Ep. 400 Sarah Bessey Returns - Braving the Truth with Rachel Held Evans

I feel really strongly that if you want to understand kind of this moment in the church,

but even everything that's been built on since then, you really do need to deeply understand Rachel

and Rachel's work in her witness in the world.

Hello and welcome to the Shifting Culture Podcast in which we have conversations about the

culture we create and the impact we could make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus.

I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. You know, we live in a time where forgiveness feels rare,

nuance feels dangerous and despair feels like the default setting. And yet, Rachel held Evans

insisted on something different, truth telling without the humanizing resistance without surrendering

love, faithfulness without easy answers. In this episode, Sarah Bessie joins me to talk about

braving the truth, the new anthology of Rachel's blog posts, and a bunch of reflections by some of

the people that were impacted by her work. And we talk about why Rachel's words from 10 and 15

years ago feel like they were written for today. We talk about backlash, long-term resistance,

planting onions and dark seasons, and what it looks like for us to take the baton and keep running

so that we can brave the truth today. So join us here is my conversation with Sarah Bessie.

Sarah, welcome back to Shifting Culture. So excited to have you back on.

Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. That's good to see you.

You just started to add it to a book called Braving the Truth, which is Rachel held Evans' blog post

you were leading with Rachel when she died. You started to handle some of her legacy. What's next

for for Rachel's work and what we're doing, where we're going? Why this book, why her blog posts,

why do you think that this is an important thing for the world? Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah,

I mean, I'm certainly not alone in wanting to care for Rachel's work and her family and her

voice, you know, in the year since we lost her so suddenly in 2019. In the immediate aftermath of

that, because so much life was still in the midst, Rachel had nearly finished a new book called

Whole Hearted Faith that was completed by Jeff Chu. There were a couple of children's books

that were completed by Matthew Paul Turner. And so a lot of that work was kind of finishing things

that Rachel already had in process and already had ready to go. This book is a little bit different

than that in that it is kind of this collection of essays but also reflections and contextualization

from other voices who were alongside of Rachel at the time. And this book kind of came about because

Rachel's widow were down that approached me a few years ago and basically said, you know, what the

internet has changed, you know, blogging as we knew it back in that era is long gone, has been for

a long time. And there's this sense of not only from people who were reading Rachel at the time

but from those who would like to revisit things that she had written or who felt like they were

incredibly necessary and pertinent for what is happening right now because so much of her work

was so deeply prophetic. There was this idea of like, well, let's make something a little bit more

permanent, you know, and I think initially there was this sense of like it being a collection or a

keepsake or like an anthology of a moment in time. But as the last two years have kind of unfolded,

it has shifted for me of seeing it as kind of this gift from the past for the future. That it's not

just kind of this retrospective thing for people who are there, it's for people now. And I think it's

even for the Church of the future to understand this moment in time, the generational shift that has

kind of happened in the Church, what the origins are, even a lot of the spiritual leaders that

they listened to now were deeply influenced by and were listening to Rachel. And so having that

origin story I think became even more important. As I was reading through this book, I'm somebody that

I read Rachel's books, I didn't read her blog. So it was something where I'm going back and going,

oh, I didn't read all of this and it felt very prescient for today. I'm like everything she's

talking about. We can have the same conversation right now. Which is kind of depressing, but yeah,

it is very depressing. It's very depressing, but I told my wife that last night we were talking

about this and told her it was very prescient. She said, well, Rachel was a prophet to the prophets.

And not just a prophet, but I think she's a prophet to the prophets who are now is what you were

saying. As she was one of the first, I think, as we're writing this and you and some others around

that time, we're starting to unveil things that were under the hood that weren't really working

very well. That not many people were seen. What do you think that people have started to take now

from her and her legacy? That is impacting other people now. It's impacting other voices and

other people in the way that we talk about the church. Yeah, I think there's a number of things.

I mean, that was one of the challenges I felt like I had when I very first began to kind of

spend all of this time in our shared past, you know, in these archives and in these moments.

You know, do you do things chronologically? Do you do things as they happen in real time?

You know, how much leg work and lifting do you do to explain certain moments in time?

But the thing that kind of emerged was like very thematically, there were things that Rachel was

speaking to. And it's exactly what you were pointing out, right? I mean, you know, far from being

someone who was just very much, you know, she was often characterized as being like controversial

or combative even. But I think that when people have that response, it tells me that they

really profoundly misunderstood not only Rachel's work, but Rachel because she was unrelentingly

four things that she loved and that she believed. And I think that's why she was so passionate

about the church, like one of my favorite essays or reflections in the book comes from Glenn

Doyle who writes that like Rachel had, it required such strength to stay into complicate this story,

to not just abandon ship when it came to Christianity. And so the things that Rachel was talking

about at the moment that feel very oppressive are things like what she used to call like the

unholy American trinity of like patriarchy, white supremacy, and Christian nationalism.

You know, that she was speaking to things like LGBTQ plus inclusion when that was still considered

an incredibly controversial conversation and take, which sadly has not changed that much.

But she also wanted to write and talk about what she dreamed about for the church and what she

envisioned and what could be beautiful about it being uncool and weird and messy. And like,

she loved scripture and it's like her nerdy love for the Bible was what made her so committed

to like grappling with what it meant and how that would actually inform how you moved through

life. And so I think that all of those things across the board are what end up being the thing

that is so incredibly meaningful. There's a lot of people with a lot of opinions and takes

on things nowadays were very viral driven, were very hot take kind of oriented, short video notions.

And the way that Rachel used to just really honor her audience of going really quite heavy in

in these areas and not taking the easy way out, but really trying to bring in the nuance and the

conversation and the community that was around it. I think as part of why people trusted her in that

moment, there were moments in there of her intense vulnerability and honesty that made people

pay attention when she spoke up because they felt like they knew her and they were alongside of her.

And in a lot of ways, they were.

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What do you think could we miss in our social media viral short video type of hot takes

moments that Rachel was giving us? And what we think is a blog and there's still lots of comments

and going back and forth and she was very, she was on Twitter going back and forth with people.

But her essays seem to be thoughtful. They seem to be like she's actually really taking time

and putting something down that she believes needs to be said and not just it wasn't just reactive

but it was like wrestling with like slow faithfulness.

What are we missing now that Rachel was giving us then?

Well, quite a lot. I mean, I think that one of the things when Rachel very first started her blog

in 2007, to be honest, she didn't have a whole lot of interest in blogging. You know,

she saw herself more as like a writer, right? Like as someone who wanted to write books.

And at the time, blogging was a very new medium in a lot of ways. And it was, you know, quite,

you know, Twitter had just started, you know, Facebook at the time was primarily, you know,

university students. So even the landscape of social media was very different. And so the ethos

that Rachel wanted to bring to the blog was exactly that. It was very thoughtful. She wanted to

treat it with the same seriousness. You would treat like a book chapter or that sort of thing. But

the other aspect that was really, I feel like a different thing about Rachel was that she never

really forgot the people who were reading it. You know, she really fought to remember to write for

her kindred spirits and not for her critics. And there was this real sense of community around

blogging at the time that's almost hard to explain to people who weren't there because in so many

ways like you would write a post in response to something a commenter had said or, you know, so it

was a very communal kind of experience. And I think that's the thing that maybe we're missing right

now is the idea of relationship and even the idea of humanity and personhood, you know, Rachel

really insisted on being Rachel in that space. And in all of her places, right, that she didn't want

to just be, you know, someone that was throwing up opinions on the internet. But there was a real

groundedness in her life and in her marriage and in her church and her community and the things

that she was afraid of and the things that she longed for in her experiences becoming a mother.

I mean, all of those aspects were points where she was trying to point out that almost everything

we think and believe and hope about God has its roots in your life. And so that's a thing that

we really are kind of missing right now. It feels like that sort of wholeheartedness, that sort of

honesty and truth telling the vulnerability. And I think the other thing that I would say

that Rachel really impacted me personally and I think a lot of others was the idea of being

alongside of people instead of a head of them or like we kind of came up in a version of Christianity

that was very hierarchical. And this idea of well, the smart people are going to tell you what to

think. They're going to tell you what your opinions should be. They're going to tell you what your

marriage should look like. They're going to tell you how to raise your children. They're going to

tell you how to vote. They're going to do. And so this notion that Rachel embraced was, I want to

be alongside of people. And it's almost this respect in this honor that she had for everyone who

was there as fellow teachers of, you know, her husband Dionne used to always say, like just

assume you're not the smartest person in the room. And she kind of brought that spirit to it.

And that's something that I think still feels incredibly rare in a time when like nobody will admit

that they're wrong. Nobody will apologize. It's seen as like this huge thing. If you change your

mind based on new information, like you're supposed to stay very, you know, entrenched in your opinions,

in your beliefs. And this embodied evolution was really remarkable at the time. It's become

even more remarkable as the years have gone by. That point struck me yesterday. We went to see

Hamilton yesterday. And then there's a space in the unimaginable song that Eliza and Alexander

Hamilton look each other. And the song says forgiveness. And they start to hold hands again. After

immense pain and grief, loss because of infidelity, like getting your son shot and killed, like there's

a whole bunch of horrible things, but then coming together. And my wife and I were actually weeping

at that moment and it hasn't really struck us. But I think because we're in a time now where

we don't see that anymore. We don't see the hey, you did something wrong. I hate you. You're like

you're done. You don't actually see any humanity. What I love even in most of her essays and a

lot of her essays, one of them she has, you don't hate me. You hate my brand. She talks about like

the brand of Rachel and Evan's people are hating her, but not her herself because they don't,

they didn't really know Rachel. But she also then in that talks about Mark Triscoll. Like

I don't really like what he's saying, but I don't know him. So how could I hate him as a person?

And that seems to be pretty radical. Like thinking about today, like that seems really radical

and amazing. Like what do you, what did that do for people to give permission to see the humanity

even in their harshest critics, the people that like you disagree with and you don't believe

telling the truth? It's so true. And I think that that's the aspect of Rachel's work and legacy.

I think that really does stick with you in a way. Like there's another essay that we included

in the book about why she turned her hate mail into origami. I always trip over it. I want to say

it like a Canadian origami. But I'm learning. I'm behaving. You can say origami. It's okay.

No, you can't. And so, but in the essay, she writes about how she was inspired to do this thing of

taking something that was hurtful and damaging like her hate mail, whether it was through email

or comment sections, sometimes physical letters that were sent to her and her home threats.

You know, things that are really, you know, speaking from experience, they are deeply hurtful

and harmful to your soul. And she decided for length one year that she was going to print all of

those off and fold them into origami swans and foxes and little bears and things. And it became

this communal experience with her friends and her family and then learning how to pray for people

that had cursed you, learning how to hold this opinion and understand even the fact that your

words last so much longer in people's souls than the time it took for you to type it out in

press send, right? And so, I think that it was that deeply humanizing work, whether it was

holding herself publicly accountable for not always doing it, right? For being quick to say,

I screwed up, I've been drawing with a pretty broad brush here. I have, you know,

miss spoken, I've made enemy, I've cursed enemies instead of praying for them like whatever.

Like she was pretty quick to understand what she was wrong about some of those things, which in

itself sometimes felt pretty revolutionary. But then you had moments like this where it was like,

okay, this is what it means as you move through your life. This is what it means that if you are

going to insist on mercy and love and gentleness and self-control and goodness, then that has to

has to be across the board. And yet, she never shied away from naming what was true either.

It's just there's something about being faithful to name what you are against or what you need to

call out while still moving forward in love and in forgiveness. And so both of those things are,

it's a pretty, pretty hard line to walk, right? It's one that I think ends up being deeply spirit

led because there's times, times to do either one. We need that. And we need that example. And we

need to step into that today. I don't know any other way to do it than actually embrace the

Jesus ethic of loving our enemies and loving our neighbors. Like I don't know of any other way to do it.

And I don't know if the world can move on unless we figure out how to do that together.

Rachel was not just loving enemies or seeing the humanity and others. She was giving voice to

those that were voiceless. And she was saying, come along with me. I'm going to highlight you.

I'm going to highlight your voice. You're not being heard here in the church. Here, I'm going to help

you out here. She seems to be like, hey, pointing, pointing people out like, hey, come along with me.

And let's do this together. What did that mean for you personally? And then as you saw her do it

with others. This was a quiet and yet very major part of Rachel's life. It's not something that maybe

a lot of people from the outside would know. And yet she was deeply committed to amplifying,

honoring, even in a lot of cases, like opening, opening doors and advocating for writers and

speakers and activists who had been marginalized or misrepresented or oppressed within the industry

of Christian publishing in particular. And so a huge aspect of her blog at the time, but then

even her quiet behind the scenes work and even what we ended up doing a lot at evolving faith

was kind of this idea of like, there's a lot of people worth listening to that the gatekeepers

don't want you to really hear. And so she did that work a lot on the blog only in terms of

interviews, guest posts, shining a spotlight on folks. But even in other ways of just constantly

recommending people for speaking engagements, making sure that she endorsed books or introduce

people to publishers, that sort of thing. So from personal experience, you know, I'm just some

you know, mum and Western Canada who starts a blog in 2004, you know, and Rachel's path intersected

with mine is a very common story for a lot of people who became friends with Rachel. And I was in

the midst of a bit of a, I don't know, I can't remember even what it was about, but there was,

I'd written something about a conference that didn't have very many women's speakers. And I got caught

kind of in the crossfire of a lot of defensiveness and anger about naming that. And sure enough,

there there was Rachel. She was at my side, she emailed me, reached out and just kind of tucked me

into her circle and was like, okay, well, now we're friends, right? And that is a very common

story for a lot of us. And it did feel like a community then at that point. And so sure enough,

when it was time and I wanted to write a book, Rachel introduced me to her literary agent,

her speaking agent. She sent me her very first book proposal as a model for what I should put

together when I was writing Jesus feminist. She wrote the forward for it. She endorsed every,

like just the amount of labor and work she did for a lot of us because that's not unique in that.

That was the experience for a lot of us. And so it was this kind of like embodied friendship

and very practical, pragmatic, like amplification for voices that she felt were missing in the

conversation. And it turned out that there were a lot of us were listening to whether it was,

you know, at the time, a lot of women's voices were not being, you know, published in quite the

same way that they are now. Or it was LGBTQ plus Christians. It was people of color. It was,

you know, just across the board, there were voices that needed to be heard and published. And the

internet kind of helped us all find each other and got to each other a little bit. Rachel, you

know, started out really speaking, moving from, you know, and evolving faith from her really conservative

evangelical faith into what she started to evolve in and it continued to evolve. A lot of it was

speaking to the conservative evangelical crowd of like, hey, let's move past. A lot of what's

happening here. You know, I interviewed Ronald Walheiser. He's a great Catholic writer of this

virtual life. And when I asked him what books he recommends, he recommended Rachel held Evans.

And it seems in one sense a big jump from, you know, a Catholic writer on this virtual life

to recommend Rachel held Evans. But on another hand, it's not. She's writing about universal

themes and not just one pocket of the church. Why do you think what she said transcended that

conservative evangelical moments into something else, into really the broader big C church around

the world? Yeah. I think that's very true. I mean, even from my own perspective, like,

I don't think I really knew what a Southern Baptist was until Rachel explained it to me,

right? Because that just wasn't my story. That wasn't my context. That wasn't the background

that I was from. And yet I felt like, despite how different our experiences were and our upbrings

were, the voices that dominated are becoming the more particular she got, the more universal it

felt. And so I think that that was the experience for a lot of us where maybe the exact thing that

she was speaking about, like, a big part of her first book evolving in Monkey Town was the

original title. I think it's called Faith Unraveled, you know, how a girl with all the,

all the right answers learned to ask questions or something like that. But a big kickoff point for

her was around science. It was around creationism and it was around evolution. And that was highly

specific to Rachel because she lived in Dayton, Tennessee, the home of the Scopes Monkey trial.

And so this was the thing that had deeply formed her own becoming. And yet for a lot of people who

maybe would not really understand why this was the thing that kickstarted your deconstruction,

kickstarted seasons of doubt and disillusionment and questioning with the church. The truth is,

is that most of us, if you live longer than a hot second and you're just a little bit honest,

usually you do get there, right? If you, if you haven't kind of experienced a season of wilderness

or doubt or disillusionment or cynicism or, or a loss of hope, usually means you're not paying

attention really well, right? Like just if you're paying attention in your life, these are intersections,

we all come to. And so her being able to name that and journey through that in public, I think was

the part that was so universal for people. And so even when the blog continued to grow and her

voice continued to travel to corners that you never really would have quite expected and she,

you know, she, her books became more and more widely read and bestsellers and, you know, she was

part of President Obama's faith council. Like just, you know, her influence continued to grow.

And yet there was this core thing of naming that experience that seemed to keep her very honest

and keep people connected to the story. So like, I'm particularly thinking of, I can't remember

when essay we included in the book was called, I don't always tell you. And it was one her,

her basically saying, I don't always tell you when there's days that I really don't believe any of

this, you know, or that I'm not sure where I fit or if this is even worthwhile. And even her

insistence on not tying that essay up in a little bow of not coming back to it with like, and so

here's the three things I do in order to make sure that I, you know, stay in line, you know, or whatever

else she just let it sit there in the discomfort. She had a lot of honor and respect for her, her readers

and even just refusing to solve that for them. And so I think that's where no matter whether you were

like her, you should Southern millennial woman, big Alabama college football fan, you know, like

whatever it was, you know, or someone, you know, very different. This universal experience that

she spoke to meant that you felt like you found yourself in her stories somewhere. And that courage

that it took to name that, to pay the price of naming that both professionally and communally,

but also to make sure people felt just a little bit less alone. It really mattered. It made it,

it made a really big difference for a lot of us. As you were looking back on these essays and her

blog posts, what struck you today that was different than 15 years ago, or you know, whenever she

was writing these blog posts, what impacted you differently today? A lot of things to be honest with

you. I mean, I hadn't spent as much time with her blog since she, since she died. And it was a

heavy lift, you know, there were a lot of days where we're just, you know, faced down on the

carpet having a good cry. But I think the thing that surprised me was how much helpfulness

was woven through almost everything that she was writing. There was a profound like faithfulness

to Rachel's work that really spoke to me for the moment of time that we are in. You know, people

used to say that use the word profit a lot for Rachel and she always was kind of like side-eye

about that. Like never really quite, you know, we took that mantle on for herself. She had a lot

of suspicion around that. To be honest, I think most of, you know, the fact that the book is even here

would probably be like, okay, you know, never. But there was this incredible awareness. Also,

there was a lot more laughter than I remembered. You know, there were stories that I'd forgotten

origin stories, people whose lives interacted, you know, at a moment in time. And then things shifted

and changed. I think for a lot of folks, they'll be surprised by how much things that Rachel was

writing 10, 15 years ago are incredibly relevant for us and how we rise to the moment of our time.

And I think that's the part that surprised me was this sense of like,

hopefulness and faithfulness and what that actually looks like and embodied in a real life.

Yeah. I mean, we live in a time where it feels like despair is maybe the primary

emotion going forward and we're seeking any sort of hope or and we're seeking people that

are faithful as you'd started to gain some more hopefulness and faithfulness in her writing for

you today. What would you say to us that are in full of despair and we're struggling right now?

How do we hold on to some of that hope and how do we stay faithful in the midst of the chaos

that we find ourselves in? It's a good one. I'm flipping through the book because I'm thinking

of one in particular, but there was this essay that she wrote about a plan for faithful resistance.

And this was one that ended up, I think I don't know that she quite understood the way that it

would be necessary over the long term, but one of the things that I remember finding really

interesting about it, she was talking about how like everything that's happening right now is

not like the normal ebb and flow of like liberal and conservative shifts and power like we are

actually in, you know, kind of very unprecedented quote unquote overused word, you know, kind of time.

And so she was wanting to kind of take a look at say, even her honesty of saying, you know,

that I'm someone who tends to get like incredibly passionate about a thing, throw all my energy at it,

burn out quickly and then just disappear because it nothing changed immediately. And so she wanted

to look at this idea of like long term resistance that was not for days, not for weeks, not for

months, but like years. What is it going to look like if you're your life for the next period,

the next era of your life is going to look like faithfulness, then here's what that might look like.

And that was something that I found incredibly helpful and like it is very practical. I mean,

Rachel was always like pretty pretty pragmatic around like community and activism and that sort of

thing. But the thing that she ends off with is talking about like the importance of like planting

onions. Like, and it's quite, you know, she she borrowed the idea from Madeline Gallagher,

she had written the forward for I think the Genesis trilogy it was. But it was this idea of like

there's this importance of remaining committed to, and I'm reading here, those slow growing

long term investments in my family and my community in the world no matter what happens.

And so this idea of like those after school tutoring sessions may strike you as low impact when

you surveyed the great needs of the world, but the investment of your time and energy and care

can alter the trajectory of a kid's life forever. And so like even when you get discouraged,

it's like these little pieces of earth where you are cultivating your hopes and your dreams

matter, right? And so it was incredibly helpful. I think especially for those of us who feel at

times the powerlessness of our place in this moment, like what is it that I'm really doing?

It's like, well, you have all these things that you can do and they're important and you need to do

them. But also here's here's your life. What is it going to look like to love it? And what is it

going to look like to be faithful to it and to show up for it and to not surrender goodness in this

patch of earth? We need to not surrender goodness in this patch of earth. Man, that's a great word

to figure out how to actually live that out. You know, your first section in the book and the theme

really doubts asking questions. I think it's a non-dualistic thought is really a lot of what she

was getting at probably the beginning of her blog as well, figuring out, you know, a lot of

either or thinking, I find that we're still having those arguments now. We can't get out of this

illistic thought. Because he puts his face in his hands. I know. We can't see nuance. We both are

are nearing 50, right? And so we're looking we're looking back. I feel like sometimes on this old

crotchety guy, like, like, let's get it worse. It's worse now than it ever has been.

But it's not like we've been dealing with these things for a long time. We're still dealing with

them, which is unfortunate. But when you think of something like non-dualistic thinking, like,

what did that do for people? What permission did it give people to live out? I think some of this

actually had a major impact on the church world and on faith in the last 20 years. Like,

there's been a huge shift in moving from dualism into something with more nuance. What do you

think that shift started to look like? What did it do for the church? Yeah, I think that there's

there's a couple things that I can point to. And I think that that racial story ends up being

very emblematic of, which is there was this moment in time when given the nature of the internet,

voices that had not really been heard were being heard. And people who had felt previously incredibly

alone and isolated found each other. And you realize you're not quite as alone or as quote-unquote

sinful or broken as you know the people around you would maybe say for doubt, for asking questions,

for saying, well, but what about this? Or well, actually, there's a lot of different ways to read

that part of the Bible and maybe our way isn't the only way. And, you know, so that sort of thing,

which, you know, was incredibly freeing and empowering. I don't think that the notion of faithy

construction is new by any stretch of the imagination, but it was the first time that I'm aware of

that it was being talked about so openly and honestly, let alone being embodied. Even this notion

of like being able to push back or question authority was like really different, right? Like,

it was just to have these kinds of public square arguments and conversations and discussions and

you know, think pieces. It was very electrifying and it felt new and I mean, and even speaking,

I think in some naïve type of a around the time, you felt like you were maybe changing the world,

right? There was a sense of like what we're doing something and we are seeing hearts and minds change

and organizations shift and people finding freedom and it was really beautiful in a lot of ways.

But what ended up happening is also what comes along with any sort of growth or change or progress,

which is there's always like this immediate overwhelming backlash. And I maybe should have seen it

coming more than I did. I think especially because there were times when I would talk to women

who were leading, you know, for instance, in, you know, in biblical equality and Christian feminists

that were second wave feminists who saw a tremendous amount of progress in the 70s.

And the number of times I spoke to those women on whose shoulders most of us stood and they would

talk about how much grief they had that it was still a battle for us because they were like,

we thought we were solving it for you. I had this conversation with multiple older women

and then came the 80s and the moral majority and the backlash and all these other things and we

ended up losing actually a lot of ground in people's lived experiences within church and marriage

and the dominant voice that that kind of emerged, you know, that was very politically motivated.

And so at the time, I think in the late 2000s, early 2010s, I was like, well that's okay,

we're going to fix it now, you know. Which is incredible, you naive. And I mean again, you're young,

right. And so now seeing, I think, the reality of that cycle and understanding that we're in another

moment of things being clawed back, whether that's right, freedoms, ideas, notions, even the idea of

like pathologizing things like doubt and empathy, you know, or compassion and somehow trying to like

spiritual, hermanutical gymnastics your way out of like the sermon on the mound, you know,

or whatever else it is. This is a moment, I think, when voices like Rachel's at that moment in time

or voices of our elders from previous moments who are still here and more than happy to have these

conversations with us, there's this real profound sense of like, okay, now what? And then what does

it look like to borrow some bravery? What does it look like to continue to practice faithfulness?

What does it look like to, you know, to embrace love and goodness and even peacemaking in a very

ordinary sort of way that kind of does not capitulate to the powers and principalities of our of our

moment in time, even if they come dressed up in a big gold cross around their neck. Like there is

something really important about understanding that cycle and then the importance of like,

here's where these voices are really important and what you need to kind of be equipped for what's

ahead. Is that cycle inevitable? Is there always progress and then backlash and we lose ground?

Is it inevitable or is there something that we have missed? Is there wisdom in something where we

could actually move it where it's not a huge pendulum swing back towards other direction,

but maybe it's a smaller one and we're like going down the more narrow road. Is there any wisdom there?

I don't know, or is it just inevitable? Is this just how the world works and we just have to deal

with it and we just have to keep braving the truth and speak it? Well, that's way more cynical

than I usually let myself feel to say that it's inevitable. I don't think that it is. I think one

of the things that has emerged in the midst of all of this is the deep value and importance of

understanding that it is a narrow road and that I think the thing that can sometimes be a bit

difficult is when you feel like the church is the author of sometimes and I'm using big sea

church right like the movement of you know even what racial would call like kind of that unholy

American Trinity thing where there's a profound sense of betrayal right and so I think that that's

where the cynicism is understandable. I think the disillusionment is understandable and even the despair

and the loneliness and even there's no part in me that doesn't understand why people kind of say

you know what I'm out like I just I can't Jesus I love I love this way of moving through

I cannot be aligned with this any longer and I deeply understand that decision and and honestly

you know have made that one myself a time or two before you know kind of circling back around

but there is this sense of like possibility in embracing your role as the remnant

and saying you know what this they don't nobody gets to take Jesus away from you

and you are still just as much a part of the church and the way that you wanting that you are

engaging in peacemaking and making things whole and bringing goodness to the world those are all

things those are all things that are making a difference and that are shifting powers right and I

think somewhat even the screaming that we see around us from the alternative is precisely because

it is making a difference and it does matter and I think you see these pockets and outposts

of faithfulness that help you realize you're not quite alone as as it may feel at times and you

find each other you know and you keep you know having these moments of like rest and respite and

then you're up and you're on your move again right and so I think that all of those things are kind

of cumulative but this notion that somehow it ends and everything's great is maybe a bit naive

at this point it's what is it what does it look like to be faithful now with what I've been given

so how do we take the baton from from Rachel and scrape the truth and walk with faithfulness find

some hope be an outpost of faithfulness in this world what does it look like now for all of us to

say okay what we're going to take the baton now and we get to run with it I think that's maybe the

aspect of Rachel's work and legacy that I I find really freeing is that that ability to say you

get to decide that you know I think that the the thing that Rachel embodied really well was living

that out of her particular context her particular background where she was from so bravery and truth

telling and honesty and speaking truth to power and embodying what you hope is most true about

the gospel and about Jesus that was highly specific to a lot of where Rachel was at and so to me

I feel like that's almost the lesson you know or the or the thing that you kind of pick up if you

know on the you know baton if you're picking up that baton like you were talking about it's

looking around your life and saying okay well what does that mean for me and for this moment in time

nobody except you know there there can't be another Rachel right you've you've got to be able to

be yourself and be working in in the ancestors and the story and the place where you are you know

in the moment in time that you are in and so these larger aspects around bravery and courage and

vulnerability and being wholehearted but like loving people in the midst of all of it I think there

is something that you can carry forward that is not prescriptive but it is in equipping just the same

those that want to to write right now that are writers how could they do something like Rachel

did use her particular story to then speak to the broader themes of what is happening in the world

what does it look like for a writer to to be particular but speak to a large theme the way the

Rachel and I started as writers is kind of gone right just as the ways that people started as

writers 20 years before us are gone right and so you know I think that the places in terms of writing

where a lot of people are finding you know community and finding their voice and experiencing

whether it's on you know I see people doing it on social media I see people doing it on

sub-stack you see people doing it in a lot of different methods and meanings and community groups

and long-form books and you know those are all aspects of kind of getting your reps in right

of learning what it means to tell your story learning even experiencing pushback in public

of you know letting your critics make you sharper and better and more compassionate and empathetic

those are all all helpful things right and so I think you know if someone's wanting to write or

wanting to lead you know kind of at that moment in time I think there's a lot of different ways you

can do that but one of the best things that served me and I think you know a number of us who were

in that era is not doing it alone you know if you can find a community of people find a few

other writers find some other people who love the things that you love and care about the things

that you care about where you can work on things together and workshop ideas together and you know

advocate for each other and speak well of each other and in rooms that you're in you know like

whatever else it is however that comes together writing can be pretty solitary and lonely and so

having someone that makes you feel a little less alone as you do it is nice what is your hope

for this book for braving the truth what do you hope that this gives to us to the world

I mean I think initially I was hopeful that it would help people understand Rachel's work and

why it mattered and meant so much to so many of us at a moment in time I feel really strongly that

if you want to understand kind of this moment in the church but even everything that's been

built on since then you really do need to deeply understand Rachel and Rachel's work in her

her witness in the world but even beyond the looking back aspect of the work for me and I think I

could I would say too for Dan for her widower there's this sense of like it would be a real gift

to everyone right now and it would be a real gift to the church of the future to also have this

to be able to understand and have this particular story as maybe some shoulders to stand on

you know a hand to grab someone to make you feel a little bit less alone as you are engaged in the

work and so I think I'm also thinking of the generations that come next I mean you kind of made a

joke earlier that we're kind of you know like we're closing in on 50 and we're kind of the old

dogs now and and it's funny because when Rachel I started off we were like the cheeky young things

right that we're daring to say stuff out loud and like you know part of like a cadre of like younger

people that we're doing that and now like when I go out to events or I'm speaking at a place

or whatever else I am much more likely to have you know university or college age you know

people come up to me and be like well my mom loves you you know which I love it's great because

a lot of times we grew up together right we had our kids together and now like our kids are all

grown up and they're all getting married and it's like it's just it's a different stage of life

but there is this sense of like I would love the way that those second wave feminists spoke

to my life and my moment in 2012 and 2013 when Rachel was writing a year of biblical womanhood and

I was writing Jesus feminist and you know we had this moment I I would love for the girls who

and the the people who are writing and leading right now to have Rachel's story to serve as like

something they can stand on and build off of and I think that's that's maybe one of the hopes I

have for it is that it would help move the story forward in a way that only Rachel could.

Well this collection that you have edited to braving the truth which is fantastic having her

blog post but not only that having the reflections of people that have been impacted by Rachel's

work and reflecting on that is just a beautiful beautiful addition to this and I think it's great

for a lot of people so thank you for your work on this and and you know some people think oh it's

just a bunch of blog posts and a book it's a lot more than that it's highly curated into into

themes and it's you know those reflections are really thoughtful and helpful as well.

It's a great book so it's available now that people can go and they could get it it's fantastic

so well done good job. Thank you thank you so much I really appreciate that that means a lot to

me to hear like that was one of the things that I having other voices in there was like really

really important it also to be honest with you like it made a difficult work feel a little less

lonely yeah and that was nice too I'm really grateful for everybody who who you know lent their

voice and their words to us before you go this has been fantastic I'd love to get a recommendation

or two from you so anything you've been reading lately that you could recommend.

I've read a couple of really good things but now all of a sudden everything's just flown out of

my head that I read recently there was someone I was going to tell you about giving one second oh well

one of the fiction books I'll give you first was called Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey

it I never listened to audiobooks Josh what like ever I'm always a paperbook person library girl

I did this one on audiobook and I'm so glad that I did but it's like this dark and moody

not dark but it's like it's a moody atmospheric it's got like a thriller element

climate change stuff but it's really about a family and there's this core kernel thing around

hope and what it means when you're in the midst of the apocalypse that I found just like incredibly

moving and so I thought that was like just an absolutely fantastic book that I I really really

deeply enjoyed recently and then the other one that I read that I think should probably be

required reading was called one day everyone will have always been against this I want to say

Omar Ellicott was the odd that's correct Omar Ellicott yeah okay good yeah so I mean it was

fantastic there was another one by month or Isaac I read um

Christ in the rebel yeah yes and so both of those I kind of read together right over advent and it was

transformative in in a lot of ways so both all of those were we're very very good recently

excellence well I think yeah one day everyone will have been against this in my top 20 and then

the other two were in my top 10 of last year okay good yeah we had a lot in common that way that's

right so good job recommendations that were repetitive but that's okay no but they're good and

people need to continue to hear these things because they're they're fantastic really really really

really good well Sarah thank you for this conversation it was absolutely fantastic to walk

through Rachel's legacy her work the impact that it was like forming into the church early on while

she was writing but also then the impact that is having today what does it look like for us to take

some of these things to be actually be faithful to have some hope to speak truth to stand up for

what is what is right in the midst of things that are are obviously being going wrong out there today

and we could actually do some of that work and as you said we could be outposts of faithfulness

wherever we are in our nice little pasture that we get to call home so thank you Sarah it was a

fantastic conversation really really loved it thank you so much

thanks for listening to this episode of Shifting Culture this show was edited and produced by

me Joshua Johnson at Shifting Culture productions if you're enjoying the conversations consider

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