Anne Rice Quits Christianity

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A few days ago bestselling author Anne Rice announced on her Facebook page that she is quitting Christianity. She started the ball rolling with this announcement:

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.

She quickly added this explanation:

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.

The next day brought a further clarification:

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 C...hristianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

If you had time and energy you could read the hundreds and hundreds of comments on her Facebook page, most of them praising her for her “courage” in taking her stand against what we might call the visible Christian church. She apparently still wishes to follow Christ without being part of the Christian church or calling herself a Christian. 

Very hip and contemporary, I’d say.
Very much in the spirit of this age.

Follow Jesus whom you can’t see but reject his followers whom you can see. Doesn’t quite sound right, does it? 

I will grant this much credence to her complaints. Every church looks good from a distance, and the farther away you get, the better it looks. Christianity always sounds fine as a theory, but then you get to that messy part about living with this “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.”

Yeah, that would be us, the Methodists, the Brethren, the Church of Christ, the Orthodox, the Baptists, the Mennonites, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Quakers, and the Catholics, and pretty much every other organized group that marches in the fractious, unruly parade called Christianity. 

Now to be sure, she’s pro-gay marriage, but if that’s the main issue she could find liberal Christian groups that would welcome her with open arms. I’m going to set that aside for the moment and go to what seems to be the main point here. 

What does it mean to love Jesus if you don’t love his body? We who make up the visible church are indeed a messy bunch. I’ve been reading lately from Ephesians and have been struck by this fact. When Paul finishes his soaring doctrinal treatise that takes up Ephesians 1-3, the one that ends with the reminder that God is able to do far beyond anything we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21), when he launches into the so-called “practical” section in Chapter 4, what’s the first thing he says? I mean, what’s the very first thing out of his mouth? Check out Ephesians 4:2.

“Always be humble and gentle. Patiently put up with each other and love each other.”

Did you get that? “Patiently put up with each other.” The NASB says “showing tolerance for each other.” Whoa! After all that high-sounding talk in Ephesians 1-3, his first reminder is, “You’re going to have to put up with a lot of nonsense inside the church so you better get used to it.” And I think he would say, “If you don’t get used to it, you’ll end up ’de-converting’ on your Facebook page 2000 years down the road.”

Several writers have listed the various things Anne Rice has suffered as apparent justification for her decision. But those things, sad as they are, are not unique to her. Job 5:7 reminds us that “man is born for trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.” If you live long enough, you will see a full quota of sadness, suffering and loss. No one gets a free ride on planet earth. I could understand if she said, “I’m going to quit being a Catholic because I think I belong with the Presbyterians.” Or if she said, “The church drives me nuts but I’m going to stay because of my obedience to Christ.” Or if she said, “I’ve reverted back to being an atheist.” In that case, simple honesty would require that she renounce Christianity. 

Anne Rice wants Jesus without the messy addition of his church. That’s like saying, “I love you but I can’t stand to be around you so I will move away so I’ll never have to see you or talk to you. But I’ll always love you.” Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). He loves the church so much that he gave himself for the church (Ephesians 5:25-27). To say “I love Jesus but I want nothing to do with his followers” is like saying, “I love you but I hate your bride. She repulses me."

I’m not going to defend the church because it needs no defense. Everyone knows the church is full of hypocrites and sinners because those are the people Jesus came to save. Hang around any group of Christians long enough and you are bound to be disappointed sooner or later. Your heart will probably be broken over and over again. But we believe that God is alive and at work in the midst of the messed-up people who make up the church. That’s why we’re here, in humility and gentleness working out our salvation, trying to live together, sometimes joyfully, sometimes with tears, and occasionally putting up with each other. Sometimes we really get fed up. If we went to another church, we would eventually find the same kind of quarrelsome people who evidently drove Anne Rice out of the church altogether. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the church is the place where our dreams are shattered—and that is a good thing. Everyone comes to church with a certain set of expectations. New believers often enter the church expecting to find a little bit of heaven on earth. We all think and hope and expect that our brothers and sisters in Christ will treat us better than the people of the world. And we all have certain ideas about music and worship and preaching and about what the church should do and how it should go forward. But sooner or later we discover that the saints are not always saintly, and the people of God are not always godly. Sometimes they can be cantankerous, mean-spirited, unkind, and sometimes downright cruel. The church—by that I mean the local church—routinely disappoints us. When that happens, our faith is shattered and sometimes our hope is destroyed. Once our false expectations are shattered on the hard rocks of reality, then (and only then) do we begin to experience the grace of God. It is only in the nitty-gritty of life together with all its disappointments and rude awakenings that we discover the Holy Spirit at work in us. In the church we are thrown together with some people with whom we’d never otherwise associate. And that’s a good thing because God uses those “angular people” to shape us into the image of Christ.

I enjoyed reading Anne Rice’s novel Out of Egypt and found it very powerful. I’m grateful that she is no longer an atheist. But I think life for her won’t be better outside the church of Jesus. I can’t work up any admiration for someone who chucks it all because she doesn’t like the people she shares a pew with on Sunday morning (or the Christians she reads about in the newspapers or hears about on TV). It doesn’t take much courage to quit the church. It takes a lot more courage to face those imperfect people, some of whom say and do outrageous things, and to be disappointed again and again by fallible priests and all-too-human pastors, and to believe deep in your soul that you should stay and be part of God’s great movement called the church. 

Those are my true heroes. Not the folks who leave but the folks who stay when sometimes it would easier for them to leave too.

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Visitor Comments:

August 3, 2010, 3:02 AM george hizon says:
	Amen to everything that you wrote.
August 3, 2010, 5:21 AM hrobertahurd says:
	I thank the Lord for the clarity He has given you. This is an issue that will not go away. But God has also promised the prosperity and the perseverance of the saints. I am in this for the long haul and the Lord is holding me..God Bless you !!
August 3, 2010, 6:02 AM Lynette Hoy says:
Marriage and Family Counselor.	Thank you Pastor Ray! You have pointed out how to deal with the disappointments and hard work of relationships within the body of Christ. Wonder what church she attended? Doesn’t matter I guess since we’ve all experienced these kinds of issues. It does sound like Anne is committed more to the values of society than Christ. How can you say you are a follower of Christ but, not His teachings about core values? Sometime in the future she may retract this stance. I hope she does...
August 3, 2010, 6:16 AM Wendy says:
I love Jesus & can’t wait ‘til “every knee will bow!”	You hit the nail on the head. Very, very good article. Also just the other day I was reading a passage in I John that says if we really love God we will love His children. Obviously with personality differences ‘love’ in that context probably is a choice of the will, not a feeling. How could she be a Christian & be for what Christ is against? How can you say you love God & approve of ‘gay marriage’ or anything else He speaks against in His Word? I don’t get it. I see this as yet another thing the enemy is using to harm the Kingdom, seems he’s trying to discredit Christ by constantly stirring up stuff like this to make Christianity & Christ look bad, since unbelievers can’t separate the two. If we are jerks they assume Christ is & won’t have anything to do with Him.
August 3, 2010, 6:40 AM Derek says:
KBM Website Administrator	I think it is important to point out that many people revere Christ: Oprah, Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, the list goes on and on. Most atheists will tell you that Christ transformed the world in a mostly positive way. Thomas Jefferson famously carried a Bible that he had personally edited, removing all of the miraculous elements of the Gospel accounts because he thought unreliable religious fanatics made up stories to spread the faith. The “wide road” is literally packed with people who will proclaim their love or devotion for Christ even while they label his followers crackpots and liars. So I agree that there is nothing terribly courageous or novel about Anne’s disappointing comments.
August 3, 2010, 6:54 AM BeenThereBetsy says:
	Thank you for this article. Anyone who’s been in the church for long has had similar experiences. I’ve wanted to “chuck it” many times myself. Once I was visiting my father and “stepmother” and they didn’t have anything to do with church. After two weeks away from my “family” I was able to attend a small rural church. I can’t describe the overwhelming emotions. It was like walking from a dark, oppressive night into a warm glowing home. The familiar music, scripture, preaching and friendliness was like coming “home.” We really DO need each other — warts and all. The alternative is just not an option.
August 3, 2010, 9:36 AM mary ann says:
there but for the grace of God go i...	...somehow we’ve done ourselves a disservice by allowing the impression that when we accept Christ as our Savior we see ourselves as perfect as opposed to flawed which is the case...
August 3, 2010, 3:20 PM Davis Duggins says:
	I’ve never read any of Anne Rice’s books, but I certainly know plenty of people who share her frustration with the organized church. The truth is, even pastors feel that frustration from time to time. Thanks for this stirring reminder of what God is doing through the everyday mess of ordinary church life.
August 3, 2010, 6:24 PM jo-ann bouclair says:
	Anne Rice reminds me of where I found myself, in the late 1960’s: when I was in my early 20’s the church I went to amalgamated with another church and the turf war began...it stumbled me, not from my faith in God, not in my life in Christ but what I saw drove me away from church. God used two old believers that knew my family to lovingly put up with me and draw me back to God’s people. IF Anne Rice does love and belong to Jesus, I pray that as HE brought me back in time she will realize that she belongs in that motley crew Jesus calls His Church.
August 3, 2010, 10:23 PM Cindy says:
	Thank you, great reassurance of who we are and can be....Thank God for being the only perfect and consistent piece of my life, He always forgives....
August 4, 2010, 6:50 AM josh p says:
	she should re-read Philippians 2
August 4, 2010, 11:43 AM Cammie Novara says:
	“I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity.” That statement really caught my attention! Wow.
August 4, 2010, 12:36 PM RNPUDEL says:
	I love what you wrote. So true. My husband has been in the Air Force for over 10 years, so I have added up the number of churches I’ve attended/visited in that time; 13 churches. I’ve sat in my chair -wanting to flee, while listening to a pastor blaspheme God from the pulpit. I’ve heard one do a sermon about his mother, and another teach the Bible so understandably and in depth that I didn’t want him to stop. I’ve heard one teach that it’s God’s will for man to lie sometimes, and yet another explain a chapter in Revelation that made perfect sense. Unfortunately I’ve also seen the human side of church-goers; the cliques, gossip, manipulation and just plain nastiness. But, in my experience, I can definitely say that there is a huge difference between the average church-goer and a true follower of Christ. Now, sadly, these people are few and far between, but when you do have the pleasure of meeting someone who resembles their Father in Heaven you want to be near them, not run away. Thank you for the great blog post.
August 5, 2010, 2:12 PM John Long says:
	Just as it is easy to write off the Church and go your own way, it is easy to dismiss those like Anne who have had difficulties in churches and feel righteous about our ability to “stick with the church”. Less judgment and more compassion is the right path here. For people who come to an often painful decision to leave organized Christendom, pronouncing their weakness and proclaiming our righteousness is not exactly reaching out in brotherly love. I’ve stayed with the organized church through a lot of things, but I pray I don’t use that as some work that makes me more righteous than those who don’t.
August 5, 2010, 2:36 PM Derek says:
KBM Website Administrator	John, you make a good point, one that all Christians do well to remember. In this particular case, it is not unimportant to note that Anne’s disillusionment stems from her advocacy/support for gay marriage - she noted as much to NPR following the Facebook announcement. This places her at odds not only with Christians and Catholics, but also every other major world religion. So, we shouldn’t categorize this the same way we would a case of church/Christian misconduct, sin and abuse. Still, we should pray for Anne (I don’t mean that in a patronizing way) and assume that her pain is real, even if we disagree with her convictions on same sex marriage.
August 8, 2010, 11:26 PM sherri says:
	I love what you wrote. I am not eloquent but I would like to say, as a new christian of about two years i have been at one time or another a “ messy Christian”. My mistakes or attitudes were purely human and fleshly. I would like to thank God for sending me to a church that had just as much “messed up” Christians as I myself was. It would have been real hard to be so imperfect if everyone around me were so perfect. And Thank God that thru their and my mistakes I have learned that it takes Love and Understanding to try to LEARN to walk as Christ as we make “messes” as we go. Do all things in love. May Ann come to realize that she’s not ment to be perfect either.
August 11, 2010, 4:03 PM RLS IN MANHATTAN says:
	I have sympathy for Ms. Rice, actually a great deal. I think she is simply fed up with the fact that in the United States the Extreme Right Wing has captured Christianity and combined it with some rather nasty politics that have nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus Christ. A good example of this is American Vision which is connected with the Reconstructionist-Dominionist Movement and would like nothing better than to set up a religious dictatorship in this country. This whole business stinks. There is no love whatsoever in any of this crap that has been forced upon us by a bunch of “Religious Nazis”. I’m about as fed up with this as Ms. Rice is but obviously I’m not famous enough to be mentioned in the news. However, I believe there are more than a few Americans who feel as I do.
August 11, 2010, 6:26 PM Richard Miller says:
	RLS, There are many left leaning churches. There are many left leaning denominations. There are many left leaning christians in conservative churches and denominations. I realize the media would have us believe that Christians are monolithically conservative, but it isn’t true. By the way, don’t take my word for it - Gina Welch is an atheist and strident liberal who “went undercover", spending several years in Jerry Falwell’s church. She pretended she was a Christian so she could understand what drives and motivates Christians and evangelicals. She has now written her book and has criticized the media for this reinforcement of stereotypes. Her experience was that there were many conservatives, but there are also many who are not (and many who hate politics of all sort as well). Her book is quite interesting and it is called “In the Land of Believers”.
August 13, 2010, 9:35 AM RLS IN MANHATTAN says:
	It’s more than too bad that people even feel the need to divide Christianity into right and left. These are political terms, and I was even guilty of pinning on a label with my own comments. By way of example, Newt Gingrich (a man with some “interesting” events in his private life) always likes to apparently impress people by dropping God’s name in relation to his political ambitions. It all stinks, but a certain crowd out there always gets sucked in by this.
August 13, 2010, 12:59 PM Richard Miller says:
	RJS, I think I can understand where you’re coming from. From time to time, I get very angry about what I see right in my own church or with people who call themselves Christians but don’t act like a Christian. The problem is, this gets me focused on the wrong thing and causes a spirit of contempt and anger to rise up in my heart. Christians come in all kinds of shapes and forms. I recommend to you and to Anne to bring your anger and/or resentment towards these other Christians or religious people to Christ. If they are wrong or misguided, He will deal with them in His own timing. In the meantime, we want our hearts to be in the right place so that He doesn’t also have to “deal” with us too.