Rachel Held Evans An Exciting Testimony of Deconversion

Testimonies used to be popular in conservative Christian churches several decades ago. People stood and retold the story of their conversion from sin to faith. Pentecostals told stories of healing. Some told of their conversion from a different faith to their current Christian faith.

Stories of deconversion often involve conversion and follow a familiar narrative consisting of a person's struggle with their old faith, doubt and possible loss of faith, grief over the loss of faith and a faith family, and for some, joy at their new found faith. Deconversion is the term behavioral scientists use when studying how a person's conversion story unravels. That is, the process of leaving a faith group. 

Some leave their faith and become a none—a person of no faith, or no particular faith. Others leave one faith for another faith. (Read more about deconversion, 2017.)

Rachel Held Evans has a deconversion-conversion story. She’s the girl from monkey town whose testimony resonated with so many. She died the other day at the young age of 37. Here’s how she phrased her deconversion (2016):

I eventually left evangelicalism when it became clear that the fight was wearing me down, with little promise of change, especially as it concerned my LGBT friends and neighbors. After a few years of wilderness wandering (you should expect that, by the way---look for the manna; look for the water from rock), I found myself in the Episcopal Church, which is no less riddled with conflict and shortcomings than any other Christian tradition, but which introduced me to the sacraments that have managed to sustain my ever-complicated, ever-faltering faith. 

I’m telling you this because I want you to know there is life after evangelicalism. 

See Evans FAITH UNRAVELED

Rachel testified of her struggles in monkey town—that Tennessee town famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial (2009). Like many bright young people for 160 years (Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859), Rachel evolved in her thinking about creation and evolution, which stood as a proxy battle for conservative Christian teachings about the Bible or derived from the Bible.

Rachel’s testimony validated the concerns of those youth who grew up with rigid beliefs warning about sexual immorality and impurity, abortion, and identifying as LGBTQ+.

Testimonies seem to have disappeared from evangelical services along with Sunday evening and Wednesday night services—or at least the guilt induced obligation to attend.  One might wonder about why this occurred. I suspect people have different ideas to explain the change. An online site tells how to tell a testimony in 2-3 minutes—that’s longer than any TV commercial but shorter than many an old-time testimony. And some of the faithful retold the same very old story—they did not know you should only do this at family gatherings. I’m sure there are other reasons.

Unfortunately, some testimonies were only meaningful to the speaker. In vibrant contrast, Rachel’s testimony connected with so many lives. It even stood up to the test of repetition. Her words sounded like truth—or at least an authentic life—one where hypocrisy doesn’t mar the view.

Sometimes testimonies could be funny. I remember when a few of us went to an evening service to check out the girls at a Christian college. We couldn’t stop laughing at the testimony of one young man who stood tall and expressed thanks that God healed him of testicular pain when he raised his hand in praise, which he did. Perhaps it’s only funny to those of us who grew up in an era when talk about anything connected with sex was taboo in church. In those days, matters that might be connected with sex were put forth as “unspoken prayer requests” or if there was a crisis, it was called a “special unspoken.”

A few days ago, before Rachel died, David French wrote an article in the National Review about the problem with Christian testimony (aka witness). He spoke about the “high cost” of the loss of evangelical witness linked to Franklin Graham (25 April 2019). French is tough on Graham over his zealous mix of faith and politics. Here’s a quote form the opening to French's essay:

“Graham’s willingness to abandon Christian principles when it’s politically expedient has cost the church dearly.”

I think French over-estimates the cost attributed to Graham’s episodic attacks on politicians and Christian leaders who interpret texts differently. It turns out, the cost has been ongoing as documented by Barna's research, which was 11 years before French. Ironically, The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association published a review of the book, UnChristian in 2008. The book provides data challenging the evangelical church for several practices identified by Barna research as disconcerting to younger generations. An opening line from the Graham review identified six negative appraisals of Christianity: “Judgmental. Antihomosexual. Hypocritical. Too political. Sheltered. Proselytizing. Do you realize these are the words your non-Christian friends use to describe you?”

Rachel Held Evans appeared as the face of a movement away from unchristian beliefs and practices. Her books and blog posts tell the tale of disenchantment but offer a way to still be Christian.

Rachel’s testimony appeared to bring relief to many a young Christian who struggled with one tenet or another of their Christian faith. Many of us from an older generation went through the same struggles but did not know many others sharing a similar experience. 

Doubt was taboo or even sinful. 

Some of my friends who are atheists, agnostics, or universalists still hide their religious or spiritual identities out of fear—not fear of the supernatural mind you, but fear of Christians and their ire. They remain in a closet like some of my friends who identify as LGBTQ+. I think there are a lot of Christians in closets. 

Fortunately for so many, Rachel Held Evans came out of the religious closet.

Rachel's writings serve as a bridge to spiritual freedom. Christian young people found they could give up one form of faith and replace it with a different form of that faith without denying their Christian identity. For some, this change of faith is like a spiritual conversion. A sense of freedom wells up within a soul when a meaningful life comes into focus.

*****

Ad. Learn more about conservative and progressive Christian views on matters of sex and morality in A House Divided: Christianity, Sexuality, and Christian Cultures available from AMAZON and many bookstores around the world.

Books by Rachel Held Evans

Inspired

Searching for Sunday

A Year of Biblical Womanhood

Faith Unraveled

Evolving in Monkey Town

Links to Connections

My Page    www.suttong.com

  

My Books  AMAZON          and             GOOGLE STORE

 

FOLLOW   FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton   X   @Geoff.W.Sutton

 

PINTEREST  www.pinterest.com/GeoffWSutton

 

Articles: Academia   Geoff W Sutton   ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton 

Rachel Held Evans was born 8 June 1981 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. She died 4 May, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. She was 37 when she died.