\n<\/p>\n
I am thinking about Rachel\u2019s passing a year ago, along with many of you. I continue to mourn the tremendous loss to her family and to tens of thousands of fellow pilgrims who looked to Rachel as a beacon of hope (to use the tired but so apt phrase) for moving onward in faith while embracing the struggles that seem inevitable for those who take the faith, and the Bible to which this faith is anchored, seriously.<\/p>\n
When I first met Rachel\u2014in the summer of 2010 at a science and faith conference\u2014I only knew her as a blogger. Her first book, Faith Unraveled <\/em>(known back then by its way cooler title Evolving in Monkey Town<\/em>) had just recently come out. Rachel \u201cseemed really nice\u201d and with a self-evident spark of curiosity, but I was clueless about what a force of nature she would soon be.<\/p>\n Rachel would wind up meaning so much to so many, and if I had to name the reason why, it would be this: the way that Rachel spoke of God.\u00a0<\/p>\n The God she was pursuing (though now no longer needing to pursue), is the God of liberating hope, uncompromising justice for all, and compassion for us in our struggles and doubts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rachel\u2019s God. That is the heart of her legacy\u2014in her books, her blogging, her speaking, her advocacy for the marginalized, and just being a plain old decent human.<\/p>\n Rachel had a following because she reminded us of the God worth following.<\/p>\n The God Rachel talked about got her into some hot water now and then (you go, girl) with those who see God differently. Some people, it turns out, have a vested interest in the topic, and they went after Rachel as if the universe were in threat of collapsing in on itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n Such \u201cfeedback\u201d is par for the course, and if you can\u2019t handle conflict, don\u2019t talk about God\u2014and certainly don\u2019t write best-selling books about God. A lasting impression of Rachel for me was how well she handled animosity\u2014which is a lot harder to do than it looks. Few of us are perfect, but how Rachel treated her motivated detractors was consistent with how she talked about God.<\/p>\n Things would have been much easier for Rachel had she had the sense to turn her back completely on her conservative past and go full out \u201cliberal\u201d or \u201cpostmodern.\u201d She would have been written off much more effectively, but that wouldn\u2019t have been Rachel. She lived a public life of authentic vulnerability, tracing out for all to see her journey from a conservative Christian past into uncharted territory, and working it out as she went as we all do.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rachel lived publicly and courageously the life that many live privately and despairingly. She was in this sense like a prophet\u2014holding out a sketched-out vision of a better path, where God was already out in front waiting for us rather than scolding us from behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n I wonder how many of Rachel\u2019s books were bought by people who wanted\u2014needed<\/em>\u2014to give them away, those who were wandering and felt lost. I could tell my own stories of young women (two of them my offspring) and many others for whom Rachel was their hero\u2014a true \u201cwoman of valor\u201d\u2014 who realized after reading her books that they are not broken after all for quietly confessing in their hearts that the faith of their youth was no longer adequate for explaining their adult reality, and that maybe the Creator is more than they had been told to believe.\u00a0<\/p>\n And of course, Rachel\u2019s influence extends to pilgrims of all walks and stages of life who desperately need reminding that maybe, just maybe, the Creator of the cosmos was infinitely knowable. Rather than a fizzling out of faith, their doubt is in fact a new beginning along a deeper path. So, along with prophet, Rachel was an apologist.<\/p>\n I mourn what Rachel could have become\u2014I hate typing those words. Her humble influence would have continued through her blogging and her books, the Evolving Faith conference, and who knows what else. Yes. Who knows. This generation has lost its Barbara Brown Taylor or Anne Lamott. What could have been. It\u2019s enough to make one despair of faith. Rachel would have been right there.<\/p>\n Still, Rachel did lasting<\/em> good in such a short time. I suspect that someone someday will come along and write up a sociological study of some sort on the \u201cphenomenon\u201d of Rachel Held Evans. But as far as I am concerned, there\u2019s no need. Rachel was the right person at the right time\u2014with the right God.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n