Saint Rachel and Me
“One of my favorite writers died” doesn’t capture it. That wouldn’t account for how I’m feeling right now. It’s more than that; she was a friend. And not just to me, but to anyone who needed a friend like her: someone to stand in the gap for us, to affirm our worth when the world denies it. Someone to model honesty in doubt and dignity in disagreement. Someone to stand in Christian spaces while full-throatedly supporting those whom the church has ignored, rejected or abused.
Rachel Held Evans was a superhero, at least to me. Eshet chayil, woman of valor.
I met Rachel when she passed through George Fox University (my alma mater) on a speaking tour to promote her second book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood. I was superficially familiar with her work at the time, having only read a handful of her blog posts, but they had certainly piqued my interest. Her voice resonated with where I found myself at the time: crumbling under the weight of doubt but desperate to find something salvageable in the wreckage of my faith.
College in general had been a time of profound wrestling for me. Moving a hundred miles away from my hometown had rocked my world, as I struggled to find a community like the one I’d left behind. I felt as though I’d abandoned my friends, and could find little solace among my classmates. On top of that, diving into a rigorous theological program had absolutely shattered my faith categories, as new perspectives challenged the simple answers of my high school fundamentalism. Plus, underneath it all, I agonized over something unspoken, a sexual orientation I knew would get me shunned out of my church. All these factors dovetailed together to induce a full-blown faith crisis, which lasted the whole three years I spent at Fox.
It certainly didn’t help that my friends at home were scandalized by my newfound doubts. Why was I suddenly asking such impertinent questions of God and the church? Wasn’t Scripture sufficient to answer them? Why wouldn’t I simply take God at His Word?
I went to Christian college to solidify my foundations, but my time there shook them loose instead. My professors were tender and helpful, and my few school friends tried their best to talk me off the ledge, but I felt totally alone in my wrestling. Until Rachel came to town.
When I heard one of my favorite bloggers was set to visit my school, I tweeted her in excitement. She responded by following me back, a badge of honor I’ve worn ever since and which I’ve touted over my other progressive Christian friends. Her first speaking engagement was a student-hosted night chapel called Shalom (my favorite of the school’s chapel services). She delivered a talk called “Thick Skin & Tender Hearts: Making Peace with Critics,” in which she charmingly described the asinine behavior of her many detractors and how she coped with it.
“The criticism only gets to me when I’m secretly afraid it might be true,” she quipped. “Like when folks say I hate the Bible, I know it’s ridiculous so it doesn’t bother me. When they criticize my writing, on the other hand…” We all laughed.
She cautioned us to keep our hearts tender, even while we build up a resistance to vicious or unfair criticism. It might be tempting to shut off your emotions to save yourself from grief, she warned, but vulnerability is necessary for love, friendship and art. We must protect it. Thick skin and a tender heart: a paradox which has guided my public life ever since that night.
After the service Rachel stayed back to talk with some of us. At first I had to compete for her attention with a hundred other chapel-goers, but as the night waned, the crowd grew smaller and smaller until there were just two or three of us left. Each of us, in turn, shared our stories with her, and she weighed in, tenderly, thoughtfully and with her famous wit.
I told her how my friends had begun questioning my faith; she shared stories of the same. I explained how they had raked me over the coals for using feminine pronouns for God; she gave me a high five. She reminded me, gently and without reprimand, to prioritize relationship over being right. To pick my battles carefully. To listen even through disagreement. She met me precisely where I was while beckoning me toward greater health and empathy.
I told her how I wanted to become a youth pastor; she told me I’d be great at it, words which have held me this year as I’ve wrestled with my vocation in the wake of coming out as bisexual.
She left us each with a few nuggets of wisdom and encouragement before we split off and went our separate ways.
That was the night I started putting the pieces back together again.
In chapel the following morning Rachel explained the project behind her new book, how she’d spent a year following the Bible’s “commands” for women as literally as possible to expose how certain toxic readings of Scripture have been used to subjugate women throughout history. Afterwards I tweeted her, asking whether she’d attend my “Church Moving Forward” class that afternoon. Incredibly, she did (I suspect my professor had arranged it, but I take credit nonetheless). For over an hour, she sat with our class of twelve and discussed the future of American Christianity. I hung on her every word while desperately trying to contribute something cogent to the conversation myself.
Rachel’s last stop on her George Fox visit was a question-and-answer session for a class on women in the Bible. I wasn’t in that class, but I did attend the session. Toward the end, after a string of thoughtful questions from my peers, and characteristically astute answers from Rachel, I raised my hand.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Yeah Jordan, what’s up?”
I beamed in response, and shared my question. “Y’all ask such great questions here,” she exhorted before answering.
We’ve kept in some contact over the years, mostly over twitter, once or twice over email. I invited her to guest on my podcast; she said she’d love to, but then had her second baby and the timing never quite worked out.
One great mercy I've experienced in processing Rachel’s death is that I did get the chance to tell her what she’d meant to my faith journey. After reading her (unsurprisingly excellent) fourth book Inspired, I tweeted:
I’m so grateful now for that impulse. It helps to know that she knew. That is the single small consolation in all this insanity and pain.
I hope we all have our little consolations.
As with all great loss, losing Rachel is forcing me to confront my beliefs about God’s goodness and plan for the world. I feel disturbed, confused and frustrated at God. It makes no sense to me that such a bright, hopeful, constructive person would die so unceremoniously while bullies, abusers and tyrants the world over go about their business.
Still, Rachel’s voice continues to guide us, even as we grieve for her. In her last blog post, “Lent for the Lamenting,” she reminded us:
Death is a part of life.
My prayer for you this season is that you make time to celebrate that reality, and to grieve that reality, and that you will know you are not alone.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
My friend Hailey texted me the morning Rachel passed to break the news. We’d prayed for her recovery the whole week she’d spent in a medically-induced coma. That particular morning I’d almost let myself forget, just for a moment, when the text came through. My stomach dropped.
“She had so much left to do,” Hailey’s text read. “Now who’s going to do it?”
I guess we do, right? I know it feels like we still need Rachel, that in a world gripped by toxic religion and dysfunctional politics we still need someone to speak for us. But the beautiful, redemptive fact of the matter is that Rachel empowered us to speak for ourselves. She passed the microphone at every opportunity. She lifted up the voices of the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the undervalued. She created spaces where all are welcome, even and especially those forgotten or rejected by institutional Christianity. Rachel’s legacy is a generation of souls who have been damaged by the Church as it is, yet refuse to let go of Christ and His beautiful Gospel.
We carry on Rachel’s work by telling the truth. By lifting up the voices of the ignored or exploited. By communicating the beauty of the Gospel in winsome, inclusive ways. We honor her by picking up the ball and running with it.
I hate to make someone else’s passing about me, and I hope I haven’t done that here. I only wanted to share, needed to share, that she meant so much to me. She saved my faith. She made me feel less alone. She preached a good word, with abounding kindness and otherworldly talent. I will miss her, my friend, mentor and inspiration.
Death is something empires worry about, not something resurrection people worry about. Not when our God is in the business of making all things new.
Rachel Held Evans was a superhero, at least to me. Eshet chayil, woman of valor.
I met Rachel when she passed through George Fox University (my alma mater) on a speaking tour to promote her second book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood. I was superficially familiar with her work at the time, having only read a handful of her blog posts, but they had certainly piqued my interest. Her voice resonated with where I found myself at the time: crumbling under the weight of doubt but desperate to find something salvageable in the wreckage of my faith.
College in general had been a time of profound wrestling for me. Moving a hundred miles away from my hometown had rocked my world, as I struggled to find a community like the one I’d left behind. I felt as though I’d abandoned my friends, and could find little solace among my classmates. On top of that, diving into a rigorous theological program had absolutely shattered my faith categories, as new perspectives challenged the simple answers of my high school fundamentalism. Plus, underneath it all, I agonized over something unspoken, a sexual orientation I knew would get me shunned out of my church. All these factors dovetailed together to induce a full-blown faith crisis, which lasted the whole three years I spent at Fox.
It certainly didn’t help that my friends at home were scandalized by my newfound doubts. Why was I suddenly asking such impertinent questions of God and the church? Wasn’t Scripture sufficient to answer them? Why wouldn’t I simply take God at His Word?
I went to Christian college to solidify my foundations, but my time there shook them loose instead. My professors were tender and helpful, and my few school friends tried their best to talk me off the ledge, but I felt totally alone in my wrestling. Until Rachel came to town.
When I heard one of my favorite bloggers was set to visit my school, I tweeted her in excitement. She responded by following me back, a badge of honor I’ve worn ever since and which I’ve touted over my other progressive Christian friends. Her first speaking engagement was a student-hosted night chapel called Shalom (my favorite of the school’s chapel services). She delivered a talk called “Thick Skin & Tender Hearts: Making Peace with Critics,” in which she charmingly described the asinine behavior of her many detractors and how she coped with it.
“The criticism only gets to me when I’m secretly afraid it might be true,” she quipped. “Like when folks say I hate the Bible, I know it’s ridiculous so it doesn’t bother me. When they criticize my writing, on the other hand…” We all laughed.
She cautioned us to keep our hearts tender, even while we build up a resistance to vicious or unfair criticism. It might be tempting to shut off your emotions to save yourself from grief, she warned, but vulnerability is necessary for love, friendship and art. We must protect it. Thick skin and a tender heart: a paradox which has guided my public life ever since that night.
After the service Rachel stayed back to talk with some of us. At first I had to compete for her attention with a hundred other chapel-goers, but as the night waned, the crowd grew smaller and smaller until there were just two or three of us left. Each of us, in turn, shared our stories with her, and she weighed in, tenderly, thoughtfully and with her famous wit.
I told her how my friends had begun questioning my faith; she shared stories of the same. I explained how they had raked me over the coals for using feminine pronouns for God; she gave me a high five. She reminded me, gently and without reprimand, to prioritize relationship over being right. To pick my battles carefully. To listen even through disagreement. She met me precisely where I was while beckoning me toward greater health and empathy.
I told her how I wanted to become a youth pastor; she told me I’d be great at it, words which have held me this year as I’ve wrestled with my vocation in the wake of coming out as bisexual.
She left us each with a few nuggets of wisdom and encouragement before we split off and went our separate ways.
That was the night I started putting the pieces back together again.
In chapel the following morning Rachel explained the project behind her new book, how she’d spent a year following the Bible’s “commands” for women as literally as possible to expose how certain toxic readings of Scripture have been used to subjugate women throughout history. Afterwards I tweeted her, asking whether she’d attend my “Church Moving Forward” class that afternoon. Incredibly, she did (I suspect my professor had arranged it, but I take credit nonetheless). For over an hour, she sat with our class of twelve and discussed the future of American Christianity. I hung on her every word while desperately trying to contribute something cogent to the conversation myself.
Rachel’s last stop on her George Fox visit was a question-and-answer session for a class on women in the Bible. I wasn’t in that class, but I did attend the session. Toward the end, after a string of thoughtful questions from my peers, and characteristically astute answers from Rachel, I raised my hand.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Yeah Jordan, what’s up?”
I beamed in response, and shared my question. “Y’all ask such great questions here,” she exhorted before answering.
We’ve kept in some contact over the years, mostly over twitter, once or twice over email. I invited her to guest on my podcast; she said she’d love to, but then had her second baby and the timing never quite worked out.
One great mercy I've experienced in processing Rachel’s death is that I did get the chance to tell her what she’d meant to my faith journey. After reading her (unsurprisingly excellent) fourth book Inspired, I tweeted:
I hope we all have our little consolations.
As with all great loss, losing Rachel is forcing me to confront my beliefs about God’s goodness and plan for the world. I feel disturbed, confused and frustrated at God. It makes no sense to me that such a bright, hopeful, constructive person would die so unceremoniously while bullies, abusers and tyrants the world over go about their business.
Still, Rachel’s voice continues to guide us, even as we grieve for her. In her last blog post, “Lent for the Lamenting,” she reminded us:
Death is a part of life.
My prayer for you this season is that you make time to celebrate that reality, and to grieve that reality, and that you will know you are not alone.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
My friend Hailey texted me the morning Rachel passed to break the news. We’d prayed for her recovery the whole week she’d spent in a medically-induced coma. That particular morning I’d almost let myself forget, just for a moment, when the text came through. My stomach dropped.
“She had so much left to do,” Hailey’s text read. “Now who’s going to do it?”
I guess we do, right? I know it feels like we still need Rachel, that in a world gripped by toxic religion and dysfunctional politics we still need someone to speak for us. But the beautiful, redemptive fact of the matter is that Rachel empowered us to speak for ourselves. She passed the microphone at every opportunity. She lifted up the voices of the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the undervalued. She created spaces where all are welcome, even and especially those forgotten or rejected by institutional Christianity. Rachel’s legacy is a generation of souls who have been damaged by the Church as it is, yet refuse to let go of Christ and His beautiful Gospel.
We carry on Rachel’s work by telling the truth. By lifting up the voices of the ignored or exploited. By communicating the beauty of the Gospel in winsome, inclusive ways. We honor her by picking up the ball and running with it.
I hate to make someone else’s passing about me, and I hope I haven’t done that here. I only wanted to share, needed to share, that she meant so much to me. She saved my faith. She made me feel less alone. She preached a good word, with abounding kindness and otherworldly talent. I will miss her, my friend, mentor and inspiration.
Death is something empires worry about, not something resurrection people worry about. Not when our God is in the business of making all things new.
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