Anne Rice Is A Bit Confused

Whatever sells, as opposed to whatever saves.

While I agree that her history suggests she’s confused, I think there’s something more common and basic going on here. I think that the dichotomy she’s presenting is being puzzled over by many people these days—there seems to be a gap between Christ and “The Church.” She has taken it to the liberal extreme, of course, but non-liberals are feeling it, too. Lots of people are and for a variety of reasons.

I’ve got a bad case of church fatigue and frustration going right now. When going to church means you find yourself sucked into political types of discussions, back-biting and criticisms, it becomes an unhappy place and you need to take a break. I’ve encountered many other people in various denominations saying the same thing.

Canon Harmon posted an article about the growing popularity of home churches. I can understand the draw even while I wonder if that’s a good solution. The bottom line is that the churches are politicking and bickering themselves out of favor.

Just like a smoker who quits for more than six months has a good chance of being able to quit again, let us pray that Anne’s walk apart is not permanent. She has shown that she can accept the unimaginable, that the whole amazing Christian story is not a work of fiction or fantasy. She has done it before and she can do it again.

Of course the key word in her excerpt is “I.” That is the hardest thing to give up.

I remeber when Ms. Rice reestablished or readopted her faith a few years ago, and some Christian outlets (almost certainly not this one) rejoiced and said how wonderful it was; but her statements at that time indicated clearly I thot that she was not really adopting and accepting the faith. She was sincere but hideously confused.

One problem is a tendency to rejoice when some celebrity embemlatic of worldliness says “I am a Christian”. We rejoice as if this was a victory over the world. But if the celebrity has not really accepted Christianity, it’s likely just…well we were warned what it was like. The fruits of seed thrown on sandy soil.

Let us pray for Anne, and that whatever acquaintance she made with Christians and the Gospel over the last few years may, by the benevolent mercy of God, produce understanding, and its fruits.

I pray that she finds the path to God. I was lost for forty-four years and was able to hear the call and return. I pray that the Lord will touch her heart and return her to his house. Bless you, Anne.

The difference between secularism and “progressive Christianity” is so very small. Perhaps this is why so called “progressive Christians” eventually start sleeping in on Sunday mornings and turn away from their so called churches.

A “bit” confused—I am hard pressed at this point to believe that she ever knew Christ as Savior.  BTW, she just posted on FB that there will be more to follow later http://www.facebook.com/annericefanpage

(with apologies to Steve Spurgin)

Coffin Annie wore a black hat and dress
she sported a beauty mole
she had an eye for the macabre
and she never looked at guava
and her handshake was a little bit cold

Coffin Annie was the Goth queen momma
It seem’d an unusual thing to do
I guess there’s nothing wrong
though her favorite song
was t’theme from Scooby-Doo (Hooo)

Coffin Annie lived in N’Orleans Louisiana,
it’s safe to say she lives there yet
wrote a lot of prose that Goth’s loved to pose
and movies was her favorite bet

Coffin Annie was the Goth queen momma
It seem’d an unusual thing to do
I guess there’s nothing wrong
though her favorite song
was t’theme from Scooby-Doo (Hooo)

Coffin Annie liked to convert
back and forth on us
even though she’d not get it right
and when she got that way
we’d shake our heads and pray
that He’d open up her eyes to His light

Coffin Annie was the Goth queen momma
It seem’d an unusual thing to do
I guess there’s nothing wrong
though her favorite song
was t’theme from Scooby-Doo (Hooo)

‘Last I heard about Coffin Annie
she had her a fancy car
she may have made a success out Lestat’s regrets
but she still holds Him bete noir

Coffin Annie was the Goth queen momma
It seem’d an unusual thing to do
I guess there’s nothing wrong
though her favorite song
was t’theme from Scooby-Doo (Hooo)

Real Toral, I was one that rejoiced. I read and listened to her at the time and found great hope for her path. I also read “Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt” which I thought was a very well written piece of historical fiction that was informed by some pretty good research.

For some reason, I don’t think her journey is over. Frankly, I would expect her to have a crisis of faith having reentered the church after such a long lapse.

Has anyone else attempted to read the post on her FB page?  She is a “friend of a friend,” so I went there to read it for myself.  All I have seen are people’s reaction notes (+/-).  So is this an urban legend in the offing?

Yeah, I went there and read.
She’s still claiming Christ (but not the one taught in Scripture, nor most any Church-House).  Think ‘long haired friends of Jesus’ with more anti-establishment bias…..

[12] Bo

Think ‘long haired friends of Jesus’

Did they have a chartreuse micro-bus?

carl

Well, as Paul says, we’re all condemned…perhaps a work of Grace is in play here…

Having had my own crisis of faith for a very long time, I may be prone to be more tolerant than some. Having “been there and done that” does tend to give you a different perspective on things of this nature. Anne is a woman searching for God and that journey can lead us on a trip that is different for us all. Also, seeing as how she is a “celerity”, she is seen by many through a different lens. She is but like we are, searching for our way to go to God. It is my prayer that she find it and rejoices in the love of God.

Whatever sells, as opposed to whatever saves.

I wouldn’t say we should automatically be THAT cynical about it, however, I do think we as Christians…and partakers in the celebrity-culture…should be far more discerning, and, we really should rely on the old Catechesis method, (contra the spontaneous conversion method, endemic to evangelicalism) before celebrating about the “conversion” of a celebrity (or anyone else for that matter).

Being a disciple of Jesus is, after all, as much a one time dramatic decision, as it is about many decisions over time….  And one big conversion decision accepting the justification of Jesus on the cross is only proved by the subsequent many little decisions in following Him which make up sanctification.  It is noteworthy in the patristic Church that a convert was required to undergo Christian education for 3 years (or more) before baptism was permitted.  Perhaps that is a bit extreme (for baptism) but still, our breezy idea that wham—one dramatic experience proves true faith, is just wrong.

Bob Dylan, and Jane Fonda come to mind as other, very liberal, and visible celebrities who made profession of faith…and then apparently have backed away (Dylan back into some sort of individualistic theism, and Fonda…where?).  I don’t doubt that these people, including Rice, are sincere…each has so much money, and residual income, not to mention age, that publicity stunts as this don’t fit…but sincerity, and, the undoing of a lifetime of error—are two different things.

May God have mercy on them, and bring Christians alongside to disciple them—that though they are wrong about certain issues, they won’t be wrong about our Lord Jesus, on that final day.

Carl—Everyone knows they had a Honda. It says right in Acts that the apostles were in one accord. I do assume it was a hybrid, however.

#17 - David Keller.  LOL!  Never knew why I loved Hondas (though currently am stuck driving an elephant of a wheelchair van).

We’ll be praying that Anne builds on being a Christ-follower and God leads her in that.

Ms. Rice also posted the next day this comment:

July 28: My 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. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than C…hristianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

BabyBlue has a nice post about this

. . . It is clear that Anne Rice has been let down and let down in a big way.  Before we dismiss her outright for flipping theologically and morally out, it may be important to pause and consider - and consider seriously - why does she feel let down?  Why does she write, “Following Christ does not mean following His followers?”

It is fairly simple to move away from Jesus being Lord to the Church being lord.  It can happen in the most organized of ways and it can happen in quite subtle ways.  It can happen very quickly.  The first two commandments are doozies, no other gods but God - and no substitutes either.  To swap the Church (and that means the followers of Jesus) for Jesus Himself spells disaster.  It spells not only some of greatest catastrophes in history, but also personal disillusionment and the loss of faith. . .

She’s on a journey and needs all prayers.

Anne Rice grew up in and had fond memories of New Orleans’ Catholicism.  Church was an important part of her childhood.  When she began to long for God, and to be drawn to the Christ of the gospels,  it made sense to her to go back there.  As a cradle Catholic, she didn’t have to be catechized, she just went to confession.  She admitted at the time that she couldn’t understand what the church taught about homosexuality,  but she left room for the possibility that she might come to understand that she was wrong.  That seems to me to be enough for a lay person if he or she does not actively promote false teachings.  But she didn’t stay at that point.  She is too public a figure to be able to be quiet about her beliefs.  And recently she was a participant in several long blog threads about the latae sententiae excommunication of Sr. McBride for allowing an abortion of an 11 wk fetus which was supposedly necessary to save the mother’s life.  (I say supposedly because the actual medical facts were never available.)  She was very upset by the Catholic position that it is not licit to do a direct abortion even to save the mother’s life, and said several times that this made her ashamed to be a Catholic.  This is a rough case to think about for someone shaky in her faith, and I am afraid it may have been what pushed her over the edge.  I do believe that her motivation for her beliefs on these issues is what she deems is compassion, not what sells.  She really doesn’t have to worry at this point about what sells.  Everything she writes sells and will sell.  It would be better for her if there weren’t people hanging on her every word, though, as such interior journeys don’t benefit from having the light of publicity shining on them. 
I do believe that she is sincere and that she wants God and wants to follow Christ. But this is, so far, only as she understands Him.  She has read the gospels pretty intensively to write her own life of Christ stories.  But her understanding is idiosyncratic,  not really within any Christian tradition, right now. 
Let us pray that she doesn’t ultimately choose her own opinions over God’s will and His truth. 
Susan Peterson

There’s another side to this—the UCC has gone recruiting. In a shameless bid for traffic, I’d direct you here.

Anne, and the fellow riders in the strangely coloured Honda are an example of failures to teach and/or discipline and disciple.  They profess Christ, yet abhor the church and its teachings.  If one know them both, one can not love the Groom and not love the bride, unless the bride is cuckholding the groom. 

Some of the rejection is that they have not been brought to know the groom (teaching), while some of it is that the bride is really cuckolding the groom.  As one who works with those on an edge of society, I see many, many, many people who know the bride (or those who claim to be the bride).  Many claim to be followers but put power, and money, and social standing before following, and worship other gods, and not Christ.  Those who claim to be leaders in the church and are unfaithful to the flock, who preach ‘peace and prosperity’ and who clock hatred in the robes of sanctification exist and are the enemy of those who wish to know the groom (discipline).  Others turn away because they are taught wrongly about what it means to be the bride of Christ (discipling).

I failed to properly disciple one who I truly believe was saved of God from a pagan lifestyle, putting too much of a burden on him too fast, asking them to walk in the new life before he was able to crawl.  Let us pray for Anne, and all those she represents, people we as the bride have failed, including Kyle, whom I failed.

[17] David Keller

Everyone knows they had a Honda.

Au contraire!  The canonical lyrics to Convoy are quite clear. 

Well we shot the line, an’ we went for broke
With a thousand screamin’ trucks
And eleven long-haired friends of Jesus
In a chartreusse microbus

carl
who much prefers Riverside Slide to Convoy

Many here are too ready to judge Anne. She is our sister in Christ and we should be there to lift her up. I pray that we all seek the Lord for wisdom in helping our sister through prayer. Christ our Lord, bless her and help her at this time. Give her whatever she needs, during this crisis of faith, to allow her to follow you back to your presence. Help us all, dear Lord, so that we too can do whatever we must to be faithful and return home to you. This is my sincere prayer.

Did they have a chartreuse micro-bus?

The Chartreuse should be drunk elsewhere.  And at Grande Chartreuse, a microbus would be out of place.

“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,” the author wrote Wednesday on her Facebook page. “In the name of ... Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

And to quote G. K. Chesterton, “Christianity has not been tried and found too difficult, it has been found difficult and not tried.”  I suspect that’s the case with Ms Rice.

Anne’s plea for attention. The conversion from horror writer to Christian writer hasn’t panned out, so now a conversion back the other way.

This is a harmless enough discussion and maybe I’m selling it short, but I’m not sure why we care what pop figures think about issues beyond their craft. Rice writes entertaining horror novel filled with violence, sex and purple prose, though after “Interview” she developed a complete inability to bring her stories to a satisfying conclusion. (My guess is once she became a best-seller, she stopped letting her manuscripts to be edited.)

Putting stock in what Anne Rice thinks one way or the other about Christianity is like paying attention to Sean Penn’s pronouncements about politics or Bono’s on economics. Nobody cares what economist Arthur Laffer thinks of the new U2 album or whether the Archbishop of Canterbury likes Christopher Hitches’ autobiography (he probably does). Why the reverse?

Romkey,
I care what ANYONE thinks of my Lord. 
They need to know Him, not some caricature of Him.  We need to do a better job of presenting the Gospel, and pity those whose eyes are blinded by the Prince of Lies.

#2, re: House churches. Even if you didn’t have a strong ecclesiology (which I do), the biggest problem with house churches is the lack of accountablity. I have a friend who did this, and in my opinion it’s become a DIY Christianity. Not that he’s now become a terrible person—rather, he has no earthly representative who can help him find the truth. Essentially, he answers to no one other than God, and I don’t think that’s how God set it up. (And yes, it sure is good to go to confession!).

DavidSh
House churches is how it started - well, houses and open-air meeting places.  what a wonderful thing it would be if there were a way to have local overseers who tended to the care of the pastors of these house churches, seeing to it that all false doctrines were chased away, while allowing the growth that comes from meeting often in small groups, sharing the word, and bread, and the doctrine of the Apostles.  Disassociation of the Church from the church-house, and re-association of the Church with the Body of Christ and His Word, Doctrine, and Practice might not be a bad thing at all….

Disassociation of the Church from the church-house, and re-association of the Church with the Body of Christ and His Word, Doctrine, and Practice might not be a bad thing at all….

Sorry Bo, this makes no sense to me. If you want to clarify, please do so. As a believer in an organic growth of the Church, I have no problem with what you describe as the beginning of the Church in houses.

[32] Posted by DavidSh
Hopefully this helps, if not PM me, and I’ll do up a longer essay…

Too often the ‘church’ is identified with the building, not the people or the doctrine.  It might be good for the growth of the church if we returned meeting in borrowed places.  Less money spent on structures, more on people.  Less working on the building up of the building, more on the building of the body of Christ.  Less going to the same place because that is where we’ve always gone, and more going where the Word is Taught, and Communion Shared.

Keeping discipline in such a ‘flexible’ situation would be more a strain, and I’d miss the stained glass, but growth is not always best when things are as I like them…(look at the growth in China of the ‘mobile churches’ v. the ‘official ones’).

#2 -

Unfortunately, choosing a house church to avoid the strife in conventional churches is like St. Anthony moving to the desert to avoid temptation. All you have to do is read Corinthians to see that. The devil is always on the prowl.

28—I think it is more than that, and represents a good example of the challenge facing the church in today’s culture.  Among other things, Anne was faced with the challenge of reconciling her feelings for her son with the teachings of her childhood church.  As evangelists in today’s culture,  we face scores of individuals with similarly complex histories and relationships. I wonder who ministered to Ann on these issues, what counsel she was given?  I have years of experience, but to be honest I could use some training as to how to best disciple someone in the midst of such relationships.  That training probally needs to come from someone who has lived it first hand.

Bo, see what Monika wrote. I agree with her, and besides, I believe that a beautiful church, full of images (both 2- and 3-D), is a wonderful way of honoring the Incarnation. I love to sit in my parish and see the statue of Mary, and Joseph, and way up at the top, Christ on the cross.
  Of course it was none of this that drove Rice back out of the Catholic Church. If I recall right, even in her book she wrote about returning to the Church (“Called out of darkness”) she said she had trouble with the Church’s stance on homosexuality, an issue obviously made personal by her son being gay. So, the question is, how was she recieved back into the Catholic Church? Was she honest with herself about her agreement with what it teaches? In the end, we have to wonder if it was an emotional acceptance but NOT an intellectual one. Obviously both of those are important!
  One more word about house churches: when my friend had his, I was a regular attender (on Sunday nights), besides going to my (former) TEC parish. But the number of people coming was dwindling fast, and so he decided to just stop it. Of course, he had that “right”, if you will, given he started it, but it shows how utterly fluid the whole notion is.

Handy,
I’m not advocating a retreat to the desert.
I’m advocating not being confined to the monastery.
(Nor am I advocating the raising of the monasteries - just more of the little missions if you please).

The suggestion is to facilitate engagement, not to avoid ‘politics’.  The ‘politics’ would still be there (to some degree, as discipline is a task of polity).

Yes discipline would be difficult if a 400 member congregation becomes 40 10 member house-meetings (or even 10 40 member ones).  That makes it a difficult method, it doesn’t make it one that shouldn’t be utilized.

Where we do agree is in “Obviously both of those are important”

Apparently, there was nothing left for anyone else to talk about, after my homage to Steve Spurgin way back in post #9. 

But alright .. I’ll bite. 

The point about the flexibility of house-churches may have some merit.  I went to a house church last week, and my little one asked for some water.  We marched straight into the kitchen, were I ‘procured’ a dixie-cup, and poured some water out of the tap.  If I wanted, I could have eh, ‘appropriated’ a cookie for her, off of the shelf, but she didn’t want a cookie. 

The nice thing about this house-church is that it is always available for church-related meetings during the week (bible studies, committee meetings).  Other groups (e.g., AA, Jazzercise) use it as well.  Just get you a key from the head of the household, and you’re golden. 

I’ve heard that some house churches are even more open to the public.  For these places, anyone at anytime can just wander through the front door, come into the living room, and pray.  There is always a clergyperson available to pray with the people who wander in like this. 

Really - they’re great.  One would think that with a house-church, you’d have to worry about such things as the privacy of the so-called “owners” (sic), but it ain’t necessarily so. 

Oh, by the way, I wasn’t talking about a house-church.  I was talking about an actual church building.

Hi Bo—Just for the sake of clarity: Fr. Handy didn’t post anything here. He’s Anglican, I’m Catholic. I didn’t think you were “advocating a retreat to the desert”, nor was I advocating for monasteries only. Clearly many different gatherings bring God’s grace at different times and places without invalidating the need for the Church.

#35 - St. Anthony did not move to the desert to avoid temptation - actually much the contrary. The desert was thought to be the abode of demons, and Christian hermits moved to the desert to do spiritual battle with the demons on their own turf.