Anne Rice has made news again. She is mainly known for her gothic novels. Her books have sold around 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history. It came as a shock in 2005 when she returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which she left at 18. Now, in another shock, she has renounced her membership in that Church. This announcement came in three posts to her Facebook, each only hours apart.
1. “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.”
2. “As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. 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.” [17]
3. “My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”
The energy of her renunciation is felt both in her words and the three rapid postings. Her statement, “I refuse to be anti-life” is most telling.
Disturbing, for a person advocating a non-literal and non-dogmatic contemporary theology, is Anne Rice’s seemingly ignorance of a Christianity that is not ‘anti-life.’ There are numerous Christians and churches that are progressive and liberal dotting the landscape of America.
Such liberal and progressive churches are off the radar screen for most people since the media always portrays Christianity as the voice of the F-E-COTs (Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Conservatives, Orthodox and Traditionalists). Pick an issue, and the spokesperson is invariably someone who espouses an adamant anti-life stance.
Anne Rice is reminiscent of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most respected leaders of modern history. A Hindu, Gandhi nevertheless admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. Once when the missionary E. Stanley Jones met with Gandhi he asked him, “Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?” Gandhi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
For more information on Anne Rice see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rice
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