Rachel Held Evans (Searching for Sunday; Inspired) was well known among evangelical and "ex-vangelical" American Christians for her passionate, thoughtful writing and her wrestling with difficult questions. In Wholehearted Faith, her final, posthumous book for adults, Evans (who died after a brief illness in 2019) shares familiar and new material relating to faith, doubt and her ongoing struggle to live a life of compassion and grace (despite the Twitter haters). Ably edited by Evans's colleague Jeff Chu (Does Jesus Really Love Me?), the essays in Wholehearted Faith present a warm, generous, kaleidoscopic view of Evans's spiritual journey over the past two decades.
Readers of Evans's previous books will find familiar themes here: she returned again and again to questions about inclusion, the role of women in the church, the validity of doubt, and the wild, ungraspable love of God. She gets personal at times, detailing her upbringing in small-town Alabama and later Tennessee, praising her parents for their grace-filled approach to life and spirituality, and admitting her own desperate need to be the "best" Christian. She also touches on some events that shook her former certainties: the execution of a young Muslim woman after 9/11, her friendships with LGBTQ+ people (Christian and otherwise), the difficulty of living up to the ideals she was trying to follow. The result is a broad and deep look at the evolution of Evans's faith (harking back to the original title of her first memoir, Evolving in Monkey Town).
Often self-deprecating, Evans pokes gentle fun at her younger self and fesses up to her own weaknesses, but she's not interested in castigating anyone else (except the folks who insult her on social media). She admits to harboring lots of questions, even insisting that doubts are a necessary part of a healthy spiritual life. She wrestles with the often-sprawling gap between the person of Jesus and the ways conservative evangelical churches have interpreted his life and teachings. And she insists--in every chapter, if not on every page--that if there is a God, God's love is for everyone, with absolutely no asterisks or exceptions. She also insists on the corollary: that anyone claiming to love God must also show true compassion toward their fellow human beings and the earth we all share.
With thoughtful introductions by Chu and by Rachel's husband, Dan Evans, and a poignant epilogue by pastor and author Nadia Bolz-Weber, Wholehearted Faith is "not the book that Rachel would have written," as Chu reminds readers. But it is still a genuine, curious, openhearted collection from a woman who spent her life struggling to balance questions and love. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Rachel Held Evans's posthumous memoir is a warm, generous exploration of faith, doubt and the challenges of living a Christian life.