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| Anne Rice at home in Palm Springs. Photograph: Dan Tuffs for the Guardian |
On a YOUTUBE clip, Anne Rice described a journey from
religion to faith in Christ that resonated with my own – being raised in the
church, and deciding to leave the church because the world beyond the church
was powerfully appealing. It is
time well-spent listening to her well-expressed experience leaving and coming
back to faith in Christ. She gets what it means to be saved – looking at the Cross, you are forgiven, and
there are no barriers to Him. Christ is inviting you to come back to God. Once
you’ve embraced God, your surrender is total. His love is without measure or
qualification. (I am
second: Anne Rice)
But a decade later, in an interview on National Public
Radio, she said something else:
"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." (NPR
Interview)
What happened?
Well, I know what might have happened – when she uses the
adjectives like this quarrelsome,
hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous to describe “the group’” aka
the church. Evidently, the doctrine and the activism of the Roman Catholic
Church’s opposition to homosexual rights – while covering up its own sexual
abuses -- convinced her to leave. She said: I
found God, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a member of any organized
religion.
I can so relate . . . Organized “religion” -- can be a
problem – and it may be the reason some who receive the word of God gladly,
wither and fall away. (Matthew
13)
The church is a mess . . . has been a mess, and until Christ
returns, it will be a place for sick people, saved from their own
destruction, to recover, and to make themselves useful to others. Its shepherds are as many and varied as
the flocks they tend. Living with sheep – as a sheep – is a picture of church
life. None of us are the brightest animal in the realm – we are prone to
problems and need tending; the wonder is that Christ bothered with any of us. (John 10:11)
But He did – and Ms Rice surely understands the cost of His
care for us – a humiliating death. He gave us a message – and we have a
mission. (Matthew
28:19-20) Feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, visiting prisoners, and
serving widows is [often] welcomed by the world – until we mention
responsibility before a holy God who so loved the world He gave His Son, but
hates sin. (Leviticus
19:2; I
Peter 1:15-17 KJV) It is good
to know nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ – not so great
to hear the seriousness of our sins.
Being delivered from sin’s penalty, Christ’s precious
promise to us also comes with warning: “Stop it!” (John
8:1-11) He never added, “Unless you were born that way.”
And that’s our reason for not living differently after He
saved us.
We don’t want to hear from folks who can’t get their own act
together! Talk about hypocrites!
But, if we rightly see what Christ did on the Cross, as Ms.
Rice described, we must let go of what we can’t imagine living without – our
little peccadilloes that seem to be just how we’re made. And we are supposed to do this together
. . .
Therefore,
confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be
healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16
Figuring out how to be in
a world that seems to be going crazier and crazier, remaining faithful to
Christ, and loving others with the love God showed us, when sometimes we are
only barely healed ourselves is tricky. (Mark
5:30-34) Figuring it out in a flock of recovering sinners is
trickier. Seeing Ms. Rice’s dislike to what the church does reminds me to take
my meds before I point out how the world – and you – needs to shape up. (The
Be-attitudes)
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