Anne Rice Abandons Christianity: Thousands Like
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 9:44PM | by Otter The Huffington Post tracks Anne Rice's departure from Christianity, though not from Christ:
I'm sure this resonates with lots of Christians. (For the record, I'm not one.)
And I think that Christianity has reached a tipping point. Since September 11, 2001, it's been gradually growing on the faithful's minds that faith itself, once it gets structured enough to have an agenda, is pretty brutal in its methods.
Christianity's always lost people to the kinds of issues that Rice talks about, but the landscape is getting sort of littered with the ruins of Christianity.
Jesus just won't go away, though.
Rice is good with Christ, just not the Catholic Church that she joined. Over at The Internet Monk, they've had it with evangelicalism, but can't let go of "Jesus Shaped Spirituality."
The alarming thing is that Rice and The Internet Monk and their fellow travelers are really woefully ill-equipped to construct what Jesus really is or means without the communities they abandon.
I don't think that bothers them much, and I guess that's okay.
It just seems really lonesome, like, well, vampires that have lived too long to be part of the community but who feed on it as delicately as they can manage.
Anne Rice, Christianity, Internet Monk, Jesus in Religion 
Reader Comments (5)
There's a wonderful quote by Ghandi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
I sympathize with Rice's frustration . . . but I really don't see how one can quit the Church and keep Christ. How one can cleave to Christ and turn away from His beloved Bride, for whom He laid down His life.
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother--even when one's brother is a big, fat jerk.
Well, seeing turning from Christianity like that as turning from "Christ's Bride" assumes that the Catholic Church is truly infallible, an assumption I'm not quite sure I'm willing to make.
And loving your brother does not mean you have to agree with his opinions or stand behind his bad decisions. It means trying to set him on the right path as best you can and being there for him when things go wrong, even if he doesn't know it.
I totally agree, Victoria. I inferred (perhaps incorrectly) that when Rice said she was leaving Christianity that she was no longer interested in "being there" when things go wrong. Was that your inference as well?
This, I'm not sure I follow. I'm not RC and I don't believe the Catholic Church is truly infallible, but I do believe the Church is the Bride of Christ.
That was not my inference. I understood her sentiment because I've had the same issue. I am Christian, but I can't stand watching how many Christians get it so very wrong. For example, my father is prejudiced (and pretty hateful toward) against blacks, gays, Muslims, pagans, Catholics, Indians, and pretty much anyone else that isn't a white Protestant male at least 30 years old, yet he thinks he's the perfect Christian. I don't want to be associated with that kind of "Christianity" either.
Okay, the way you worded the Christ's Bride bit sounded pretty Catholic, so I thought that was what you meant. But if by "the Church" you mean the collection of Christians in general, that's a little different. If that is the case, I am part of the Church, whether I gather with other Christians or not, whether I agree with other Christians or not, and I can never truly "turn away" from it. I can, however, draw the line disassociating myself from the hypocrites who, unfortunately, I believe make up the majority of the Church. (If you want to call them part of "the Church". Not to judge, but it seems to me that I'm more in the Church than they are: If I'm right about what it means to be Christian, then I follow Christ and am joined to him more closely than they are.)
Does that make sense?