A Review of the Book "Faith Unraveled" by Rachel Held Evans

Title: Faith Unraveled

Author: Rachel Held Evans

Publisher: Zondervan

Year: 2010

231 pages

So many religious groups lose membership because of people's growing unwillingness to blindly follow. When a person begins to have doubts and to question what they read, hear, and learn, instead of sitting down to a discussion, that person is made to feel shame at questioning.

After a lifetime of being told that the Bible is truth and that what she learned in Sunday School or from her church leader must be followed to the letter, Rachel Held Evans began to experience certain life events that made her question and doubt her faith. And every time she thought she found an answer, two more questions arose.

"Faith Unraveled" is the story of how Evans learned to allow her faith to evolve, ultimately saving her relationship with God and with the church. With a wonderful touch of humour, this book is a lovely mix of stories from her life and about people she's met along the way, and theological discussions of biblical stories and how they can apply to life today.

One of the main pieces of self-discovery Evans made was the idea of hell and that anyone who didn't declare Jesus as their Lord and Saviour would be doomed to spend eternity in hell. Having read about and met several people who were brave, special, wonderful, and lovely but were not Christians, she struggled with the idea that these people wouldn't be joining her in heaven when they died. She says, "It was as if I had discovered a giant crack in the biblical worldview wall, and the more I studied that crack, the more fractures and fissures I noticed growing out of it." (p. 99)

After spending her whole life defending her faith, she began to doubt God. What she ended up discovering was the difference between "doubting God and doubting what we believe about God." (p. 223) I promise it's worth it to read what Evans has to say about her journey to an unshakeable faith.