Anne Rice has “quit Christianity”, in her own words, “in the name of Christ.”
While there’s a lot being said about this (a quick Google search of “Anne Rice” will lead to tons of articles and blogs on this topic), I’m going to leave the talking to others except to make two quick points, one minor and one major.
On one level the issue is one of mere disagreement. Disagreement over hot-button issues like homosexuality, feminism and science. Ms. Rice notes that she is leaving Christianity because she refuses to be anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-artificial birth control, anti-democrat, anti-secular humanism, anti-science and anti-life. She’s walking away because she doesn’t want to be tossed in with the “anti-” crowd.
This is really a false issue, however. The fact is that no matter where one is in life in terms of what one believes and what one values, a person will always stand at odds with someone else. The real issue, and still not the major one, is how so-called Christians go about showing their opposition to certain things. This is, at one level, Ms. Rice’s problem.
Those who claim to be Christians but show no love or charity in their opposition to matters on which the Bible takes an unequivocal negative stand are not walking in the way of Christ.
Here’s the rub though: People in our culture, and this is nothing new, don’t want Christ to be “opposed” to anything. The truth is, however, Christ was opposed to certain things, and this because he was pro something else — the glory and will of God. This is clear throughout the gospels.
The same Christ who showed the great act love that is so often used in the name of “acceptance” of everything when he declared “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” is the same Christ who immediately after showed his opposition to an adulterous lifestyle by telling the woman to “Go and sin no more.” This is love, and this is truth.
Christ’s way was the way of loving those who stood at odds, and that’s all of us, with God by lovingly correcting them (showing opposition to their faulty ideals and teaching them right ones) and, most of all, by doing everything it took to lovingly and justly forgive them, by dying in their place, showing (and absorbing!) the end which these sins deserve.
Christianity would be much better off if its followers actually followed Christ in loving those at odds with the gospel. This doesn’t mean, however, that Christianity should accept anything and everything under the sun. What it means is that Christians should be people of selfless love, loving those different from themselves and not boasting in their supposed “superior” morality and laboring to show people the way of Christ even when it is in opposition to other’s lifestyle and preferences.
[As a side note, this idea of loving others even when it comes through opposing them really is everyone's (not just Christian's) default mode. A quick analogy, via Randy Pope, pastor at Perimeter Church in Duluth, GA: Imagine you and I were at a restaurant together and you ordered a dessert. While walking to the restroom, I overheard the waiter instruct the cook to slip poison into your dessert for some unknown reason. You really want this dessert, you really think you will enjoy it. I tell you what I saw and you look at me as if I'm crazy. Is it loving for me to let you eat the dessert? Wouldn't the truly loving thing to do be to act on what I know as reality, even against your thoughts, and plead with you, beg you not to eat the dessert, even going so far as preventing you from eating it?]
The second, and major, issue is simply this. Ms. Rice is living out what many others are living as well: the ultimate end of western individualism. I get what I want, truth is what I make it, and I can create my own set of beliefs that suits me. If the Bible says things that I don’t like, I’ll ignore them. If the Bible and two thousand years of church history is opposed to things that today’s culture, even within Christianity, celebrates, then I’ll go with today’s “enlightened” world.
Ms. Rice, it appears at least, is taking a buffet approach to Christianity.
But that is not the way of Christ. Christ said: “Come, follow me.” He said “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” He said “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father.”
I hope that I am wrong. Ms. Rice did say that Christ is very important to her life still, that it is these things and his followers she doesn’t want to be associated with.
Christ’s greatest command is for man to love God with all he has. Christ’s word was one of grace, to come and rest in his work. He does not command his followers to be right on all doctrine, and I am sure I am wrong on much.
There are some things with which Ms. Rice has a problem that I too am at odds with. Being a Christian doesn’t mean anti-democrat. It certainly doesn’t mean anit-life. It doesn’t mean anti-artificial birth control or anti-science, either. In fact, it’s not anti-man or anti-woman in way, shape or form. Being a Christian is pro-woman and pro-man. It is pro-life, and not just in the abortion debate.
And the way to be these things is to be pro-Christ, which means to be pro-following Christ and walking in his ways.
