The Bible didn’t shy away from criticizing Judas after he died, so why would we ignore Rachel Held Evans’ false teachings? And given that her death will lead many to read her works, it is as important as ever to respond to her falsehoods.
The social media reactions by her fans were as sad as they were predictable. If you dared question her salvation they immediately – and with complete tone-deafness to their hypocrisy – insisted that you weren’t a real Christian. Meditate on that.
They used the most wicked and vitriolic language while insisting that they were the tolerant ones. One lady graciously pointed out Evans’ theological flaws and was blasted by Evans’ kind, loving fans with the following: “wrong, gross, unkind, unloving, disgusting, opportunist, cruel, arrogant, horrid, disgraceful, insensitive, hypocrite, nasty, judgmental, condescending, Pharisee, poisonous, heathen, unsaved, good only for compost, evil, abomination, hellspawn (my personal favorite, lol), b**ch.”
Stay classy, “Christian” Leftists.
And when the unrepentant LGBTQX lobby views you as their favorite Christian and thanks you for bringing them back to “church” then you know you had bad theology.
I’ve written on Evans many times. She was similar to many others who left the church. Their core trait was giving into peer pressure and acting like those around them. When growing up in evangelical churches they played that part, but when they went to college they mimicked the worldviews of those around them. Evans was just a bit more clever and milked the “ex-evangelical” bit for all it was worth.
Sure, I hope God reached her before she died, but I have the same sentiment for the ~150,000 people who die every day. She made a living mocking the word of God and did so until the end, and her writings that survived her need to be refuted. Here’s my catch-all.
Faux evangelical Rachel Held Evans wrote A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master” and in this case you can judge a book by its cover. Evans sets out to mock the word of God that she claims to believe, and she succeeds before you even open the book. This is why the “Christian” Left loves her and why she gets so much Leftist media attention.
Exhibit A: The picture and subtitle of Evans on the roof relates to Proverbs 21:9 (and repeated in Proverbs 25:4) “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.”
You don’t need a PhD in theology to see how badly — and deliberately? — she misapplied the verse.
- It isn’t a literal command to anyone. It is a colorful illustration teaching the wisdom of not marrying someone who is quarrelsome. It isn’t immoral to marry such a person, but it also isn’t particularly wise. It wouldn’t be pleasant to live on the corner of your roof (they had flat roofs), but it would be more unpleasant to have a quarrelsome wife.
- The biblical illustration doesn’t have the quarrelsome person on the roof, it has her suffering spouse there.
- It was not a punishment, it was a metaphorical escape.
Evans didn’t let those pesky and obvious details got in the way of mocking the word of God. She accomplished exactly what she wanted to in this book. Her message is basically this: “Hey people, I am totally a Christian, but let me show you how silly the Bible can be. If you find something there you think you like then that’s great, but you shouldn’t take it seriously.”
So before you even open the book you can know that she is a false teacher and enemy of the real God (as are her editors and publishers who approved it). The only way to miss it is to not read the verses (false teachers thrive on the biblical ignorance of their followers) or to share her view that the Bible is a foolish, man-made book.
But it gets worse as Evans continues to sit in judgment of the word of God. Unlike Job (Job 1:20-22, Evans regularly charged God with wrong. Referring to her parents, she said:
they seemed to know instinctively that rules that left people guilt-ridden, exhausted, and confused were not really from God.
Uh, sure. Anything you don’t like or understand isn’t from God. That’s Creating a God in Your Own Image 101.
Then there is this:
as a woman I have been nursing a secret grudge against the apostle Paul for about eight years.
Note how she tips her hand about her belief that the writings of Paul weren’t inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Peter had her number 2,000 years ago:
2 Peter 3:15–16 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
And like all “Christian” Left feminists, she falsely targets Paul and she ignores that Jesus only selected men as apostles. Does she think Jesus was a misogynist, or that even though He was the creator of the universe that He was afraid to upset the Pharisees’ sensibilities?
Worse yet, she accuses the authors of the Bible of being blasphemous liars, allegedly speaking for God in literally hundreds of passages when it was “really” what they wanted. She quoted this with her approval:
God never told the Israelites to kill the Canaanites. The Israelites believed that God told them to kill the Canaanites.
So Evans also disagrees with Jesus, who affirmed the Old Testament down to its smallest details, and insists – without evidence — that massive sections of the Bible are lies. Or could it be that Evans is believing what she wants God to be and that she is the liar? I suppose she thinks that the command against making a God in your own image is just another one of those passages that the writers made up. Anyone who has actually read the Old Testament would know that passage after passage refers to the Israelites taking over the Promised Land. Evans insists that all of those are not only lies, but blasphemous lies. What else would it be if you falsely blamed God for what would have been unjustified mass murder and land-stealing?
Evans told people that voting for Hillary Clinton is “pro-life.” You have to be a true Molech-worshiping ghoul to hold that view. Hillary is inseparable from Planned Parenthood and the rest of the pro-choice extremists — including the “Christian” Left – who not only insist on legal abortions up to to child’s first breath but want more abortions via taxpayer-funding. Yet for Evans that was the only “Christian” option. Indeed.
Evans posted countless pictures and gushing commentary over the #womensmarch #abortionmarch but was nearly silent for the #MarchforLife — and even then she only criticized it. “Christian” Leftists really tip their hands that way, claiming to be pro-life while being the true pro-abortion extremists. If they really believed what they said they’d be opening up pregnancy centers all over. Instead, they reflexively support anything Planned Parenthood does.
And you’d think that Mrs. “Oh noes, the patriarchy!!” would find some way to criticize Islam, which has treated women inhumanely for 1,500 years. But she was silent.
While she was quick to play the fallacious race card against Christians, don’t miss where Racist Held Evans goes on a hypocritical rant lamenting how if Roe v Wade is overturned then less minority children will be killed. She also accused pro-lifers of being racist and not knowing that we save mostly minority lives. Who knew? She deleted the Tweets when people outed her but I saved them as a public service. It was epic.
I’ll buy a Christian book by someone whose primary self-descriptor is “doubt-filled” right after I buy one from a mathematician who doubts that 2+2=4. Having some matters you haven’t completely studied is one thing. For example, I hadn’t delved deeply into continuation/cessation particulars until recently, so I didn’t blog about it. But if you are so doubt-filled that it defines your faith, maybe you should read instead of write.
Also note how she has no doubts about abortion being legal to the child’s first breath, that you can change your gender, that LGBTQX behaviors are not sins, that women should be pastors, etc. Oddly enough, when her views line up with the world’s she has no doubts at all.
You can also know Evans is a false teacher by those she promotes and partners with. She works directly with Nadia Bolz-Weber, who, among other things, says there is “no shame in ethically sourced porn,” that “the Bible’s not clear about [s%#^]!” and so much more (Just as Evans claims that “It [the Bible] fails massively at getting to the point”). This isn’t some loose pairing, either. They co-host a freak show called Why Christian each year and endorse each other’s work..
Also check out Jes Kast, whom Evans adores, and see if her theology is biblical, or Glennon Doyle Melton, the “super mom” who left her husband to be with a lesbian.
Evans is a typical Leftist hypocrite, believing ridiculous phonies like Kristine Blasey Ford (Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser) but dismissing credible stories of abuse by the wife of prominent “Christian” Left pastor Tony Jones – who just “happens” to help with her conferences. Go figure.
As bad as the self-avowed “Christian” Leftists are, at least they own their label (sans the scare quotes). Evans masquerades as an Evangelical while holding “Christian” Leftist views, which makes her even worse than them.
She’s been really cranky since Trump won. She completely ignores all the sex scandals and cover-ups from Leftist politicians, celebrities and journalists and completely fixates on Donald Trump. She won’t admit it, but I think it is pretty obvious that she planned to have a role with Caesar – er, uh, Hillary — just like she did with Obama. Trump has false teacher Paula White, Obama had – and Hillary probably would have had – Mrs. Evans.
And her latest book is just more blasphemy, where she titled it Inspired but obviously believes it isn’t. Typical disingenuous behavior on her part.
Run, don’t walk, from faux evangelicals like Evans. In her own words and deeds she shows how much she loves the world and not Jesus.
Update: Truly sad that she died, especially having young kids. But I have to be candid: When I read the comments of those who supported her and were affirmed by her, I am reminded at how wicked her “ministry” was. These were typical:
If that’s what she encouraged people to do then it is a tragic legacy.
Someone wrote this in response to a blog post noting Evans’ bad theology:
Rude. Heartless. So inappropriate. Can you picture Christ responding like this – calling someone an apostate immediately after their untimely death? I don’t think so. I don’t know what god you guys are serving, but it doesn’t reflect the God that I know.
The commenter was tone-deaf to the fact that that’s exactly how Jesus will respond when someone dies — either with judgment or with “well done, good and faithful servant.” Someone rightly pointed out what Jesus said about untimely deaths:
Luke 13:1–5 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
Not surprisingly, Evan’s fans reject what Jesus said.
Also see
Now That Rachel Held Evans Has Died,Should We Stop Calling Her A False Teacher? | The Outspoken TULIP
Remembering the Heretic, Rachel Held Evans – Reformation Charlotte
Rachel Held Evans and the Rightness of Post-Mortem Discernment
Eternity Matters 