Rachel Held Evans is an American Christian blogger, author and speaker. She is a member of the generation often known as the millennials – those who came of age around the millennium and in the decade or so afterwards. Definitions vary, but roughly speaking this group is currently aged 20-35; Evans is 35 so at the upper end of the generation. Her book begins with the question of why people of her generation are leaving church in such large numbers. She is clear that any solution is not to be found through glitz or marketing, as her generation has spent its life being marketing towards and so “can smell b.s. from a mile away”. Rather, she argues, “millennials aren’t looking for a hipper Christianity – we’re looking for a truer Christianity, a more authentic Christianity”.
However, the book is not principally a how-to guide for churches that want to attract younger people, important as that is. Instead, this is a book that is part spiritual autobiography, part meditation on the nature of faith, part discussion on what it means to be church. It is perfect reading for anyone who struggles, or has struggled, with what it means to be church in the 21st century. It’s definitely not just for millennials - I’m at least a decade older than that generation and my copy is full of underlined passages which resonated for me.
Evans’ book is punctuated by accounts of her church journey: she grew up in a large independent evangelical church, which she loved as a community but ultimately left (along with her husband) because of its intolerance towards women in leadership, towards gay people, and its unwillingness to accept any but a single doctrinal position. She then was involved in founding a church plant which failed, spent long periods where she couldn’t face attending church at all, and tried various other denominations, before settling in the Episcopal Church – although as she says early in the book, “I didn’t want to put my church story in print because, the truth is, I still don’t know the ending – I am in the adolescence of my faith”. The title of the book only partly refers to her search for a church community – it also refers to her search for the resurrection of Sunday morning, “about all the strange ways God brings dead things back to life again”.
The book is structured around the seven traditional (Catholic) sacraments – baptism, where the church tells us we are beloved; confession, where we’re told we are broken; holy orders, where we are commissioned (all of us, not just clergy); communion, where we are fed; confirmation, where we are welcomed; anointing of the sick, where we are made holy; and marriage, where we are united with another. This structure is said to be a literary device, but clearly also reflects the author’s attraction to liturgical worship and her present affiliation to the Episcopal Church. Each section takes one of these sacraments, opening and closing with biblical mediations on key words and concepts relating to that sacrament. So for baptism, we have water & rivers; for confession, ash & dust; for holy orders, hands & feet; for communion, bread & wine; for confirmation, breath & wind; for anointing of the sick, oil & perfume; for marriage, crowns & kingdom.
The importance of these sacraments is stressed throughout the book, but so is the sacramental nature of all life. Evans talks near the end of the book about the difference between the church and the kingdom of God, saying that “the purpose of the church, and of the sacraments, is to give the world a glimpse of the kingdom, to point it in its direction … we make something sacramental when we make it like the kingdom”. These sacramental acts, these kingdom glimpses, can be seen in the ordinary things of life – food, relationships, friendship, forgiveness – and they can be seen in churches of all kinds when they are places “where the last are first and the first are last and those who hunger and thirst are fed”.
These kingdom glimpses bring us the hope of resurrection, whatever the darkness of our lives or the difficulties of our church experiences. When Evans writes of baptism, she observes that “baptism declares that God is in the business of bringing dead things back to life … we are people who stand totally exposed before evil and death and declare them powerless against love”. Time and again, she writes, Sunday morning (and especially Easter morning), “sneaks up on us – like dawn, like resurrection, like the sun that rises a ribbon at a time; we expect a trumpet and a triumphal entry, but as always, God surprises us by showing up in ordinary things”.
Throughout the book she writes about the nature of church, about the fallibility but the necessity of human communities. Being a follower of Jesus is not something we can do alone, but need one another to help with. It’s a flawed institution – if the church is the body of Christ, she writes, we have to tell the truth about it, “acknowledging the scars, staring down the ugly bits, marvelling at its resiliency, and believing that this flawed and magnificent body is enough, for now, to carry us through the world and into the arms of Christ”. She has often felt, she says, that if only she could find the right church or denomination, then all would be well – but “right’s got nothing to do with it; waiting around for right will leave you waiting around forever”.
Church life – in all churches – can be frustrating at times. And the right church for one person may be wrong, even toxic, for another. Finding that place may be an instant click for one, a lifetime search for another. But ultimately the church as a whole is the best thing we have to enable and nurture us to serve others and to serve Christ. Rachel Held Evans presents a rich and powerful account of church life as it moves forward into the future. I recommend her book highly.
However, the book is not principally a how-to guide for churches that want to attract younger people, important as that is. Instead, this is a book that is part spiritual autobiography, part meditation on the nature of faith, part discussion on what it means to be church. It is perfect reading for anyone who struggles, or has struggled, with what it means to be church in the 21st century. It’s definitely not just for millennials - I’m at least a decade older than that generation and my copy is full of underlined passages which resonated for me.
Evans’ book is punctuated by accounts of her church journey: she grew up in a large independent evangelical church, which she loved as a community but ultimately left (along with her husband) because of its intolerance towards women in leadership, towards gay people, and its unwillingness to accept any but a single doctrinal position. She then was involved in founding a church plant which failed, spent long periods where she couldn’t face attending church at all, and tried various other denominations, before settling in the Episcopal Church – although as she says early in the book, “I didn’t want to put my church story in print because, the truth is, I still don’t know the ending – I am in the adolescence of my faith”. The title of the book only partly refers to her search for a church community – it also refers to her search for the resurrection of Sunday morning, “about all the strange ways God brings dead things back to life again”.
The book is structured around the seven traditional (Catholic) sacraments – baptism, where the church tells us we are beloved; confession, where we’re told we are broken; holy orders, where we are commissioned (all of us, not just clergy); communion, where we are fed; confirmation, where we are welcomed; anointing of the sick, where we are made holy; and marriage, where we are united with another. This structure is said to be a literary device, but clearly also reflects the author’s attraction to liturgical worship and her present affiliation to the Episcopal Church. Each section takes one of these sacraments, opening and closing with biblical mediations on key words and concepts relating to that sacrament. So for baptism, we have water & rivers; for confession, ash & dust; for holy orders, hands & feet; for communion, bread & wine; for confirmation, breath & wind; for anointing of the sick, oil & perfume; for marriage, crowns & kingdom.
The importance of these sacraments is stressed throughout the book, but so is the sacramental nature of all life. Evans talks near the end of the book about the difference between the church and the kingdom of God, saying that “the purpose of the church, and of the sacraments, is to give the world a glimpse of the kingdom, to point it in its direction … we make something sacramental when we make it like the kingdom”. These sacramental acts, these kingdom glimpses, can be seen in the ordinary things of life – food, relationships, friendship, forgiveness – and they can be seen in churches of all kinds when they are places “where the last are first and the first are last and those who hunger and thirst are fed”.
These kingdom glimpses bring us the hope of resurrection, whatever the darkness of our lives or the difficulties of our church experiences. When Evans writes of baptism, she observes that “baptism declares that God is in the business of bringing dead things back to life … we are people who stand totally exposed before evil and death and declare them powerless against love”. Time and again, she writes, Sunday morning (and especially Easter morning), “sneaks up on us – like dawn, like resurrection, like the sun that rises a ribbon at a time; we expect a trumpet and a triumphal entry, but as always, God surprises us by showing up in ordinary things”.
Throughout the book she writes about the nature of church, about the fallibility but the necessity of human communities. Being a follower of Jesus is not something we can do alone, but need one another to help with. It’s a flawed institution – if the church is the body of Christ, she writes, we have to tell the truth about it, “acknowledging the scars, staring down the ugly bits, marvelling at its resiliency, and believing that this flawed and magnificent body is enough, for now, to carry us through the world and into the arms of Christ”. She has often felt, she says, that if only she could find the right church or denomination, then all would be well – but “right’s got nothing to do with it; waiting around for right will leave you waiting around forever”.
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| Image: Nathan Bingham, The Perfect Church |
(Review originally written for Abington Avenue URC church magazine)
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