Not my words, but the words of novelist Anne Rice– see this recent article in the Guardian.
I confess not to have read anything that she has written- I am not into Vampire related literature, but others who are tell me that she is very good.
This is what 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 tenyears, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
And later-
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.
Check out her facebook page– it has literally thousands of responses- mostly supportive, but some predictably angry-
I read Rice’s comments, and find myself in full agreement. In the circles I move in, these are not controversial. There seems to be an increasing number of Christians who can no longer cope with Christianity- or rather what we have made of it.
The challenge for organised religious Christianity is to find a way to engage with us again. Some will return later- we will have our times of rebellion, but then come home. Others will never come back- it is too hard to return to an environment that may have been perceived as abusive and manipulative.
Many more are looking for a way to re-engage and network with a different kind of Christianity- even though we are not quite sure what this looks like. We know what it is NOT, but lack certainty as to what it could be.
But it is certainly about a return to Jesus- to a radical, counter cultural faith that turns over the tables in the temple- that takes another look at all this baggage we have accumulated.
And it will happen. It is happening.
Here is another status update from Anne Rice-
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.
Amen.
this fragile tent 
I’ll need to search this out and have a good read later. Looks interesting. I get so frustrated with what appears, to me, more and more to be Christianity as a lifestyle choice, an organism that exists only to feed itself rather than actually reach anyone else and change broken lives.
On another note, I hope you were not discouraged yesterday. I felt that some of the comments were out of line at that meeting and there is a particular individual who plays to the gallery and always singles out someone for comment. I have seen it lots of times. I just hope you were not too discouraged. Keep on keeping on!
Hi Aileen
Thanks for the gentle encouragement- it was a tough meeting, but to know that there were friends there is always such a blessing…
I too feel your frustration about Christianity- whilst also feeling shame that sometimes it is all I can do to try to cope with my own brokenness, let alone trying to reach out to others. But that is on a very pessimistic day- there is always tomorrow- when I will try again!
All the best
Chris
X
ah, no worries! I was glad to escape when I did.
I remembered that, in my first comment, I’d referred to Christianity as a lifestyle choice. Of course it is! What I should have typed is ‘lifestyle choice’ – the type where you can collect and acquire all sorts of external accoutrements to create an identity as a ‘Christian’. Yet the internal lifestyle choices, about how to treat your fellow humans, aren’t always there. Bitter, much? Oh, I don’t like myself when I get that way. I suppose some of what Anne Rice says just resonates with me…
Hmmmm-
I wonder though if this is because we were ‘over sold’ some of the ideas about what it means to be a Christian? We have been told repeatedly that people are of two sorts-
Saved and unsaved
Good and ‘of the world'(or even ‘evil)
Transformed and untransformed
Enlightened and deceived by the devil
We have the Holy Spirit who will sort us out- they don’t.
This dualism allows us to then suggest that Christians are elevated above all other people- more holy, more loving, living better lives. And then when we discover (as we inevitably do) that Christians are often just as screwed up and damaged /damaging as the next person, we are exposed to a great disappointment- and what the Americans would call a ‘disconnect’ between our rhetoric and reality.
I have come to believe that the Kingdom of God at loose on the earth is NOT the same thing as ‘the church’. Rather “God plays in ten thousand places, from the father to the features of mens faces, lovely in limbs and hands not his”
The question is, if this is true, what the POINT of the church is? If Christians are untransformed by encountering Jesus- what is the point?
I think I would reply that we are not untransformed- the very fact that you and I are asking these questions is proof of that. Rather what we come to is an awareness that we can reach higher, and deeper- and expect an encounter with the divine as we do this that is so much more than a one directional intellectual exchange of religious ideas/doctrine. But also that we are called to walk humbly- and to hold ourselves in awareness of our sinful state- not other peoples sinful state, but our own.
Then to point of the church is to be a sprinkling of salt, bringing out flavours of the world, and a source of light that illuminates good and beautiful things. This kind of church I can belong to!
Cheers
Chris
X
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