Yesterday Anne Rice announced on her Facebook page that she was through with Christianity.
For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
Rice cited the attitudes of many Christians on social issues, and institutions like the Westboro Baptist Church, among her reasons for turning her back on the organized version of the religion she came back to in 2000, saying
In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
Maybe Rice hoped that this time, belonging to the the church wouldn’t mean compromising her other beliefs. She was raised Catholic and left the church while she was in college, trading it in for an intellectual life. ”I wanted to read Kierkegaard and Sartre and Camus and all the forbidden texts. I wanted so badly to know what this is all about, and I left, I broke, I lost the faith,” she told Jay MacDonald in a 2005 BookPage interview.
When she came back, it was with the spirit of a reformer. “People are always going to misuse things. And some Christians are going to misuse Christianity. They are going to use Christianity to hit someone over the head because they frighten them or threaten them,” she told the LA Times in 2005. “We Christians have to get back to our roots as a people of love. Now we’re associated with a religion of intolerance and hate. We have to come forward and speak about love.” It seems she got tired of trying.
Rice’s Songs of the Seraphim series, which began with last year’s Angel Time and continues in November with Of Love of Evil, blends religious and supernatural themes—Rice calls them “metaphysical thrillers.” She is said to be working on the third Christ the Lord book.
Thank you for saying what I have been thinking and could not put into words. I am Methodist and get upset that I am not considered a “Christian” in this new sense of the meaning. Or a “reborn” christian. I didn’t know I died and had to be reborn. What’s up with that.
What the heck do these people mean. Because I am not fundamentalist Evengelical I don’t qualify as a Christian. Who died and made them God. I have my faith and my God and I sure was not taught to behave and believe such as this new Christian thing is doing.
All I can say is it is very disturbing. I don’t even know what to call it. They seem to becoming more angry, violent. If one is not like them then you are???? I don’t know what to say here. those are my thoughts. Again thank you. That could not have been easy for you to say.
To be “Christian” means simply to be a follower of Christ. That said, if you choose to be a follower then you have to study the life of and become acquainted w/the one you choose to follow. The Bible is the story of Christ and in it you find what He stood for, believed in, what His heart and attitude are like.
I agree that the “face” of Christianity today has become ugly in the public, social, and political arena. But I refuse to allow that face to describe me as a Christian. I am a Christian! I am not perfect. I am saved (and by the way being born again isn’t a “christian” thing, it comes from the bible- John 3:3,7). As Christians, we must take our lead from Christ. If those who profess Christianity do not appear as the bible defines and describes what a Christian should look and act like (use the same magnifying glass on yourself too), then pray for them because they are being deceived and have strayed away from what their focus should be.
Men do not define what a Christian is or should look like–the Word of God does–and only the Word of God. Be careful that your argument isn’t against Him.
While I do appreciate your feelings, I would like to challenge you to revisit your beliefs and see what God says about them (from the bible and not from yourself). Let that, and only that be your final guide. As I have told my children and often remind myself, “if what I believe doesn’t line up w/the Word of God it doesn’t mean a thing”. If you have a relationship w/Him, He will lead you into all truth. I pray that you will allow Him to.
it seems its easier to walk away than to stand. If you profess Christ, then read everything in His Word from beginnig to end. I agree that you will find a lot of people saying things that have nothing to do with God and His Word. That is y we are to line everything up against the Word of truth. It seems to me that many do not know His Word and end up being deceieved and from there, attack Christ, in one way or another. I will pray for her and pray that she truely find Christ and not society version of Him and what he supposedly stood for. Many will find Him just as he said in His word.
Very well put Venny. Your comments echo my thoughts and prayers.
You go, Anne! I love an honest woman willing to stand up to bullies. I don’t even like her writing but I think I’ll go out and buy a copy of all her books to show my support.
She reminds me of a wakeboarder, always skipping across the top of the waves. I do not consider her sampling of wave tops of religion to be a reliable and/or seminal voice in Christianity – my 2 cents worth.