Previous Post – Being Missional in a Culture of Compromise
When I first discovered that Anne Rice, famed author of the dark Vampire Chronicles, was doing a series of novels on the life of Jesus, I was intrigued. I soon learned that in the process of researching and writing the books she was compelling and wooed back into the life of faith, returning to the Roman Catholicism of her youth. I even interviewed her at about her books of Christ and her return to faith. She shocked millions of fans and critics alike with this move.
Recently, Anne has again got thousands abuzz with her recent public comments on Facebook:
“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.”
Then again later:
“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.”
As I read her words, I felt deeply for Anne. After all, many of us share her struggle to identify with a religion that so often seems to distant from the teachings of the Lord whose name it bears. And while I am frequently drawn to the writings and examples of Catholic women & men (namely, St. Claire & Francis of Assisi), I can also see why the Roman Catholic expression of faith would be particularly difficult for Rice.
Her comments brought to mind something I had read from Cornell West recently. West commented that, in terms of identification with others, especially those who faced injustice and persecution, he explicitly calls himself the other. In other words, in the face of anti-Islamic attitudes post-9/11, he said “I am Arab American” or to the way the church or culture treats the LGBTQ community, he said “I am gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual”. Like Rice, he refused to let his identification as a Christian make him separate than his sister and brothers. Rice refuses to be identified with the hatred and bigotry she sees in the institutional church and West refuses to deny identification with this rejected by the same.
While I differ with Rice & West in many details surrounding this crisis of identification, I do resonate with much of their unique (and overlapping) emphases. I struggle in my own life and in the life of my community to offer an alternative vision and/or experience of Christ to a world that often only sees self-righteousness, judgment and violence. I am passionately committed to recognize that my identity, my very salvation is caught up with that of others, even those who Christians traditionally reject as outsiders. In this, I affirm what these two are modeling in these statements and in their lives.
However, I am caught on something I can’t get past. While in no way diminishing the prophetic authority of Rice & West in this respect, I cannot help be realize that Christ takes this radical identification even further. Jesus condescended to become human, giving up His rightful place and power, to identify with us so that we could receive the grace of salvation through His life, death and resurrection. “While we were yet sinners”- in other words, before we accepted or even acknowledged His gift, He suffered and died for the hope of our salvation. Jesus identified with all humankind without exception.
This is the identification that Christ calls us to follow. It is a radical and impossible identification that is only possible by His Holy Spirit. It is an identification that, while never compromising or ignoring injustice, extends a love that surpasses familial loyalty even to those who despise and reject it. It is an indiscriminate identification that is no respecter of persons. It is an identification that is willing to also say, “I am a bigot”, “I am a homophobe”, “I am a racist”, “I am a misogynist” and “I am the worst of sinners”.
Because Christ identifies with everyone, even in their most horrific sinfulness, then we too, as His Body, must also identify with them. We do not have the luxury to deny their sisterhood and brotherhood, while also never ignoring or justifying their hatred and sin. The Body of Christ is one, like it or not. To identify with Christ means we must identify with each other.
Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.
Thanks for this post, Jamie … it helps me snap out of the funk I feel after reading the post over at Jesus Creed. :^(
The Body of Christ is ONE — and it both includes and transcends all earthly, local manifestations.
…and I was right in the middle of her memoirs about coming back to the church. Sigh. She has my prayers for grace and mercy on her journey.
Grace and peace to you, bro.
Thanks Peggy. I just commented over at Scot’s post. I am hopeful that this is just part of Anne’s journey. I believe that the Spirit is far more tenacious and loyal to His children than we are. Anne may be a prophetic voice we need to be confronted with.
Agreed … we all have challenging patches in our journey’s don’t we? I am so grateful for that tenacious loyalty of the Spirit. May those who have ears to hear….
Amen!
“The Body of Christ is one, like it or not.’
Yes. But, how many of us strive to know intimately the varied threads of the mosaic that comprise The Body?
“To identify with Christ means we must identify with each other.”
Seems to me that both you and Ann Rice BOTH believe that statement.
Thanks for you blog…I enjoyed reading it.
peace
Regina, so true. Anne’s work has (and does) speak so much into my faith. I appreciate her voice and do see at as prophetic on many levels. I think you are right that she does, indeed, affirm what I said there. My only concern (and this is for myself as much as for Anne) is that individualism allows us to too easily have a “personal faith” as though we could choose to be apart from the institutions whose histories built the foundations of where we are. Food for thought. Thanks for stopping by!
Hey Jamie,
Yes, I get that. I just think that sometimes what looks like a pear to us is actually the same orange that we are eating.
I actually believe it is less of a concern and more of an opportunity to dialogue. Transparently.
I also hear you re your concerns. I really do.
But I also have seen this…the spirit can only take so much pain, frustration, oppression, despair before it breaks, cracks, shatters. And that is where WE step up to the plate and lift our hands up and out. And to me that means dialoguing in truth. Not being concerned about individualism vs history/foundation/insitution. But just being concerned about the things upon the person’s heart: what are they feeling, why are they feeling it, what has occured.
Listening. It is healing. But, we often don’t want to listen to the truth that flows forth from the frustrated/broken/shattered/”had enough” heart. Because it can appear too frenzied, isolated, myopic, lonely, off course, etc. But, I tell you what….if you travel that road with them (me, us, we) you will find some pretty cool hidden gems that you were not even looking for. And many will be Christ keys to unlock the many beautiful doors of relationship building.
Listening. It is at this spark of a place called relationship where understanding steps in and pulls itself up to the table for a corporate meal.
God. He is the same God that turns the water on and off from the faucet called the sky. And WE have to endeavor to do better with one anothers hearts. We really do. We have a “roadmap” called Christ. HE makes it a lot easier. Listen.
peace
Regina, I actually think we are agreeing more than you might think. As a pastoral type, though, I can’t help but care about what price might be paid for stepping too far. I think what Anne can do in a healthy and mature way can become tricky in the public platform, as many who will follow her example lack her maturity in so doing. Again, though, I think we are on the same page.
Peace.
.
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 !!!
.
Thanks for sharing your passionate view, APG. I hope that we can still find that community that faith gives birth to- the true meaning of church. I believe, by His grace, it is possible and necessary.
Peace,
Jamie