Funeral arrangements for Christian book author Rachel Held Evans

DAYTON, Tennessee (WDEF) – A funeral service will be held Saturday in Chattanooga for author Rachel Held Evans.

And she will be buried in her home town of Dayton on Sunday.

The 37 year old Evans died in a Nashville hospital on May 4th following a surprise illness.

Just a month before, she was being treated for an infection when she began having brain seizures.

Doctors put her in a medical induced coma.

She died from extensive brain swelling.

Evans was born in Birmingham, but spent most of her adult life here in the Tennessee Valley.

She attended Rhea County High and Bryan College, settling in Dayton.

But her writing would get her a nationwide audience.

In her books, Evans challenged the culture wars of conservative Christianity.

The books gave her a massive online following on Twitter and podcasting.

In her twitter bio, she called herself a “doubt-filled believer.”

Her first book came out in 2010, Evolving in Monkey Town.

She writes “What my generation is learning the hard way is that faith is not about defending the conquered ground but about discovering new territory.”

Evans followed up with the New York Times best seller A Year of Biblical Womanhood, in which she spends a year literally adhering to Biblical advice for women.

She has one more unpublished book scheduled for release in the fall of 2020.

Evans leaves behind a husband and two children.

The funeral will be held Saturday at 2 PM at First-Centenary United Methodist Church in Chattanooga.

She will be buried on Sunday at the Rhea Memory Gardens in Dayton.