“My all time favorite author is Rachel Held Evans, affectionately known as RHE by the people who loved her.
Rachel Held Evans changed my faith journey in ways I can barely put into words. I had stopped going to church in my early 20’s, but never gave up on God. I just couldn’t find a place that was safe to sit with the questions and feelings I had about my faith, God, and the Church. She gave language to questions I thought I wasn’t allowed to ask. She made room for curiosity, grief, wrestling, wonder, and belonging. She reminded so many of us that faith doesn’t have to be fragile to be real.
What I love most about Rachel is that she loved Jesus deeply while still being brave enough to challenge harmful theology, exclusion, certainty culture, and the idea that faith means shutting off your brain or ignoring your heart. She helped me see that questioning isn’t the opposite of faith — sometimes it’s the doorway into a more honest, expansive, compassionate faith.
Her writing feels like sitting across the table from someone who tells the truth gently but bravely. Someone who believes there’s still room for us at God’s table, even when we’re weary, wandering, deconstructing, rebuilding, or unsure.
I honestly don’t know if I would still be in the church without her voice somewhere along the way.
So this month, we begin with Rachel.”
Braving the Truth:
Essential Essays for Reckoning with and Reimagining Faith
Each month at WOW (Women of the Word), we’ll read an excerpt together and talk honestly about faith, Scripture, doubt, hope, and what it means to follow Jesus in the real world.
And I’d love to know:
What Christian book has shaped you?” -Sarah Saturno
