A personal story of how one woman began questioning her Evangelical faith in the inerrancy of the Bible, framed around the idea of evolution. As she discusses the scientific theory of evolution, she also discusses the evolution of her faith away from Biblical inerrancy, and the evolution of religion in general. Just as she needed her faith to evolve through her doubt, she believes fundamental Christianity needs to evolve in order to survive. I really enjoyed her fresh (to me) approach to the subject, and am saddened that her death has deprived us of such a unique voice. ( )

The first of her books, and the only one I hadn't read. Not my favorite of her work (which makes sense for a first book!) but still a fantastic meditation on questions, doubt, and deconstruction of Christian faith. ( )

Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions was originally called Evolving in Monkey Town with the same subtitle. The Scopes monkey trial took place in Rachel Held Evans' hometown in 1925 and acts as a neat metaphor for what the book is about: belief, doubt, politics, and fundamentalism. She wrote it after years of wrestling with her conservative evangelical Christian upbringing in the Bible belt and the doubt she experienced as an adult.

Rachel, a pastor's daughter, went to Christian schools and college where she and her classmates were taught to be Christian apologists and debaters, concerned more with winning souls and dunking on nonbelievers than they were about determining what they really believed and if they believed it. Rachel's crisis of faith was relatable, and I felt for her. She also includes some short chapters about other people she knows and their approaches to faith and belief. This book doesn't have a neat ending, but then life and belief don't. This book is all the more poignant because Rachel passed away a couple of years ago.

See the full review, plus the book's trigger warnings, at https://fileundermichellaneous.blogspot.com/2022/05/book-review-faith-unraveled-... ( )

A worthwhile read, although nothing too surprising for anyone who has spent time on Rachel Held Evans' blog. This is, essentially, a version 2.0 of Evolving In Monkey Town, Evans' spiritual autobiography.

For me, the most interesting part of this book is that, in an approximate sort of way, Evans was going through the process of learning what her spiritual worldview would be at the same time I was. She was just a year ahead of me in high school and college and many of the world events that she saw were the same that influenced me. She came from a very different background -- she came from a conservative Christian family in a conservative Christian community; I came from a Christian-by-default family in an area of relatively low religiosity -- but there is still a similarity that contemporaries will often have, regardless of other differences.

I expect that others will appreciate the book for a different reason: to over simplify, Evans' faith crisis came down to dealing with the fact that in her community, Christianity came with a very particular set of beliefs and a fixed political agenda. As she saw more of the world, some of those beliefs and some parts of that agenda became less and less acceptable.

In particular, Evans had to deal with the fact that for people of our generation, the world was getting a lot smaller. She couldn't look upon people from other countries and other religious traditions as the abstract damned. She saw them as individuals, and once that started happening, the assumptions of her upbringing started to unravel.

In the end, Evans decided that she could have both a view of the Bible as God's revelation and throw off some of the more atrocious of her old beliefs. In fact, once she started looking, she found that the Bible presented a much more nuanced picture than what she had been taught.

Overall, a light, entertaining read. ( )

Such a wonderful read for any person of faith who experiences an upheaval of belief. Such an essential read for friends and family members whose loved ones appear to have "lost their way"--if open to it, they might find an increase of love, compassion, and acceptance for those who question. Believers of all faiths lost an important voice when she died; I'm so glad she wrote as many books as she did in her brief stay on earth, to help shepherd people like me through what it means to have faith. ( )