Anne Rice is disillusioned with the church. She was expecting Christians to act like Christ. They won't and so she's 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"
Anne Rice is looking for some kind of ideal Christian community. Aren't we all? But if we are honest we'd realize we could not be part of that ideal community because we aren't particularly good followers of Christ either. I don't see how her stance is any different than those "judgmental" Christians who want to exclude gay and other sinners because they don't belong in the ideal community.
Anne Rice needs to read "Life Together"
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer . I love this quote:"He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial"
The church has disappointed Anne Rice and now her solution is to cut herself off from it and just hang with Jesus. But Jesus calls us to community. Not a perfect community, but a community of sinners. You don't get to pick what sinners you will be associated with and which ones you won't.
I hope Anne realizes that. When and if she does, she's welcome back because like the old joke says, there's always room for another hypocrite in the church.
You took the words right out of my mouth!
ReplyDeleteMine too.
ReplyDeleteThere is another side to it worth mentioning, though. While Christianity in general can cop to being "disputatious," she also complains about it being "anti-gay, anti-feminist" and "anti-birth-control." That's a bit unfair, as anybody who's ever walked into a mainline Protestant congregation knows.
Still, she's got a point about "disputatious."
what Father Anonymous said.
ReplyDeleteMine too, too. This bit of drama happened while I was (gasp) offline for a weekend. If I get around to writing my own response, I'll point out that she probably meant the Roman Catholic church, not Christianity as a whole.
ReplyDeleteWell she wouldn't be the first Roman Catholic to think the two were synonymous.
ReplyDelete