The Gospel for Rachel Hollis

I read this several weeks ago but had to set it aside against a more opportune time. Which turned out to be today (or maybe yesterday) when the wide angry world woke up to Hollis’ Instagram vaunting her own trademark face and the words, “Still, I rise,” which, if you didn’t know, is a line from a famous poem by Maya Angelou. Immediately the narrow habitations of twitter rose up as one, accusing Hollis not only of plagiarism but of “whiteness,” tweeting things like,

Here’s what I want women of whiteness to learn from the Rachel Hollis incident: You are not above getting called all the way the heck out. You do not get to use black women and then turn around and abuse us without getting your wig snatched.

and,

Looking at how so many white women are responding to Rachel Hollis’s apology, in which she throws her whole team under the bus while she dodges responsibility for her actions, is a snapshot in white women being the foot soldiers for white supremacy.

Hollis certainly didn’t help herself in her “apology.” “This morning,” she wrote on some platform or other,

I found out that my social team posted a graphic on my Instagram yesterday that said, ‘Still…I rise.’ That is, obviously, an immortal line from a Maya Angelou poem—only no credit was given to her. I immediately deleted the post but I want to make sure and publicly apologize. While I didn’t create or post the graphic, I am the leader of the team that did and so I accept full responsibility for their actions.

Which is, perhaps, the sort of contrition one might expect from someone who advocates against the practice of saying you’re sorry. Little words like “obviously” and “but I want to make sure” and “while I didn’t” and “their actions” are more likely (and certainly did) enrage the mob rather than cool it down.

Moreover, the words, “still…I rise” employed by a person of stature who, perhaps, knows one or two things about suffering, and has a more profound sense of what it means to be cast down and then, in spite of it all, to stand back up again, has a very different feel in the hands of a much, how shall I say it, person whose identity markers are being able to fly first class and own a Louis Vuitton Bag.

I don’t mean to be unkind. I feel that most troubling sensation of pity for Rachel Hollis this morning, as I have done throughout all my criticisms of her. She professes to be a Christian and so, theoretically, she has all the gems of a vast, rich tradition at her fingertips—not only the transforming counsels of the gospel itself, but centuries of beautiful poetry and thought and theology about suffering and sorrow and yes, even “overcoming.” But rather than any of that, she is all in for a trite, superficial, this-worldly vision of life.

A vision of life that “does not apologize” for who one is and what one wants. And that is a great calamity, because, even if it is rather skewed, and does not quite get to the true reality of sin as the outpouring of a heart and mind that rejects God, yet there is a perception, even today, that it is not possible to be truly “good.” Taking someone else’s words is only the outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual trouble.

Hollis’ most pressing problem is not that she takes others’ work and uses it as her own, though that is a grave misdoing. Her misfortune is in having entirely the wrong view of life at all. Life as she knows it is so wrapped up, so all encompassed with the self, that there is nowhere to rise to. The self-help gospel is that you are enough already in yourself, you have only to realize it, to embrace fully who you are. And yet she herself has not been able to do that without the help and yes, even thoughts, of others. She is not enough in herself. She cannot “help” herself. She needs the help of others, most especially God.

Fortunately for her, and for all of us, that God is still around, still able to forgive anyone who comes seeking his mercy. All you have to do is go to him honestly, say you are sorry, lay your soul bare before him, admit that you are not enough, that the deep badness in your heart cannot be extricated by your own power, that you need him to do it for you, and then he will. Simple!

Or maybe even that is too hard. Which means that the best thing I can do for myself and for Rachel Hollis is to put aside my pity and pray that God, who is merciful and just, and does not desire the death of sinners but that they should turn to him and live, will break into her world with the truth of himself, as he has done for me.

And now back to regularly scheduled coronavirus.