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.
