so i quoted Anne Rice the other day and this is a further explanation of where she is at which explains it a little bit more – i really like her last line… [from http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/30/anne-rice-leaves-christianity/?hpt=Sbin]
Anne Rice leaves Christianity
Legendary author Anne Rice has announced that she’s quitting Christianity.
The “Interview with a Vampire” author, who wrote a book about her spirituality titled “Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession” in 2008, said Wednesday that she refuses to be “anti-gay,” “anti-feminist,” “anti-science” and “anti-Democrat.”
Rice wrote, “For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian … 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.”
Rice then added another post explaining her decision on Thursday:
“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,” Rice wrote. “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.”
I’m hugely sympathetic to Rice. I had a long conversation with an atheist the other day. Most of his objections to the Christian faith were based on his observations of church history from Constantine to TBN. He asked if an impartial observ…er were to look at Christians, would they find any links (other than spoken words) between their lives and the message of Christ that would make them any different to anyone else. He doesn’t buy the “God sees the heart” thing… said that what’s in your heart is expressed in your priorities/values/actions towards others. I struggled to find words to explain or defend what we call “church” – particularly why there was a need to keep it going exactly the way it was, rather than seek reform and renewal that would give it a “shape” that changed the shape of our lives to be more like Jesus (my thoughts not his). In the end I managed to persuade him that he was really an agnostic rather than an atheist by showing that the arrogant, closed-mindedness of the atheist view as unappealing as his perception of Christians. Next week we’re going to explore the questions of “how we know” more deply.
Back to Rice though: all over the world the church/institutional christianity/whatever you choose to call it is losing people because they want to follow Jesus more authentically and find “churchianity” an impediment rather than a help. I can’t judge “church”; it’s the way it is because its made up of people like me who are so susceptible to the selfish sinfulness of our hearts and the pulls of our culture. I believe that it’s God’s desire to renew and reform his people, whatever shape they currently find themselves in. My questions to anyone who reads this: are there ways that you can align your life with God’s renewing work rather than with perpetuating the status quo?