Inventing Rachel Held Evans

A reader points out this passage from a hugely laudatory appreciation of the late Rachel Held Evans by the progressive Evangelical writer Laura Turner. Emphasis mine:

In the beginning of her career, Rachel had a popular blog, but it wasn’t about motherhood or travel or interior design, so no one knew quite what to do with her. Instead, Rachel tackled heavy theological questions and featured regular guest posts about faith from lesser-known writers. Rachel was a breath of fresh air in a world — Christian women on the internet — that is mostly known for a sense of “curated imperfection,” a polished messiness that is more interested in domestic achievement or kitchen renovations or faux female empowerment than in actual systemic change or in the person of Jesus Christ. Rachel never posted a picture of her dishes piling up in the sink as shorthand for vulnerability, never posed in a floral print dress while bemoaning the state of her house or her kids. The idea of her doing so was laughable, even though she was a Christian woman on the internet, because Rachel wasn’t trying to draw attention to herself. She was not a brand. She was a warrior in a cardigan.

That’s interesting, says the reader, because this is RHE’s first-ever Instagram post:

It’s fascinating to see people needing RHE to be this or that kind of Christian. Why?