Last week, Anne Rice, the author of numerous vampire novels, including the famed ‘Interview with the Vampire,’ declared that she had “quit being Christian."
Rice ‘broke up’ with Christianity on her Facebook page saying that she found it “simply impossible … to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.“
“For ten ...years, I've tried,” the 68-year-old noted. “I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”
A day earlier, Rice had blogged about a news article regarding observations made by the head of a youth outreach ministry, who allegedly described Muslims who demand the execution of homosexuals as “more moral than even the American Christians.”
“This kind of thing makes me weep,” Rice wrote. “Maybe commitment to Christ means not being a Christian.”
A few hours later, Rice quoted Mahatma Gandhi, who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Rice went on to question the term “Christian,” asking when a word becomes “unusable … so burdened with history and horror that it cannot be evoked without destructive controversy.”
Twenty-four hours later, Rice confirmed that she was definitely “out” and said that she refused to be anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-artificial birth control, anti-Democrat, anti-secular humanism, anti-science, and anti-life in the name of Christ.
“In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian,” she concluded.
While some have understood Rice’s pronouncements as a rejection of her faith, the famous author later clarified that her faith in Christ “is central to my life.”
“My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me,” she wrote in her Facebook fan page.
But to the former Vampire author, “following Christ does not mean following His followers.”
“Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become,” she concluded.