"I Quit Christianity"

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 7/29/10 at 5:33pm

Will this woman make up her mind all ready?


Anne Rice "Quits" Christianity

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/29/10 at 5:43pm

She only recommitted herself to Christ within the past ten years or so, right? It's not like it wasn't already misogynistic, homophobic and all that other fun stuff then.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/29/10 at 5:44pm

A wiser gay than I once said: "People are complicated."

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 7/29/10 at 6:07pm

Are we shocked that she's pulling a huge 180 in order to gain attention again?

Have we forgotten this:
"Tom Cruise is the worst choice ever to play Lestat and I hate that Hollywood is going to ruin my book and screenplay by forcing me to accept his casting."

Which later became:
"Tom Cruise is so brilliant I am going to take out several pages in Variety to apologize for my previous statements about how much he will stink up the movie."

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/29/10 at 9:29pm

I think it's not a cultural value anymore for people to be able to change their minds, to admit their thinking has evolved in any direction from what it once was, or especially to admit when they're wrong.

I respect it when somebody says, "I felt very strongly that XX, but I realize now I was dead wrong." I know we don't get anybody modeling that behavior anymore, and I think that's a part of what makes Anne Rice's announcements seem to jarring.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/29/10 at 9:42pm

^ Well said. We just react cynically. I'm not sure that's to our advantage.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 7/29/10 at 10:34pm

Anne Rice is nothing if not sincere. She's also always been more than a little bit off-center. She turned back to religion, as many do, in a time of crisis. Her childhood sweetheart who became her husband had been stricken with cancer, which he did not survive. Perhaps not so oddly, it was probably her daughter's death from leukeimia, many years before, that made her embrace Atheism.

Throughout her return to Catholicism, she wrote often about sexual abuse in the church, and was as often taken to task for it. I guess, in time, the opiate wore off, and she'd simply had enough of organized religion. She still identifies as a Christian.

She's led a strange and frequently unhappy life. Her mother named her Howard Allen, for God's sake. She lost her lifelong partner and a child. I don't think she does these reversals for attention. I believe these are genuine changes of heart, and like Namo, I respect her coming forward to admit she was wrong (or in this case, possibly misguided).

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:04am

I think you've all made good points. It's still vexing that all the issues she's stated that caused her to leave the church were all there when she rejoined. I agree with Namo quoting his wiser gay that people are complicated, though.

She still identifies as a Christian.

Not exactly. She renounced Christianity in Christ's name.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:22am

The way I'm reading her statement is that she's essentially renounced organized religion, but is still holding on to her personal faith in God and Jesus.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:38am

Props to her. I wonder why she didn't consider just finding a less hostile sect of Christianity, though. I don't get why people stick with Jesus and the God of Abraham if they're going to rebel against what They expect of them. Why not go Shinto or something?

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:40am

That's the way I read it, too, AEA, and you're right, Phyl, those are my words, not hers - I just can't understand how you can be a follower of Christ but not a Christian. Serves me right trying to make sense to the big daddy in the sky stuff. It seems to me she has more issues with Catholicism specifically rather than Christianity in general.

The AP excerpt below may explain a little as to why she didn't immediately object to the more nefarious practices of the church - plus, do remember this is Anne Rice, who has never been one of the most stable creatures to walk this earth.

"In a telephone interview Thursday, Rice said she had been having doubts for the past two to three years. She was troubled by the child abuse scandals in the church, and the church's defensive reaction, and by the ex-communication of Sister Margaret McBride, a nun and hospital administrator who had approved an abortion for a woman whose life was in danger.

"I believed for a long time that the differences, the quarrels among Christians didn't matter a lot for the individual, that you live your life and stay out of it. But then I began to realize that it wasn't an easy thing to do," said Rice, speaking from her home near Palm Springs, Calif. "I came to the conclusion that if I didn't make this declaration, I was going to lose my mind." "


AP report Updated On: 7/30/10 at 12:40 AM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:48am

It seems to me she has more issues with Catholicism specifically rather than Christianity in general.

Yeah, that's what it seemed like to me, too.

I'm trying to be as respectful as possible, because I've released a lot of the rage I had after I fell hard from Catholicism, but what she's saying doesn't really make sense.

I get that Catholicism will turn you off organized religion (a pairing of words I've never quite understood. I get what people mean, but it still seems redundant) completely, but if you still worship Jesus (which is how we all seem to be interpreting her words), how can you not be a Christian?

Updated On: 7/30/10 at 12:48 AM

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:54am

That's how I came to misspeak, myself, Phyl. How can you worship Christ and not be a Christian? It makes no sense to me.

In the end, I guess it only needs to make sense to her.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:57am

AND JESUS!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 12:59am

Maybe she means she's a Christian and not a Christian (tm)?

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 1:03am

I know someone whose name is Christine who calls herself Xtine.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 1:47am

Well, I think I am a better Christian than many of those who claim to be such, so I don't have much to add - except that I hope the woman finds some peace, wherever or whatever that may be;

[Taryn]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 3:03am

I think it's pretty clear that she is rejecting Christianity on an level of being an organized religion. Technically, she is a Christian whether she likes it or not: her beliefs fall within the definition. But it reads pretty clearly to me as her distancing herself from religion, but not her beliefs.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 7:39am

Word to what you have all already said. She is denouncing religion and particularly Catholicism. I think real faith comes from figuring it out for yourself and not what the guy in the purple dress/bad suit/chick with the pink hair tells you it is. That's my take, anyway. I think when you reach the point that you realize that all of those people writing the rules are wrong, but you can hang on to faith, then you're golden.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 7:49am

I just wish liberal Christians would get their ****e together and make their own sect.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 7:52am

The United Church of Christ is very liberal.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 9:36am

Unitarians are, too, aren't they? Of course, they don't believe in the Trinity, but that shouldn't be a problem for someone who rejects Christianity.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 9:56am

The Church of Sweden has a pretty liberal view of many things. Same sex couples can marry at any church they choose here. Recently there was a priest who likes to use pretty foul language describing what gay men like to do in the bedroom to get his point across that it's not JUST about marriage. The government has asked the church to impose fines for hateful, vulgar speech from priests. It's very very PC. Our family is mostly Pentecostal, so that's a bit different.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 9:59am

Also, there are many people who are followers of Jesus of Nazareth--but who believe his actual preserved teachings as found in the New Testment can be reduced to about 14 lines, or some such.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/30/10 at 10:04am

And he didn't use the words queer or homo in ANY of those lines.