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Anne Rice recently quit Christianity.  I would argue that this is a significant moment in the cultural landscape of the Christian story.  Anne is a novelist of significant repute, having sold over 130 million novels including, Interview With A Vampire.  Anne was in many ways a celebrity Christian.  She wrote gothic erotica and her return to the church was seen as a significant coup d’etat for Christians.  Mike Morrell called her conversion the “second most important literary conversion since CS Lewis.” It was like winning over someone of the least likely category. Christians could point to Anne and say, “She’s now part of our team.”

Her Wikipedia page provides some insight into her return to faith:

“I had experienced an old fashioned, strict Roman Catholic childhood in the 1940s and 1950s… we attended daily Mass and communion in an enormous and magnificently decorated church … Stained glass windows, the Latin Mass, the detailed answers to complex questions on good and evil—these things were imprinted on my soul forever… I left this church at age 18… I wanted to know what was happening, why so many seemingly good people didn’t believe in any organized religion yet cared passionately about their behavior and value of their lives… I broke with the church violently and totally… I wrote many novels that without my being aware of it reflected my quest for meaning in a world without God.“

But just this week Anne went up and quit Christianity.  She’s not leaving Christ, just what many would call an institutional image of what we think is Christianity.  She said on her Facebook page:

“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.“

She followed with a second post and elaborated:

“As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. 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. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.“

Her two posts touched a nerve generating over 5,500 likes and 2,000 comments. I would suggest that people are recognizing a cultural story that has developed within Christianity that just doesn’t work.

Doug Pagitt offered up a response on his website that I think gets at the heart of it.

“At least I don’t believe in the versions of Christianity that have prevailed for the last fifteen hundred years, the ones that were perfectly suitable in their time and place but have little connection with this time and place. The ones that answer questions we no longer ask and fail to consider ques- tions we can no longer ignore. The ones that don’t mesh with what we know about God and the world and our place in it. I want to be very clear: I am not conflicted because I struggle to believe. I am conflicted because I want to believe differently.“

This desire to believe differently is at the heart of my book.  We need a new understanding of Christianity, one that reconciles with its own story.

Ed Stetzer, noted church analyst and author commented on her announcement with this tweet.

“@/AnneRiceAuthor: You can’t love Jesus & hate His wife. She’s a mess, but the church is the bride of Christ. Don’t give up.”

I would argue that Ed missed the point.  Here’s the deal.  The cats out of the bag.  Christianity is losing its ability to speak to a culture in a way that is redeeming and life giving.  Its  known more for its politics than its meaning.  It’s more about morality than redemption….rejection rather than love.  Anne isn’t rejecting Jesus.  And she’s not rejecting the church.  She’s rejecting a deeply embedded culture understanding of what is expected of someone who says they are a Christian.

It didn’t take long for someone to slam her, posting this video.  It makes all kinds of silly assumptions about her but is steeped in a deep religious fear.  Sad really.

Anne’s final comments the following day seem to sum up her reasoning:

“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 Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.“

Interested in your responses.