Novelist Anne Rice, perhaps best known for her Interview with the Vampire, and who also wrote a story about the young Jesus a few years back, has left her Roman Catholic faith. The author cited her growing discomfort with what she perceived as ecclesiastical intolerance of gays, women, abortion rights, Democrats, secular humanism, etc. and declared that she was through being a Christian. Wow!
In making her pronouncement, Rice made it clear that she was still a follower of Christ–just not in the context of an organized community. While I sympathize with Rice, there is a problem with her logic: Christianity, by it’s very nature, is a communal faith. And while I can easily understand one’s displeasure with the perception of exclusivity–the human tendency to set up walls around the Lord’s Table–the church, with all its flaws, is still the body of Christ.
Eugene Peterson reminds us that the church should not be known by what it does, negative or positive, but rather by what it is. I can tell you that such an observation has picked me up from near despair over the “failure” of the church and the yearning for a programmatic congregation that does all sorts of good and exciting things. That reminder has freed me to celebrate the goodness of the church simply because it is the Christbody.
As one who has been a disciple since I was an adolescent, the church is my home. I suspect that Anne Rice is deeply grieved over having left hers. Perhaps one day, she will find her way back.
Raising Basileia 