Rachel Held Evans, a best-selling Christian author who was unafraid to wade into fierce theological battles over issues such as the role of women, science, LGBT issues and politics on her blog and social media, died May 4, after spending weeks in the hospital for an infection. She was 37.
Her husband, Dan, who has been writing health updates, wrote on her blog May 4 that she had been weaned from an induced coma, but swelling in her brain was not survivable.
“This entire experience is surreal. I keep hoping it’s a nightmare from which I’ll awake,” Dan Evans wrote. “I feel like I’m telling someone else’s story.”
Evans tweeted in mid-April that she was in the hospital with the “flu + UTI combo and a severe allergic reaction” to antibiotics and asked for prayer. Dan Evans wrote that she then developed seizures, so doctors put her into a medically induced coma.
The hashtag #PrayforRHE became a trending topic on Twitter earlier this month for Evans, who had two young children, ages 3 and almost 1. Her friends set up a GoFundMe account to cover medical expenses.
Writer Sarah Bessey, a close friend of Evans, wrote on Twitter that she was surrounded by her family and her close friend who sang and prayed. The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber tweeted that she anointed her with oil the night of May 3.
“Rachel’s presence in this world was a gift to us all and her work will long survive her,” Dan Evans wrote May 4.
Evans, who emerged during a blog renaissance in the early 2000s when younger voices were getting attention, has been compared to other progressive Christian writers like Tony Campolo and Diana Butler Bass. She once said that her evangelical church’s activism on a Tennessee campaign to ban same-sex marriage eventually led her to leave that church, but she continued to write about her love for her church and the Bible and joined an Episcopal church.
Evans drew a large following in the evangelical community in both progressive and conservative circles. She criticized widespread evangelical support for President Donald Trump, encouraged women in church leadership and questioned a literal reading of the Bible, among other issues. From her home in Tennessee, she became a beloved progressive speaker at many conferences around the country.
Her books — including “A Year of Biblical Womanhood,” “Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again” and “Searching for Sunday” — pushed theological boundaries for many conservative evangelicals, but they gave voice to many progressive evangelicals who had become frustrated with their churches. In 2012, she was named one of Christianity Today magazine’s “50 Women to Watch.”
Evans served on a White House council for faith-based and neighborhood partnerships during President Barack Obama’s second term.
Obama recognized that, at a young age, she had become an influential leader within and beyond the religious community, said Melissa Rogers, who was the director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships during Obama’s second term.
“Rachel brought her usual piercing insights and deep compassion to the council’s work on poverty,” Rogers said. “She was also a beloved member of the team.”
Evans was born June 8, 1981, in Birmingham, Ala., and moved to Dayton, Tenn., when she was a teenager, according to Slate. Raised in an evangelical home, she received her bachelor’s degree in English from Bryan College in Dayton and then was a journalist at the town’s newspaper, the Herald-News, before becoming a pioneer in the Christian blogging world.
“Rachel exemplified what it meant to care for the church without mindlessly supporting the injustices it’s done in the name of Christ,” said the Rev. Broderick Greer, an Episcopal priest in Denver. “This often meant watching Rachel courageously clash with those she disagreed with, publicly wrestling with ideas she found harmful.”
Many people forget she was a trailblazer, said Jonathan Merritt, a popular progressive Christian author and speaker.
