Dear Anne
Blog, Featured — By John Blase on July 29, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Anne’s out. Yesterday at 11:36am, Anne Rice posted this on her Facebook page –
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.
~~
Dear Anne,
You may not care, and I understand if you don’t, but on my better days I consider myself, like you, a writer and a person of faith, and so, like I feel you’d agree, words matter; they are these magical strokes that give voice to the reality around us. You used quite a few words in the two posts you nailed. I must say, and this is solely my opinion, that after awhile some of those big words have all the verve of a game of Pooh-sticks, but two in particular caught my eye, mainly because you swaddled them in quotation marks: ‘Christian’ and ‘belong.’
Some folks will be on you like white on rice for your 2 theses; that always happens. But I want to thank you for reminding us, all of us, to live the questions – what does it mean to be Christian? what does it mean to belong? I have had days of late when I believe those may be the same question and living into the answer of one will be living into the answer of the other. But I could be wrong, as writers sometimes are.
Updike described the face of one of his characters when released from the tension of hope, had grown smooth; her gestures had taken on the flirting irony of the young; she had become ecstatically attentive to everything about her; and her voice…had turned thin and free. She was happy…
Maybe that’s what happened to your Facebook face yesterday. Maybe.
Sincerely,
John
4 Comments
Great post, John.
I read her post through my Kierkegaard-ian filter of Christianity vs. Christiandom. I assumed she denounced the latter, but how would I know?
One time during a painful experience and feeling the forces of darkness beckoning to me I cried out to our Lord and He instantly dispensed of it and gave me his peace (doesn’t always happen that instantly but at times yes).
I then felt He revealed to me that many have Jesus upside down and as such are piercing him through his body-those rooted in Him. In a dream I saw a large tree limb piercing his body which I associate with the portion of those not rooted in Him (Romans 11).
I had been looking for Jesus and couldn’t find him and when I did, that is partially how I found him (more to it).
I felt the answer lay in not taking that revelation and growing embittered and accusatory, but allowing the Lord to start with me…and interceding. Although I felt I was given it as a comfort as a bruised reed He will not break…I was also aware that if I am not trusting and dependant on Him, I can be on the other side of the fence.
We can’t do anything about another and I feel that when we do try to change each other we can contribute to the problem. If we remain in Christ and share the truth in love, the Lord’s Spirit will do the changing as He sees fit. Sometimes the change begins with us.
This Ann situation “in my personal opinion” sounds like a step in the right direction. Her frustrations if dealt with properly (pouring it out to the Lord and leaning on Him to go deeper) can be a great opportunity for a closer walk with Him. A wonderful Spiritual birthing can take place…if we turn to the Lord with it.
And for the rest, this comment by Oswald Chambers is one I closely relate too, “I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies with me apart from the grace of God.”
I don’t deny that the Church has problems, but I don’t think placing one’s nose in the air, sticking the right hand out to the side, and distancing one’s self from Christianity, or Christians, is helping anything. Focusing one what’s wrong with the Church, and ignoring the many ways in which the Church is getting things right is downright dishonest. It’s akin to ESPN broadcasting a basketball game, only focusing the camera on one team’s goal. It makes the viewer think one team is winning 80-0, when the reality is that the other team is winning 100-80. In the post-Acts books of the NT, Paul, Peter, John and James’s writings pointed out ways in which the Church is doing well, as much as they urged them to improve in some areas. If that is good enough for them, why is it not good enough for Anne Rice?
(comment repeated in the comment section of Jordan’s post)
A lot of times we reject what rejects us as a means of protection. Perhaps that’s what’s going on. Anne tried and failed. She didn’t feel inluded, accepted by Christianity as a whole. We’ve all dealt with that at some point, I think, feeling rejected by our faith system, because all too often the worldly system prevails over that of grace.