Rachel Held Evans’ Husband Posts Posthumous Blog Entry

When Christian author Rachel Held Evans passed away last May, there was an outpouring of grief from people who knew her and had their lives impacted by her work. Evans, who was 37, was one of the American Christian voices for the marginalised. Her work encouraged women to consider their calling to ministry in a context where this is not always welcomed, and challenged the church to be more welcoming of LGBTI Christians.

The widespread use of the hashtag #BecauseofRHE showed that there were many who attributed part of their own Christian journey to exposure to Evans’ work.

It appears that there was some more of this than realised, as Evans’ husband Daniel recently took to the late author’s Twitter account to indicate that one of her final pieces of writing has now been published.

This is Dan. I’m sharing this post on behalf of Rachel: https://t.co/5sEbefy1zF

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) October 8, 2019

The piece goes over Evans’ concern for LGBTI people and traces part of her own faith journey in becoming more accepting of them.

“I’ve shared this evolution in bits and pieces elsewhere, and I’ve been public about my position for quite some time, but I’ve never outlined my journey in a single post,” she writes.

“My aim is to show how such a change is possible—indeed, necessary—and to dispel some of the myths regarding those of us who hold an affirming position.”

In an addendum to the piece, Daniel notes that he had chosen to publish the piece, even though it was unfinished at the time of Held-Evans’ passing. This, he says, is because it has an important message, “even though it’s imperfect and incomplete.”

“Rachel passed away before she had a chance to finish this article. She would reference it sometimes when we talked. She worked on it off and on for years. She started working on it again just before she got sick and was planning to post it earlier this year. This post is my best effort to show her intent.”

Rachel Held Evans’ final piece can be read here.

Jonathan Foye is Insights’ Editor