{"id":323,"date":"2010-08-05T13:50:49","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T13:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html"},"modified":"2010-08-05T13:50:49","modified_gmt":"2010-08-05T13:50:49","slug":"can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html","title":{"rendered":"Can You Follow Christ Without Being a Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anne Rice says she has &#8220;quit being a Christian.&#8221; NPR ran <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=128930526&amp;sc=ipad&amp;f=1008\" target=\"_blank\">an interview<\/a> with her and she explained her decision: &#8220;I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being &#8216;Christian&#8217; or to being part of Christianity.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I have two thoughts in response. One, that part of remaining committed to Christ is remaining committed to Christ&#8217;s people, bumbling, bigoted, messy, sinful, people. Two, that sometimes when people leave the church they are offering prophetic words to those left on the inside.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I don&#8217;t agree with Anne Rice on every theological or social issue. But I believe she has acknowledged God as manifested through Christ, which means that we are members of the same family. I&#8217;m sad to see her go.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anne Rice says she has &#8220;quit being a Christian.&#8221; NPR ran an interview with her and she explained her decision: &#8220;I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being &#8216;Christian&#8217; or to being part of Christianity.&#8221;&nbsp; I have two thoughts in response. One, that part of remaining committed to Christ is remaining committed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can You Follow Christ Without Being a Christian? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can You Follow Christ Without Being a Christian? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anne Rice says she has &#8220;quit being a Christian.&#8221; NPR ran an interview with her and she explained her decision: &#8220;I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being &#8216;Christian&#8217; or to being part of Christianity.&#8221;&nbsp; I have two thoughts in response. One, that part of remaining committed to Christ is remaining committed&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-05T13:50:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Can You Follow Christ Without Being a Christian? - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Can You Follow Christ Without Being a Christian? - Thin Places","og_description":"Anne Rice says she has &#8220;quit being a Christian.&#8221; NPR ran an interview with her and she explained her decision: &#8220;I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being &#8216;Christian&#8217; or to being part of Christianity.&#8221;&nbsp; I have two thoughts in response. One, that part of remaining committed to Christ is remaining committed&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-08-05T13:50:49+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html","name":"Can You Follow Christ Without Being a Christian? - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-05T13:50:49+00:00","dateModified":"2010-08-05T13:50:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/can-you-follow-christ-without-being-a-christian.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Can You Follow Christ Without Being a Christian?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}