Quitting Christianity
Many years ago, I read the first of Ann Rice’s celebrated vampire novels, Interview With A Vampire. Not long back, I read the first of her new series, Christ The Lord. If you haven’t read either, they’re as different as the proverbial daylight and dark. Small wonder. Decades of study and soul-searching separate the two books. I was intrigued and delighted by her testimony: raised a Catholic, left the church of her youth, abandoned Christian faith, only to find her way back to all these with joy.
Atheists felt betrayed; Catholics were elated. Many Protestants, while harboring doubts and fears regarding Roman Catholicism, rejoiced just the same. After all, these days, any celebrity’s conversion or return to Christianity is a real shot in the arm. She caused quite a stir then.
And she’s causing quite a stir now. Recently, Rice posted a note on Facebook to the effect that, while she was still a follower of Christ, she could no longer align herself with “Christianity,” i.e., the Roman Catholic Church. Among her chief reasons were the church’s teaching on homosexuality and its exclusion of women from leadership. I haven’t looked at her FB page, but I tend to think it’s fairly burning with hate messages–which, if it were me, would only fuel my feet for fleeing.
I don’t know how it is in the Catholic Church, not from experience. I’ve spent my whole life in a Protestant “un-denomination,” the independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. But I know how it is in church. Sometimes…sigh…it leaves a lot to be desired. For those of you who might be wondering at this point, I believe homosexual acts are sinful and I’m not in favor of women preachers. Nevertheless, in our desire to get the truth out there, we too often generate more heat than light. My guess is it’s this inflexible zealotry that Ms. Rice is most concerned with and repulsed by.
She strikes me as an intelligent, thoughtful woman with a keen eye for history. I’m sure she’s discovered from her long research how, in the “dark ages,” when there was no church but the Catholic Church, when corruption and anti-Christ-likness was rife, there were still lights here and there–monks and mystics and mendicants that bloomed where they were planted, bringing glory to Jesus without leaving the flock. Perhaps she’ll rethink her position along those lines.
In any event, I know how hard life can be. I know the sadness it wrings from the most hardy in faith and committed to Christ’s church. I hope and pray Ann Rice will find the healing she needs, the healing we all need.
Mark Driscoll has a well-balanced response to Ms. Rice at http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/mark_driscoll/2010/08/a_pastoral_response_to_ann_rice_quitting_christianity.html
