Rachel Held Evans, Christian author who challenged evangelicals, has died at 37

Christian blogger and author Rachel Held Evans has died at the age of 37. Over the last decade, she reclaimed her evangelical faith and engaged in a series of thoughtful, deeply considered debates with some of the leading figures in American Christian thought. She became known for her willingness to stand up against the tide and defend the idea that evangelicals could embrace change—and embrace people—without losing their faith. Her position as a progressive evangelical was difficult, but she was a powerful writer and a considerate voice on the overlap of spirituality and morality.

Evans books chronicle her life from growing up in the evangelical community, through her growing awareness of disagreements both with and within the church, leaving both her home and Christianity behind, then returning to the church as an adult. She didn’t just return to immerse herself in the sense of community, history, and tradition, she became an innovator, a voice for a new generation in the church—and almost uniquely capable of powerfully disagreeing without being at all disagreeable. 

Evans talked about some of this journey in her book Evolving in Monkey Town (available as a free audio book), which talked about her youth in the same town where the “Scopes Monkey Trial” took place, as well as how she reconciled what she had learned outside that town with the faith of her youth. Some of Evan’s sermons are preserved on YouTube, but neither her public appearances or her books capture all that she did to act as a voice for those struggling not just with their faith, but with an evangelical movement that had adopted positions that seemed deeply, deeply wrong. 

Her voice was there for the role of women in the church. For racial justice. For gay, lesbian, and transgender acceptance in the church. Her loss will be felt by thousands who looked for their place when what they heard from their spiritual home seemed to be all rejection. She was thoughtful. She was kind.

Evans was admitted to the hospital on April 14 after having an allergic reaction to antibiotics. At the time, it didn’t seem serious—except that she was concerned about missing Game of Thrones—but as her husband Dan blogged, Rachel suffered seizures and was placed in a medically-induced coma a few days later as doctors struggled to understand the problem. Doctors attempted to revive Rachel from the coma earlier this week, but on Thursday her vitals went into a steep decline and she died on Saturday morning. She has a 3-year-old son and a daughter is a few days from her first birthday.

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2Wul3Nq