The beautiful faith of Rachel Held Evans

In late spring of 2019, Christian writer Rachel Held Evans was hospitalized with an infection and social media was taken over by the hashtag #prayforRHE. Her coconspirator Nadia Bolz-Weber took to praying like the psalmist: heal her now, damn it. It didn’t work. The headline felt like a punch in the mouth: “Rachel Held Evans is dead at 37.” Although I never knew her, I felt like I did. Such was the warmth in her voice as an author and social media warrior.

Writer Jeff Chu, who was a seminarian when Evans died, knew her very well—and he partnered with her spouse, Daniel Jonce Evans, to bring us this surprising book from beyond the grave. The widower gave the friend access to everything Rachel had left behind: computer files and scribbled notes, outlines of essays and drafts of blog posts. The result is a fitting conclusion to her literary legacy. It’s warm, wise, and intimate, like all of her work.

Like Evans’s other books, Wholehearted Faith lifts up biblical interpreters I’ve never read before and reveals enough of their insights to send me straight to the library to dig more deeply. Wil Gafney: Rachel the matriarch is never recorded praying, yet God gives her the desire of her heart. Nathan Stucky: the first sabbath is not a reward for Adam and Eve, for they’ve done no work yet. Kaitlin Curtice: a flood in the Ozarks brings death, but also new life, like baptism itself. Nachman of Breslov: there is nothing so whole as a broken heart. (Of course, these figures are perfectly well-known in many settings, so I’m displaying my ignorance here. But Evans doesn’t shame the ignorant. She delights us into knowledge on the way to wisdom.)