Anne Rice, author of the a series of best-selling vampire novels and, most recently, fictional accounts of the life of Christ, has taken to Facebook to announce she is no longer a Christian:
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.
Later she wrote:
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. (Source)
When I reviewed her autobiography which I quite enjoyed I marked out the points where she was still not inline with the Church. Looks like she choose to not reconcile herself with the Church, but to just reconcile herself to herself. Though I hope she tells us what group she joins that is not “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious”. That perfect form of believing in Christ where you don’t have to do any conversion to Christ.
I do find it rather ironic for her list of “antis-“, yet being anti-Christianity. I guess when you anti up, you pick what you prefer.
“I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist.” Well so do I. Though really it is the supporter of modern feminists that are anti-feminist and have little in common with the feminist reformers. Modern feminism has done nothing towards respecting femininity, but instead have tried to shoe-horn women to act as men. Modern feminism has kowtowed to allowing women to be seen as a piece of meat for sexual gratification in return for pottage. I also refuse to being anti-gay in that I do not pretend that those suffering with same-sex attraction do not have a cross to bear. Those that support and encourage homosexual acts only damage the human person. Previously she defended her position on homosexuality largely in part because her son has same-sex attraction. Though somebody that defended alcoholism for the same reason would be laughed at. So many people fail to see that you can believe that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil while at the same time believing that those with some level of same-sex attraction are your brother.
Being committed to Christ while being against his Church is like loving your wife, but hating being around her. It is because of the Church that we even know Christ. The Body of Christ is so evident throughout scripture and you have to be a Protestant to ignore where the Church is mentioned in the New Testament. As St. Paul said: “I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.”
I do pray that Anne Rice comes back to the Church and that this time she has a fuller conversion that leaves behind the modern secular baggage destructive to the faith. Maybe she just had a bad day and there is not a one of us who does not struggle, but it is my faith and grace given me that keeps my struggles from becoming defeats.
12 comments
I think that this may have something to do with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Rice
In addition, she never did accept the pro-life position of the Church, which wasn’t too surprising considering her lifetime of pro-choice liberalism. Really, most Catholics are Democrats, so she should have felt right at home. As you say, what group of human beings is not quarrelsome and disputatious? But it’s still sad for her that she feels that she has to leave and equally sad that she can’t accept something simple like the right to life. She needs our prayers.
Ms. Rice’s stance on Church teachings aside, I do think we need to take an honest soul searching look at the often-times lack of witness of Christian love for one another. It is too easy and advantageous for us to “write her off,” and miss an opportunity for each of us to ask ourselves: do I live out the words of St. Paul, “Explain to them why you believe what you believe and do so in charity.” I am conservative, yet, there are times when I can no longer listen to persons like Sean Hannity who is so caustic in his presentations. Do WE object to immoral mores but in a way that brings understanding and enlightenment? Or do we do so in a way that pushes away new and tender Christians. We should have known that the devil would try to get Ms. Rice away from her new found joy in Christ and the Church. Did anyone take her by the hand and heart and help her? Yes, we really do have much soul searching to do – not only regarding Anne Rice, but others in our own lives. May our Lord be loved and praised.
V. Double
I guess it’s her call…..but she is the one who has to square it up. That may be a problem.
This is sad to me–and not uncommon. She’s just famous and has a platform.
This strikes me as a call for help and prayer, masked in anger. Most calls for help usually are. Those books are beautiful–she clearly gets it at a real level. It sounds like she needs a friend.
Mr. Miller. and Ms. Jeannine:
Please allow me to focus in your lines:
1) “That perfect form of believing in Christ where you don’t have to do any conversion to Christ”.
2) “In addition, she never did accept the pro-life position of the Church, which wasn’t too surprising considering her lifetime of pro-choice liberalism”.
The point here for Catholics, NOT the Cafetería Christians, or ex-Christians as Ms. Rice, and their folklore of 30,000 Protestant sects, is:
Are Christians in USA NOT OBEYING Rome because the example set by the USCCB, allowing genocide lawmakers to call themselves “catholic”? Is Rome’s Cannon 915 obligatory?
Please read in the Headline Bistro, my comment to Mr. Mercer’s factual, serious article:
OUTRAGEOUS! “It is estimated that this year 1,000 more children will die from abortion in Washington, D.C., because of this funding change a change that comes at taxpayer expense”.
Can’t the USCCB fund an ad in The W.Post denouncing this FACT? And excommunicate the “catholic” genocide lawmakers, as commanded by the OBLIGATORY, not discretional, Cannon 915?
Cordially
AMEN!! FREE WILL ISN’T THE RIGHT TO DO WHAT YOU WANT, BUT RATHER, THE RIGHT TO DO WHAT YOU OUGHT TO DO!!
GOD BLESS EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE NON BELIEVERS!!
on some level everyone on earth knows that things like abortion, sodomy, birth control, etc.. are intrinscally evil. catholics know they are evil too… and do them anyway, but they seek forgiveness afterward. they seek forgiveness afterward because they refuse to rationalize their sinful act. a church is like a hospital, and like a hospital you will find the sickest people within. the ONLY difference, the people in the hospital WANT to be better.
I’m sad that it’s come to this…but wouldn’t Ms. Rice find what she wants in the Episcopal Church?
Ms. Rice has yet to write her final chapter. We should all pray that she finds her way home (again).
It’s a temptation for all of us to let our Inner Pharisee out—“Thank you, Lord, that I am not like the rest of men, and especially not like that quarrelsome, disputatious bunch over there who don’t see things my way.” Since none of our final chapters are written, we need to pray and encourage one another to follow Jesus as revealed in Scripture and the Church, not the Jesus-Who-Conveniently-Thinks-Just-Like-Me.
Gratified to see that I’m not the only one who sees it this way. It appears to me that a surprising number of people are finding in the occasion all sorts of opportunity for introspective hand-wringing – Ms. Rice being a Genuine Seeker, and all (and a celebrity, to boot), her tastes and opinions must be given extra weight.
I do hope very much that she is given the grace to at least begin to question the infallibility of her private judgments, but if that’s the way she sees things, at least she has the intellectual honesty to leave, unlike, say, Call to Action and similar dissidents.
Having read (actually listened to the audiobook) of her reversion, where many of these paths, which she finally chose, were stated firmly, I have never even been tempted to pick up her books about Jesus. I would be looking for the heretical statements inherent in creating a life of Christ not attested to by either Scripture or infused knowledge. I could tell from the memoir that while she longed for Communion and stated that she didn’t want to leave it again, she was, in fact, making God in her own image.