{"id":31,"date":"2010-07-30T09:41:04","date_gmt":"2010-07-30T09:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/07\/anne-rice-leaving-christianity-and-a-new-reformation.html"},"modified":"2010-07-30T09:41:04","modified_gmt":"2010-07-30T09:41:04","slug":"anne-rice-leaving-christianity-and-a-new-reformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/07\/anne-rice-leaving-christianity-and-a-new-reformation.html","title":{"rendered":"Anne Rice, Leaving Christianity, and a New Reformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

This week, best-selling author Anne Rice renounced Christianity<\/a> on
\nher Facebook page, “For those who care, and I understand if you don’t:
\nToday I quit being a Christian. I’m out.” 
\n<\/span>She continued:<\/p>\n

\n

“I remain
\ncommitted to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of
\nChristianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome,
\nhostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve
\ntried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A few hours later, she followed with a second post: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

“As I said
\nbelow, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be
\nanti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth
\ncontrol. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I
\nrefuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I
\nquit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.” <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is much that could be said about Ms. Rice’s spiritual
\njourney.  <\/span>Born to an Irish-Catholic
\nfamily and attended Catholic schools. 
\n<\/span>At 18, she became an atheist.   <\/span>In 1998, a health crisis caused her to rethink faith
\nand she returned to the Catholic Church despite her continuing reservations of
\nthe Church’s political and social stances.  <\/span>She wrote of rediscovering faith in her 2008 memoir, Called Out of Darkness:<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

In the moment
\nof surrender, I let go of all the theological or social questions which had
\nkept me from [God] for countless years. I simply let them go. There was the
\nsense, profound and wordless, that if He knew everything I did not have to know
\neverything, and that, in seeking to know everything, I’d been, all of my life,
\nmissing the entire point. No social paradox, no historic disaster, no hideous
\nrecord of injustice or misery should keep me from Him. No question of
\nScriptural integrity, no torment over the fate of this or that atheist or gay
\nfriend, no worry for those condemned and ostracized by my church or any other
\nchurch should stand between me and Him.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Her Facebook posts this week do not substantially differ
\nfrom this passage where she separates the person of Christ and God from human
\ntheology and social issues.  <\/span>In
\n2008, she wrote that issues could no longer keep her from the reality of
\nGod.  <\/span>This week, she announced that
\ntheology and social issues would also keep her from Christianity but not
\nChrist.  <\/span>Rice is rejecting the
\ninstitution of the church–and the larger historical religious phenomenon known
\nas Christianity.<\/p>\n

Rice’s comments have generated both praise and criticism
\naround the web.  <\/span>But two things
\nstand out to me.  <\/span>First, there’s a
\nlot of this sort of thing going around right now.  <\/span>Polls, surveys, and other sorts of research indicate that
\nincreasing numbers of Americans are rejecting organized religion of all sorts
\nand that the Catholic Church is taking some especially big hits right now with
\nmembership loss (their reported gains are not<\/i>
\ntrue–mostly because they never remove anyone from church rolls).  <\/span>Not only are people rejecting church,
\nbut there are also rejecting the labels “Christianity,” and “Christian” as Ms.
\nRice has done. <\/span><\/p>\n

Second, Ms. Rice is rejecting Christianity because it is
\nilliberal.  <\/span>For almost four
\ndecades, the standard narrative is that Christianity in the West is dying
\nbecause it is too liberal, not conservative enough, not theologically or
\nethically demanding.  <\/span>Rice’s
\ncomment moves in the exact opposite direction.  She’s rejecting the toxic admixture of conservative ideology and Jesus-faith. <\/span>She has been aching for a faith that is open–and not “anti-”
\neverything; a faith that demonstrates the love, kindness, and mercy of its
\nfounder, not the “quarrelsome” disputations of Jesus’ all-too-human
\nfollowers.  <\/span> <\/span>If Anne Rice is any indication,
\nAmericans are hankering for a new sort of liberal faith the actually resembles
\nthat which Jesus taught and embodied. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is quite a problem here for churches.  <\/span>Conservative churches will, as they
\nhave been for several years now, continue to decline as their message of
\nexclusion fails to address the most pointed questions of the day.  <\/span>However, the traditionally liberal
\nchurches can’t really grow because they are too caught up in “quarrelsome”
\ndisputations of the very issues that seekers like Ms. Rice want to move
\npast.  <\/span>So, sadly enough, there are
\nvery few faith communities where Rice and her like-minded travelers can find
\nrespite from either narrowness or meanness. <\/span><\/p>\n

In Christianity for
\nthe Rest of Us<\/a><\/i>, I wrote of the need to return to authentically liberal
\nfaith:<\/p>\n

\n

Once, not so long ago, liberal
\n<\/i>was a good word meaning generosity and openness.  <\/span>It implied a host of positive things: reform, freedom,
\ntoleration, thoughtful inquiry, and lack of prejudice and absence of
\nbigotry.  <\/span>Liberal meant opposition
\nto dogmatism, authoritarianism, inquisition, and theological intolerance.  <\/span>Historically, religious liberality–theological
\ngenerosity–sparked much of the energy, passion, and intellectual liveliness of
\nAmerican [Christianity].<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well, Anne, I’m with you.  I refuse to be anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-all-those-other-things.  I reject mean-spirited, stupid arguments.  But I want to change Christianity, not reject it.  It is time for a new reformation–a reformation of generous and open faith–a sort of Christianity that loves God and neighbor as Jesus commanded.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, best-selling author Anne Rice renounced Christianity on her Facebook page, “For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out.”  She continued: “I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. 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