This week, we’re privileged to have Anne Rice come on, interviewed by Mike Morrell. Rice is one of the most read authors in modern history … her books have sold over 130 million copies. She is best known for the gothic genre, but in recent years, after coming out publicly as a person of faith, has begun a series chronicling the life of Jesus. Recently, Anne made waves by posting an update on Facebook to announce that she was no longer going to be part of organized Christianity … ‘in the name of Christ.’
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.
(via Anne’s Facebook Page, July 28)
It was surprising to hear that she tries to read every comment on her page! The above post alone has over 1500 comments and she posts several times a day. It certainly is an important hub online where people are hashing out what it means to be a follower of Jesus when there’s so much within Christianity to be embarrassed about. This is a great conversation … enjoy.
Recent volumes from Anne Rice:
Preorder: Of Love and Evil (Songs of the Seraphim)
Angel Time
Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
And thanks to Mike Morrell for doing the interview. Normally we bestow the title ‘friend of the podcast’ for contributing an interview. It’s a little more relational than ‘correspondent.’ But I think it’s getting more serious with Mike. We might be getting close to ‘boyfriend of the podcast’ status. Here’s another great interview Mike did with Kevin Prosch.
In the intro, Ryan Parker joins me to talk about what’s going on over at PopTheology.com, and he has a sweet offer for you. The 25th person to DM PopTheology on Twitter with their mailing address gets a free copy of AD: New Orleans After the Deluge. Ryan promises not to send you junk mail and will not keep the addresses.
Saving a Genre
Ryan’s review of the Christian film, To Save a Life, from New Song Community Church in Oceanside, CA
Being (Really) Human
Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay’s review of the BBC America series Being Human
Tripp could not be with us this time. He's busy fishing in the heartland. Check out this monster.
I know this won’t be received well, but am the only one who thought ‘who gives a shit’ when they heard she said was quitting Christianity?
Thousand (hell millions) of people give up on Christianity ever year because of hurtful (and un-Christian) things Christians do and advocate. If you don’t like your church body then switch. Become Protestant, or Orthodox, or Catholic. I just don’t see what the bid deal is. So she dislikes the conservative things the church represents, well then change affiliation. The way to reform the church is from within the church. Giving up on the church and critiquing it the easy thing to do. If you want to see a change then work from the inside to reform. Of course if all on really wants is a privatized faith then I suppose it doesn’t matter one way or the other. I just feel like if I collected a nickel for every ex-Christian I’ve met I’d be rich.
@Jeremy. I feel ya. I would have a bunch of nickels too! I appreciate the questions and concerns people have when they leave Christianity but I plan on staying. Of course that shouldn’t be a big surprise since the podcast is homebrewed ‘Christianity!’
I guess it just seemed sort of short-sighted to me. It’s not as if the entire Christian tradition is guilty of these things she says. I understand if the choice is between conservative Christianity or nothing, but certainly Christianity is more diverse than that.
Hey Jesus (The Bridegroom). I think you’re cool and I like your ideas. Let’s hang out and have a coffee or something. Oh, but do you think you can leave your wife (the church) at home? Ya.. uhm..well she’s a bit embarrassing, not that great looking and I noticed she says thinks sometimes that are awkward at best. Also, she dresses kind of….well, you know a bit out of step.
What? Oh some other time. Sure.. uhmm. You seem kind of irritated. Let’s keep in touch?
Strauss,
It’d be one thing if Anne Rice left Christianity because it wasn’t hip or cool. It’s another thing if she left because the church advocates policies that are antithetical to the gospel. I understand why she’d leave the conservative part of the church but obviously the body of Christ is larger than that. I was more annoyed in the way this whole thing unfolded, i.e. via facebook and not a face to face conversation with her local priest/pastor.
.
If I could meet her in person, I would
love to say “Thank you Anne Rice –
for so very articulately stating what
I have felt in my heart for years” !!!!
One’s ‘Faith-in-Christ’ should IN NO WAY
be tied into the man-controlled ‘Religion’
that so many refer to as “Christianity”
(especially that apostate, psuedo-religious
political-movement called ‘evangelicalism’)
It took me forever to realize that my
relationship with God (as established
through Christ Jesus, God The Son) was
IN NO WAY dependent on the apostate
psuedo-religious movement sweeping
America in the name of the “church”.
If Christ were walking the earth today,
a lot of these same “religious” types
would be the first to demand that He
be ‘crucified’ — and based merely on
who He chose as FRIENDS (women,
gays, foreigners, immigrants, the poor,
the rejected, the downtrodden, the rich,
men, old, young, happy, sad, and so on).
The “evangelicals” (not to be mistaken
for TRUE FOLLOWERS of Christ) and
other “church” types have essentially
hijacked the Christian ‘Faith’ in order to
turn it into a mammon-worshipping,
power-mongering, “Religion” of hate.
These people are more akin to a system of
ANTI-CHRIST (i.e. “against”-Christ) than
to anything tied into WHO CHRIST IS.
Their evil has reached such profound levels
that even people who know and love Christ
are turned off from them and their words
(again proving these “church” types are
really nothing more than anti-Christ,
self-righteous Pharisees and are not
even remotely related to Jesus Christ).
Never again will I waste my time stepping
into the psuedo-religious social-club that
is known as “church” or associate myself
with the political-clique that is known as
‘christianity’ — because FROM NOW ON
– I realize that I do NOT “need” either
in order to have a relationship with MY
LORD JESUS CHRIST (in fact, those
two entities were actually ‘interfering’
with my relationship with God)
THROUGH CHRIST — GOD HAS OPENLY
EXPRESSED HIS LOVE TO ‘EVERYONE’
(no matter if rich, poor, gay, straight, male,
female, sickly, healthy and so on) — AND
CHRIST (not the so-called”church”) IS
‘THE DOOR’ and ‘THE WAY’ TO GOD!!
ALL ARE WELCOME TO APPROACH AND
TO ENTER THROUGH ‘THE DOOR’ TO GOD!!
NO ONE IS REJECTED BY JESUS CHRIST !!!
JESUS LOVED AND LOVES EVERYONE !!!
LET’S ALL TRY TO REMEMBER
THE BIBLE VERSE OF ‘JOHN 3:17’:
“For God did NOT send His Son
into the world – to condemn
the world, BUT that the world,
THROUGH HIM, might be SAVED !!!!”
JESUS CHIST – and *not* the institution known
as “the church” or the religion called “christianity”
— IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE!!!
LIKE MANY OTHER PEOPLE – I AM DONE
WITH THE CHURCH & WITH CHRISTIANITY
– AND FROM HERE ON OUT – MY FOCUS IS
ON (AND FAITH IN GOD RELIES IN) JESUS
CHRIST AND JESUS CHRIST ALONE !!!
.