281 Quotes by Rachel Held Evans

I’ve heard many recovering alcoholics say they’ve never found a church quite like Alcoholics Anonymous. They’ve never found a community of people so honest with one another about their pain, so united in their shared brokenness.

So why do our churches feel more like country clubs than AA?

At least for a moment, the religious leaders got it: Jesus hung out with sinners because there were only sinners to hang out with.

Oh, if I had a penny for every time I’ve been informed by a evangelical male that I have trouble with submission, I could plate the moon in copper.

I hadn’t yet learned that you tend to come out of the big moments – the wedding, the book deal, the trip, the death, the birth – as the exact same person who went in, and that perhaps the strangest surprise of life is it keeps on happening to the same ol’ you.

Sometimes God knows the kind of deliverance you need most is deliverance from your own comfort.

The point is, if you pay attention to the women, a more complex history of Israel’s conquests emerges. Their stories invite the reader to consider the human cost of violence and patriarchy, and in that sense prove instructive to all who wish to work for a better world.

Jesus said his Father’s House has many rooms. In this metaphor I like to imagine the Presbyterians hanging out in the library, the Baptists running the kitchen, the Anglicans setting the table, the Anabaptists washing feet with the hose in the backyard, the Lutherans making liturgy for the laundry, the Methodists stocking the fire in the hearth, the Catholics keeping the family history, the Pentecostals throwing open all the windows and doors to let more people in.

Imagine centuries of faith undone by a telescope!