Anne Rice: Leaving the church to worship herself

Oh, it all sounds right. We have heard this story often. She had to leave the church. Although culturally speaking a little late to the “I will take God without the organized religion” party, she has arrived. She has arrived and has made her way up to the open mic with two main complaints.

One, the church is not perfect. “It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.” It has always been so hard for the self-righteous to remain among those who sin and need a savior. It is hard for them to remain and so easy for them to cast stones.

Secondly, and most importantly, the church does not agree with her on all points. “There were signs that the public face of Catholicism and the public face of Christianity were things that I found very, very difficult to accept.” Yes, this is the main reason people leave the church. They cannot stand an authority that supercedes their own thoughts. How dare the church be formed by an authority so removed from the cultural ideas of the day. Can’t we just take a vote and figure out what we believe that way? That way the church would be formed in our image, rather than the opposite. And that is much easier for the self-righteous.

No, Anne Rice did not leave the church because of specific issues. She left because the God the visible church worships doesn’t agree with her. She left the church to worship herself. She thinks she has only left the church. But she has left so much more.

clipped from www.npr.org Writer Anne Rice: ‘Today I Quit Being A Christian’ In July, Rice decided she had had enough. She announced her decision on her Facebook page: “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.” “This is something that had been going on really almost from the beginning of my conversion in 1998,” she says. “From the beginning, there were signs that the public face of Catholicism and the public face of Christianity were things that I found very, very difficult to accept.” Rice says the final straw was when she realized the lengths that the church would go to prevent same-sex marriage.