Inspired

Rachel Held Evans was born Rachel Grace Held in Alabama on June 8, 1981. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Bryan College in 2003. She started working for The Herald-News in 2004. In 2007, she won an award from the Tennessee Press Association for the best personal humor column.

An Episcopalian, she left the evangelical church in 2014 to find what she considered a truer, more authentic Christianity. She wrote four books including Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions; A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband Master; and Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. She died from extensive brain swelling on May 4, 2019 at the age of 37.

030