This week, Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice officially outed herself from Christianity. Naturally, she did so via her Facebook wall. Here is the text of her post:
“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.”
Conscience? What exactly is it about Christianity that violates Rice’s conscience? Well, a few hours later, she posted this:
“As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”
Much like her return to the Roman Catholic church a decade ago, her stark about-face in regards to the church has stirred up a bit of discussion and opinion. Many wondered if she was mocking Christ and returning to her atheist beliefs of yesteryear. Again, via Facebook, Rice offered additional insight into her decision and her remaining devotion to the “Christ” of Christianity:
“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. 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.”
A friend of mine on Facebook compared her comments to those of Ghandi, who famously repudiated Christians, while embracing much of the philosophy of Jesus. Other friends of mine cannot understand how one can embrace the teachings of Jesus without joining his followers as well.
It’s a pretty fascinating concept to wrestle with. Are you a Democrat if you support President Obama? Are you an anti-Semite if you support Mel Gibson? What if you happen to like Mel Gibson’s movies? 
Does appreciating Tom Cruise’s role in Interview with the Vampire mean that you need to embrace Scientology as well? And now we’re back to Anne Rice.
A local Christian church had a sermon series a few months back with the title “Fan or Follower”. It was designed to separated the sheep from the goats, and the faithful from the attenuated. The desire was to elicit a hardy response of ”Follower!” to the not so rhetorical question of how one should respond to Jesus. It was very much a situation of “either you are for us, or you are against us”. It was a significant souring point on my own relationship with the church, which I discussed in a little more detail here.
So, Anne is a fan of Jesus, but does not want to follow him along with any fellow followers.
Sounds fair to me.
