Anne Rice—Gothic-Vampire-Queen-Of-The-Damned—announced this week that she has quit being a Christian. Her post on Facebook has taken wing like Nosferatu into a moonlit night sky, spreading across all forms of media and generating quite a large amount of murmur and buzz. Here’s what Rice had to say:
“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.”
“I quit being a Christian,” she continued. “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.”
Normally I don’t make hay about someone’s spiritual life, as it is none of my business unless it is used as a weapon to perpetuate hatred. As a gay man I must admit to being disappointed that she’d joined organized Christianity for the obvious reasons. Also, I wondered how she was going to reconcile this with the fact that her son, the author Christopher Rice, is an out-of-the-closet gay man. Looks like she was unable to reconcile.
In publicly rejecting the constructs and confines of Christianity, Rice is shining a light on the many issues that are dogging Christian dogma: anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-choice and others she has outlined in her statement. In publicly rejecting formal Christianity she is also potentially nailing herself to the cross by making herself a target of zealots who will probably come at her with daggers.
Fundamentalist factions will want to crucify her
However, by saying she remains committed to Christ, she opens a discussion about the nature of spirituality and belief, that it is possible to be a person of faith without the constructs of organized religion which so often tries to use control, fear and retribution to keep the flock in line. Her announcement is sure to offend many, but I think it will spur a discussion about the nature of spirituality versus religion.
I’ve long had issues with many organized religions as they tend not to dovetail with my personal beliefs and in many facets rejecting who I am and wanting me “neutralized”. I applaud Rice for taking a public position about this issue. She didn’t have to make a statement, but the fact that she did is courageous—especially in the face of a fundamentalist faction who will want to crucify her.
