Anne Rice joins good company — amongst the mega-famous, Thomas Jefferson and Friedrich Nietzsche — with an announcement on her Facebook page Thursday that she is a great admirer of Jesus but will have nothing to do with the Christian church and doesn’t wish to be identified any longer as a ‘Christian.’
For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: 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.
Good for her.
There is an arresting note in this remark, her use of the word ‘outsider.’ I was interviewed recently in connection with a review of Piety, Inc. that is about to be published, and that is the word I used to describe some of the Southern Baptist Convention’s activists, reformers on the fringe of Convention life because of their efforts to make it face and deal with the reality of clerical sex abuse of children.
They are people who should be honored, but are instead figures of ridicule and disdain, so piss on any church where they aren’t welcome.
[Hat tip: Michael Hamar]
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