According to this report from Beliefnet, Anne Rice has quit Christianity.
Well, folks, this begs the question....
Was Anne Rice a Christian to begin with or can a born again believer up and walk away from Christianity?
What say you?
Freedom
3 years ago
12 comments:
From "Gripped by the Gospel"
(http://grippedbythegospel.com/2010/07/30/so-anne-rice-has-quit-christianity/)
Anne Rice after her "Conversion"...
"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 Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become."
Anne Rice now...
"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."
Christians cannot choose to be Christians.
But Christians certainly can reject the faith given to them.
We need to be kept in Christ through Word and Sacrament.
Jesus won't lose us...but the world, the flesh and the devil can cause us to lose ourselves.
http://www.russellmoore.com/2010/07/30/anne-rice-hasnt-betrayed-you/
A great article on this subject by my good friend, Michael Rowe:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/why-anne-rice-has-never-b_b_664576.html
I would have to agree with Anne Rice. Christianity, at least by the ignorant modern American usage and definition of the word, is not Christ-like at all.
Matt, great article, thanks for the link. Question, if Michael Rowe is your good friend and is writing articles for Huffington, I'm curious, what do you do?
A friend of mine announced just the other day that he is not a Christian, but a Christ-follower. This seems to be a popular sentiment. I would say along the lines of a movement tagged as Hipster Christianity. See link here...http://mikeduran.com/?p=8375
Jonathan,
Michael and I are friends by location, not vocation. :)
Apparently Anne Rice herself linked to Michael's article because 'he said it better than she could' (he was most pleased with that!)
This all goes to show the importance of defining your terms, I guess.
It certainly seems to be that Anne Rice has constructed her version of "Christianity", conveniently but not surprisingly, to fit into her own comfort zone. It's funny how people do that; people want to claim Christ as long as it doesn't go against their beliefs/traditions/desires.
You know, the same way Kanye West is a Christian.
-G
Isn't that what everyone does to some degree? Can you name me a body of believers that don't disagree on a single issue? God is too big to fit into our heads, thankfully so. I don't fault her for being human, nor do I fault her for tiring of the church. She hasn't given up Christ, and that's what matters.
As a friend said, "We've got to let go of our finite, starved, impoverished ideas and perceptions of who God is. He's bigger than anything we could possibly imagine, and I hope this next part offends you: He's bigger than the Church. He's bigger than our religion about Him. He's even bigger than the bible, and what it says about Him. Our awareness of Him, even our faith in Him is a gift, "so that no man can boast", as Paul starkly reminded us in Romans. "
http://beggarsandbread.blogspot.com/2010/07/is-our-god-really-god-if-he-fits-inside.html
I can only hope more people will follow her lead and "quit Christianity" to follow Jesus more fully.
I love what Donald Miller had to say about it:
http://donmilleris.com/2010/07/31/commenting-on-anne-rice/
In this video Anne explains herself:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/04/anne-rice-on-her-decision_n_671097.html
Jason,
You're saying that God is too big to have rules. This is simply untrue. God has rules, and we are to abide by them.
"Bigger than the Bible"...you're Anne-Rice-ing your own version of Christianity.
In effect, by saying "God is sooo much bigger than all of this", you're really saying that *you* are bigger than the Church, or the Bible...because it's your preference to believe this way.
-G
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