When popular Christian author and blogger Rachel Held Evans came to Eastern Mennonite University last week, one student cleared her schedule. First-year seminarian Lindsay Davis was at each of Evans\u2019 appearances: morning chapel, an afternoon reading and discussion with an undergraduate Anabaptist Biblical Values class and an evening lecture.<\/p>\n
Reprising themes she explores in her books, Evolving in Monkeytown<\/i><\/a>\u00a0 (Zondervan, 2010) and The Year of Biblical Womanhood <\/i><\/a>(Thomas Nelson, 2012), and on her popular blog, Evans repeatedly urged faith communities to nurture diversity and honor differences.<\/p>\n That message was one that Davis also wanted to celebrate.<\/p>\n \u201cI was raised Pentecostal, attended a Brethren college, go to a Methodist church, and study at a Mennonite seminary,\u201d Davis said. \u201cWhen I found Rachel\u2019s blog, I was struggling with faith and doubt and being a woman wanting to pursue pastoral leadership yet being told I couldn\u2019t. What she talks about has resonated with me and inspired me.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar feelings brought audience members to Harrisonburg from as far away as Pennsylvania and Indiana.<\/p>\n Evans\u2019 thoughtful, often humorous explorations of her evangelical faith and the Christian tradition have earned her both controversy and acclaim. She\u2019s appeared on The Today Show<\/a>, NPR<\/a>, Oprah.com<\/a> and in a host of national newspapers. She was named one of Christianity Today\u2019s \u201c50 Women to Watch<\/a>\u201d in 2012.<\/p>\n During a chapel talk titled \u201cKeep the Church Weird \u2014 Millenials and the Future of Christianity,\u201d Evans said that she\u2019s often asked to speak about reasons why teenagers and twenty-somethings are leaving the church. Though at 32, she barely qualifies as a millennial, Evans thinks her popular blog<\/a> (in one month last year, it received more than 272,000 visits) has come to resemble what the younger generation wants in a church: a haven for fellow-seekers and fellow-questioners, where alternative viewpoints are welcomed and explored.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what we want,\u201d Evans said, reciting from what she termed a \u201clitany\u201d of millennial needs. \u201cWe want the church to be a safe place to doubt, a safe place to wrestle with tough questions about everything from sexuality to science to Biblical interpretation. We want the church to be where we can tell the truth about ourselves and about the world.\u201d<\/p>\n She urged a change in style \u2013 to a \u201ctruer, more authentic Christianity\u201d \u2013 instead of the all-too-popular and much too superficial \u201cchange in substance\u201d of updated music, cool hangouts, and hip youth pastors. Too often, she said, branding and theology, denominational differences and the culture wars \u201cget in the way.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Evans\u2019 themes is that the story of Jesus is powerful and that God\u2019s grace is \u201calways enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s get out of the way,\u201d she repeated throughout the day. \u201cWe get in our own way. We get in God\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n Clearing that path to God means letting in \u2013 and leading the way for – the marginalized, the poor, the \u201cleast of these\u201d (Matthew 25:40), including the LGBT community, Evans said during an afternoon discussion with an Anabaptist Biblical Perspectives class. She is not merely stating her own beliefs, but sharing those of many millenials, according to polls by the Barna Group and Pew Forum.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat gives you hope?\u201d asked Bible faculty member Carmen Schrock-Hurst<\/a> at the end of the Q & A session.<\/p>\n The empowerment of the marginalized through the online community, Evans replied. \u201cThey are still coming. They still want to be part of this family, this church story. People from the margins will have positions of leadership and start changing things and have a voice. That\u2019s exciting. That is really good news.\u201d<\/p>\n Afterward, Schrock-Hurst said it was an honor for the campus to host Evans.<\/p>\n \u201cSince her visit I have had numerous students share about how much they enjoyed her chapel presentation about millenials and the church,\u201d Schrock-Hurst said. \u201cRachel has a gift for sharing concerns about her doubts and the church, and yet also models an inviting spirit that doesn’t let us off the hook on faith issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Evans\u2019 evening presentation about her bestseller, The Year of Biblical Womanhood<\/i>, drew a near-capacity crowd to Lehman Auditorium. The book chronicles Evans\u2019 year-long exploration of the Bible, during which she searched, exhaustively and humorously, for a single, cohesive formula of what it means to be a Christian woman.<\/p>\n In the process of exploring Biblical values such as gentleness, domesticity, obedience, justice and fertility, Evans also discovers that gender roles \u201cget in the way of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTraditions that overemphasize gender roles reduce womanhood down to a list of acceptable roles, especially being a homemaker, a wife, a mother,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about acting like a man or acting like a woman. What matters is where you find yourself as a follower of Jesus. It\u2019s not really about roles, it\u2019s about character.\u201d<\/p>\n That discovery led to a new relationship with the Bible, Evans said. Rather than seeking a \u201cblueprint\u201d for behavior and tradition, she now sees \u201cthe Bible as this beautiful, ancient collection of stories, proverbs, songs, and prophecies that pulls us into communion and community, that gives us something to talk about, precisely because it\u2019s difficult to understand, it\u2019s complex and complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n For this reason, the Bible should be a \u201cconversation starter, not a conversation ender,\u201d she concluded. \u201cOf course, we\u2019re going to disagree. But no matter that we disagree, we\u2019re still brothers and sisters in Christ. We can still break bread, share communion, be a family.\u201d<\/p>\n All of Rachel Held Evans’ talks at EMU on March 19 can be accessed online:<\/p>\n \u201cKeep the Church Weird: Millennials & The Future of Christianity\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cA Year of Biblical Womanhood\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Church is where we \u2018tell the truth about ourselves\u2019<\/h3>\n
The Bible as a conversation starter<\/h3>\n