08:52 AM CDT on Friday, August 27, 2010
Rev. Jim Mann
Author wrongly turns back on Christianity
Oh, Anne Rice. Bless her heart. In case you missed the controversy, Rice publicly “quit” Christianity several weeks back. She wrote on Facebook: “I remain committed to Christ as always … [but] it’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group.”
She said she refuses to be anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-Democratic, anti-secular humanism, anti-science and anti-life. It was such big news even columnist Leonard Pitts took a break from his usual race-baiting, conservative-bashing sentiments to revel in the matter (DRC, Aug. 10).
In case you don’t know Rice, she was into vampires long before vampires were sexy. A former student at the University of North Texas, she wrote a series of novels following her bestselling Interview With the Vampire. She experienced a dramatic religious conversion more than 10 years ago, which she chronicles in Called Out of the Darkness. For full disclosure, I have read two of her fictitious books about Jesus’ life and ministry, which I thoroughly enjoyed. She’s quite a talented author.
Rice admittedly came to the church with an agenda. When the church did not buy into this agenda, she left. The question is: Did she ever truly convert to Christianity?
Jesus warned us 2,000 years ago that the Bible’s message would be offensive to the world. Heck, it offends Christians, too. The reason for the affront is the mirror-like aspect of God’s word, revealing our deepest flaws and all our ugliness apart from God. The Bible calls us to change our thinking. It calls us to change our actions. That’s where we get the term “conversion.”
In other words, we come to God on his terms. We don’t force him to change his tenets, nor do we get to pick and choose which beliefs we want to accept as true. God doesn’t have (or need) an editor.
Imagine a liberal signing up for the local “tea party” and then getting upset when the platform includes cutting government spending. It’s laughable. Signing the tea party rolls doesn’t make you a fiscal conservative, and joining the church doesn’t make you a convert.
Is Rice correct? Are there some quarrelsome, hostile and disputatious folks in the church? Sure. Some of them are pastors. I once had an ethics professor in graduate school who was the meanest, most unfair professor I ever had. The irony was not lost on me, but I was somehow able to avoid jumping to the conclusion that all ethics professors are unethical.
I’ve heard it said the church is less a home for saints than it is a haven for sinners. Or as I like to tell folks who reject the church because of the hypocrites they find: We’ve got room for one more.
We come to God on his terms, not our own. We don’t always live up to his terms (hence the apparent hypocrisy), but we try. Pitts, in his observations on this controversy, falsely argues that the church is dying. He says that a new “openness” is needed from churches to ensure the future of “organized religion.” In essence, he’s suggesting the church lower its standards and kill two birds with one stone. Lower moral standards mean less moral failure and therefore less hypocrisy. Also, lower standards mean the church will no longer run off enlightened, important people like Anne Rice. But what Pitts doesn’t understand, and what Rice has learned, is that the Bible says what it says. You take it or leave it. Anne Rice left it. I’ll take it.
Brett McCracken recently wrote in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal: “If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched — and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.”
I know Rice loves Jesus. She’s written about him quite reverently. But if she wants to be his follower, she will have to accept more than just the “idea” of Jesus — she’ll have to convert to his way of thinking.
THE REV. JIM MANN is a native of Denton and the pastor of New Life Church. He’s an adjunct professor of the New Testament at Liberty Seminary. Visit www.NewLifeDenton.org for more information. If you’re interested in the intersection of politics and faith, visit his site, http://www.agoracommunity.org .
Ms. Rice- here is one scripture :
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 “do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
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