“The Bible doesn’t give us a blueprint,” said Rachel Held Evans to a group of about sixty students and adults gathered in a classroom at the College of William and Mary Sunday, February 10th. “Instead, the Bible gives us history and traditions, and stories and proverbs and poetry, well mostly stories. And stories don’t fit very well into a blueprint,” she explained. “The fact that it’s not a blueprint; that’s what brings us into community with one another.”

Evans, a self-described “evangelical” blogger and writer with a rapidly growing following was invited to speak at W&M by the college’s Wesley Foundation, a campus ministry sponsored by the United Methodist Church. She also preached...