Book Review: Wholehearted Faith

 Information about the book

Rachel Held Evans with Jeff Chu. Wholehearted Faith. Harper One, New York, 2021.  Amazon Link.

Summary

From the Amazon description:

At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness. With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays that ask candid questions about the stories we’ve been told—and the stories we tell—about our faith, our selves, and our world.

Impressions

I have owned this book since December of 2021, when we gave it to the Foundation donors as a Christmas gift.  This is the first time I have picked it up. I'm not sure why I delayed reading it, but I think it is because it felt sad to read her LAST book. I remember when Rachel was sick, and I remember the day she died. It felt like the world, and me, had lost such an important voice of faith. I still feel that way.

But when I finished the Barbara Brown Taylor book I had been reading, I looked at my TBR stack and finally picked this one up.  I was right; starting and finishing it was sad.  It begins with a letter from her husband Dan, and intro by Jeff Chu, and finishes with an essay by her friend Nadia Boltz Weber.  There was a sadness in all of those for me. 

But the rest of the book was great.  Not sad.  Just Rachel's insightful voice.  The first half is about Wholehearted Faith and what that means, and the second half is a collection of less connected work - essays.  All of it has Rachel's theme of grace and love. I highlighted, marked with post-it notes, and wrote blog posts from it. It was great to hear her talking again, for one more time (until I pick up one of her older books and read it again!).

I highly recommend.

Posts about book

Evans Wholehearted

Abundant Love

In Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu's book, Wholehearted Faith, in the Epilogue, are these words:

"The truth is, you can't earn God' love because you already have it.  You can't be any more loved than you are because God's love has already been freely and abundantly given."

In Sunday school the other day, we were discussing the curriculum.  The author said (and I am completely paraphrasing, because I'm doing this from memory), we can receive God's grace by asking for it.  I think the corollary of that is the common idea that we can be forgiven by God by asking for forgiveness.  What if our sin is that we can't ask for forgiveness? What if our sin is that we don't recognize our sin? What if we never overcome the perceived stumbling block of turning to God and asking to be loved?

The truth as I believe it is that we are loved before we ask, we are forgiven before we repent, and God's grace is freely given, without condition.

In our world, it's not very hard to believe that someone could love us but still hold a grudge against us, or could love us, and still withhold forgiveness because we haven't asked to be forgiven, or done the right repentant action to restore the relationship.

But I don't think God is like that.  I think God's love, and God's forgiveness, and God's grace are all wrapped up together in the nature of God. God loves us more abundantly than we can imagine - without limits, without condition, without boundary. God loves us, infinitely. And that means we are already forgiven, and that God's grace surrounds us without us asking for it.

So what is the value of repentance?

Because sometimes we can't accept the gift because we hold on so tightly to our sin. God has created a way for us to step into the light. Repentance convinces us to let go, and to find the gift, freely given.

It's not God's nature to withhold love. It is human nature to need a way to recognize it.

 

Certainty and Doubt

A few Sundays ago, I preached a sermon based on the "Doubting Thomas" passage of scripture in John 20:19-31.  The sermon's message was about faith - how faith is more than belief in doctrine, but is trust in God. I worried about the sermon which didn't go in the direction I would want a "Doubting Thomas" sermon to head - that doubt is OK, and is part of our faith. I don't think it was a sermon that said the opposite of that - that doubt is wrong, but I'm not sure it was affirming of that, either - because that wasn't its purpose, but still....

I'm reading Wholehearted Faith, written by Rachel Held Evans with Jeff Chu and published after her death in 2019.  I've always loved her books, but have put off reading this one because - well - because I miss her, and I knew this book would in some ways, make me sad.  But I picked it up last week, and it's wonderful so far (and makes me a little sad).

Today I read this:

"Those who believe that they believe in God, with without any passion in their heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God-Idea, not in God Himself," wrote the Spanish novelist and intellectual Miguel de Unamuno.  In other words, certainty isn't faith. And faith is marked by the humility to let yourself question - which is not a shortcoming but an acknowledgement of one's humanity.  Implicit in that assessment is the conviction that God makes room for our questions and for our humanity, that God is not some legalistic taskmaster, but instead the source of grace.

If I had read this chapter even a couple of weeks earlier, I probably would have included this quote.  It not only fits the message of the sermon - "certainty isn't faith" - but also gives the assurance that doubt it an integral and integrated part of faith.

This is part of how we love God with our whole mind, I think.