"Rachel Held Evans, a well-known Christian blogger, author, and joyful troublemaker online, died on Saturday [4 May 2019] from massive brain swelling after being hospitalized for an infection, according to her family. She was 37. Evans leaves behind two little kids, a husband, and four books to her name. Her death has been met with an up-swelling of grief and appreciation from loyal readers, famous pastors who sparred with her, and, especially, young people who saw her as a mentor." —continue reading Emma Green, "Rachel Held Evans, Hero to Christian Misfits," Atlantic
Here is a quick roundup of my top 10 quotes from her faithful heart and creative hand. —kls
• “Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe but no one is comfortable. Help us to hold one another to the truth.”
• “This isn’t a kingdom for the worthy; it’s a kingdom for the hungry.”
• “Cynicism is a powerful anesthetic we use to numb ourselves to pain, but which also, by its nature, numbs us to truth and joy.”
• Speaking to the scrupulous, genuflecting tradition of biblical authority in which she was reared, Evans wrote: “Everyone’s a biblical literalist until you bring up gluttony . . . or divorce, or gossip, or slavery, or head coverings, or Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence, or the ‘abomination’ of eating shellfish and the hell-worthy sin of calling other people idiots. [on the latter, see Matthew 5:22].”
• “I thought God wanted to use me to show gay people how to be straight. Instead, God wanted to use gay people to show me how to be a Christian.”
• “The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out but who it lets in.”
• “Jesus said his Father's House has many rooms. In this metaphor I like to imagine the Presbyterians hanging out in the library, the Baptists running the kitchen, the Anglicans setting the table, the Anabaptists washing feet with the hose in the backyard, the Lutherans making liturgy for the laundry, the Methodists stocking the fire in the hearth, the Catholics keeping the family history, the Pentecostals throwing open all the windows and doors to let more people in.”
• “While the word charity connotes a single act of giving, justice speaks to right living, of aligning oneself with the world in a way that sustains rather than exploits the rest of creation.”
• “It seems those most likely to miss God’s work in the world are those most convinced they know exactly what to look for, the ones who expect God to play by the rules.”
• “This is the difference between charity and justice. Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality that we desperately need one another.”
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