A favorite blogger of mine, Rachel Held Evans, is having her 1st book released. Zondervan Publishing sent me a pre-release copy of her book for review as part of the Blog Tour.
I'm doing a 2-part review. This part will touch more on her blog. The 2nd part will be the straight-up book review.
This book made me feel less crazy.
....we'll get to that in a sec.
But first, some exposition ;)
A few years ago, I googled "homosexuality" and "Christian" and ran across this post~ "An Evangelical's Response to Homosexuality."
So that's how I found my way to Rachel Held Evans' blog, "Evolving in Monkey Town."
Here is why I stayed~
This was what I'd been waiting for- an evangelical who is asking outloud, "What if I'm wrong?"
Those 4 words = doorway to dialogue; connection.
Now to be fair, I have had extraordinary conversation after extraordinary conversation with people about "'The Gay' & Christianity," one on one. And, it is always a combo moving experience/relationship strengthener . (I keep expecting the worst out of people and they keep proving me wrong.)
Thanks to those interactions, I knew that people were open (often eager) to talk about this or any other "controversial issue." I just hadn't seen many everyday Christians posting about it on their own volition...yet.
"Out there," in the media and "mean interwebs," we hear a lot from the extremes.
Too much.
Meanwhile, beneath the fray, something else has been going on between the extremes ...in the middle. And when we talk with other Middle People, it gets interesting. We learn. We connect. Maybe not always, but often. And it is So. Worth it. ...because it's real.
And it's why Rachel scores so highly on connectability/relatability.
She is writing from the middle. She hasn't landed. She's mid-step. (read her book & you'll know what I mean by, This is her, as she leaps her way across the swamp.) She doesn't have the safety & security of typing, "...and here is where I landed."
She is in transition. Evolving.
And she's taking us along for the ride.
Looking at it from another angle, she does not fit squarely into any camp. She's venturing across lines..... in no mans' land. Which, it turns out, happens to be populated after all.
Chances are, this is where you come in.
Because if there's one thing I've heard time and again about Rachel's writing, it's "I could have written this! ...if I were more talented."
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