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A review by lizshayne
Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again by Rachel Held Evans
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I'm honestly shocked it took me this long to end up reading female Christian theologians. (I've been on exvangelical tiktok for months now so IDK.) Anyway, Held Evans was wonderful, she never quite calls what she does second naïveté, but that gestures towards what's she's doing in returning to these stories as meaningful.
If you're Jewish and not a completionist, feel free to skip the Jesus stories in the last third of the book; if you're fascinated in comparative theology, feel free to read on.
(There's a really interesting comparison to be done between her Christian insistence on the need for a God who becomes human and the Jewish (well, from a Levinas perspective) emphasis that what is utterly extraordinary about the covenant is that we CAN be in relationship with a God who is other.)
The way she thinks about stories and faith, though, is both deeply based in midrash (arguably this books is what happens when a Christian writes midrash) and deeply speaks to me as a Jew obsessed with narrative.
If you're Jewish and not a completionist, feel free to skip the Jesus stories in the last third of the book; if you're fascinated in comparative theology, feel free to read on.
(There's a really interesting comparison to be done between her Christian insistence on the need for a God who becomes human and the Jewish (well, from a Levinas perspective) emphasis that what is utterly extraordinary about the covenant is that we CAN be in relationship with a God who is other.)
The way she thinks about stories and faith, though, is both deeply based in midrash (arguably this books is what happens when a Christian writes midrash) and deeply speaks to me as a Jew obsessed with narrative.