An up and coming Christian author, blogger, and conference presenter who underwent a profound questioning of her faith in her late teens and early twenties, Rachel Held Evans wrote about her struggles with the Christianity currently being offered by mainstream and evangelical denominations. Held Evans died suddenly in 2019, leaving behind a large quantity of musings and writings. Jeff Chu assembled this material into Wholehearted Faith, a book that examines what it means to believe with your whole heart.
The Bible tells many stories, some of which are used to justify genocide and atrocities. Held Evans sought to question those narratives that assign specific gender roles and that govern relationships with God and with others. She wondered, for example, why some Christians would assume that God would banish those that do not even know he exists to hell for not believing in him. Under such a belief systems, Nazis who executed thousands of Jews would have a chance at redemption, but their victims would not. Held Evans saw something profoundly unfair about such a belief system, something God most certainly did not intend.
Through her writing, Held Evans examines her own relationship with God, and what it means to be placing your full faith in a higher being. She does not have the answers to the universal question of why believe, but she presents a solid case about what it means to be a Christian today.
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