Rachel Held Evans and “The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart”
I first heard about Rachel Held Evans through my husband. He’d bought her book on his Kindle called A Year of Biblical Womanhood and told me I should read it. My first thought was, “As if! I’m going to read a book by that name! It’ll probably tell me I should be calling my husband ‘lord’ and other silly stuff like that.” Well, I read the book, and it was not what I had expected, and I ended up really enjoying it. So I started following Rachel’s blog which I also have enjoyed.
This week she wrote a really good, thought provoking blog post: “The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart”. She writes about her struggle with elements of Christian doctrine that seem to run counter to her conscience and sense of justice, empathy, and love. And many Christians are perfectly willing to accept these inconsistencies without even a question – it’s as if there is no place for emotion or doubt. Rachel makes some really good points in this post and in her follow-up post: “Love. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” I’d highly recommend reading both posts.