Thursday, August 12, 2010

Anne Rice Leaves Christianity... ...Again

Today we leave our regularly scheduled program to talk about the big news in the Christian publishing world. (Okay, it’s a few days old, but we’ll talk about it anyway.) Anne Rice has left Christianity. Apparently, Anne Rice thinks you can switch from being a Christian to not being a Christian like you can change your underwear. Some time ago she left to become an atheist, then she came back. Well, now she’s gone again. And you know what? I refuse to be like some of these other churches and beg her to come join us instead of doing whatever she’s doing. As someone has said, none of us have a right to hear the gospel twice before everyone has heard it once. I believe she is a prime example of what is wrong with Christianity today. But before I get into that, let’s look at her own reasons for leaving Christianity this time:


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.

Does that make it clear enough for you? She doesn’t like what the Catholic church is teaching, so she’s decided to dump Christianity. To be fair, I don’t agree with what the Catholic church is teaching about some things either, but I think there’s a bigger issue here. I see a lot of people who don’t really believe what they “believe.” People have this idea that having a religion is the important thing because it makes us better people or something like that, but they don’t really expect God to hear their prayers. They go through the ritual of religion, but it’s hollow and not real. Because of this attitude toward religion, they are quick to throw out the traditional beliefs because while religion is important to them, they believe that not hurting other people is more important. So rather than continuing to say that God hates the sin of homosexuality, they say that a loving God would want us to be inclusive to gays. Rather than saying that God hates abortion, they say that a loving God wouldn’t want to force a woman to go through pregnancy. Rather than saying that God is more powerful than we could possibly imagine, they say that science disproves the miracles of the Bible.


The bottom line is that these people don’t trust God and never did. So while Anne Rice may say she’s leaving Christianity, it’s a safe bet that she was never a Christian in the first place. Not that I would actually bet on it. Jesus calls people to repentance. Jesus wants people to reject sin, not embrace it, yet all across Christianity we’re seeing people who decide for themselves what is right and wrong rather than going by what God has said is right and wrong.