Inspired: Slaying Dragons, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
By Rachel Held Evans
Some of us were just born to be doubters. I think I was one of them. I grew up loving school and learning. Conversations around the dinner table in my home covered a wide range of topics. As I began to learn more about the world I was living in, I began to get more and more confused and perhaps a tad cynical. I had trouble rectifying seemingly different pieces of information. The older I grew and the broader my horizons expanded, the greater the struggle became. This was particularly true of religion.
My faith journey took some unlikely twists and turns. I started life at a mainline protestant denomination, was “born again” at 14, then converting to Roman Catholic before it was cool. From there I switch to a major non-denominational church which for all intents and purposes is a denomination. Each church brought with it it’s own traditions, theological views, and politics. My views and place within the church have flip flopped more than the stereotypical politician.
As Rachel Held Evans shared her personal faith journey, I felt understood. Our journeys did not started in the same place nor have they landed us to the same place, but there is communion in knowing that other people have wondered, doubted, struggled, questioned, cried out, and changed their mind just like you.
Inspired was a well written book about a faith journey that I can relate to. From her views on the more challenging passages of scripture to her finding her place in the larger church body, Rachel Held Evans is authentic and raw. For those of us who have wrestled with these hard questions and have sometimes felt like outsiders in our own churches, this is a refreshing book that helps you see that you are not alone. While in the end, I might have come to different theological conclusions than Mrs. Evans, as I worked through my understanding of some verses of scriptures she mentions, I still appreciated reading about how she reached her conclusions.
I didn’t read this like a theology book, but rather as it was intended, a story of stories in which I as the reader was invited to join a fellow believer and walk alongside them in their story. From that perspective the book was excellent, thought provoking, and inspiring. For more conservative Christian readers, I encourage you to read her book with an open mind in regards to how we as a church answer the hard questions. Sometimes in refusing to read an author whose theology is different from our own, we can miss out on being sharpened. Growing in our faith sometimes requires us to dig deeper, listen to the other side of an argument, and ask God to reveal to us our own blind spots. I think this book can be just that for a more conservative audience. I am better for having read this.
*I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.