-raised (no less) Christian, is boldly declaring she's an evolutionist. What am I supposed to do with that? If Christianity and evolution are fundamentally incompatible, what of Christians who believe in evolution?

Honestly, I have no idea.  In any case, I'm no longer inclined to be judgmental (see what I did there?) toward people based on how they believe on this topic.

Now, to be fair, she seems to hold that position less strongly than the Introduction's title might lead us to believe. Witness this passage:

Monkeys make me nervous. Whenever I hear about chimpanzees solving math problems or Koko the Gorilla using sign language to order her breakfast, I feel inexplicably threatened by their humanlike qualities and intelligence.... I suppose my monkey-phobia has something to do with the sneaking suspicion that maybe the biologists are right after all. Maybe man and ape share a common ancestor, and that explains our eerie similarities. (pages 15 & 16)

I like that she admits that. I've had similar thoughts (though I was probably so disturbed by the implications, that I didn't even form them into actual words in my head). I mean, if we're not related to chimpanzees, for example, how come we share so much genetic material? Ponder that one for a while.

And then there's this one:

I'm still not sure what to make of evolution. Scientists have perfectly good evidence to support it, while theologians have good biblical and philosophical reasons to be wary of its implications.

However, I have a feeling that if Darwin turns out to be right, the Christian faith won't fall apart after all. (page 16)

And that is a conclusion I can live with.

As the Introduction continues, Rachel talks about why she believes that to be the case and about what kind of evolutionist she really is. But that is topic enough for its own post, so stay tuned for part 2.

_________________

¹I owe the discovery of this quote to author (and incidentally a high school mate of mine) Elissa Elliott; I first saw it on her website. Elissa's book is Eve: A Novel, which is fantastic.

²Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't) (New York: Gotham Books, 2007), 38.