Anne Rice talks about "final straws"...

... while continuing to build straw men and spread chaff via the MSM. The NPR site has more about Anne Rice's decision to pursue unversion (my term, not NPR's) from Christianity, specifically from the "quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group" that many of us know as the Catholic Church, which happens to have been founded by Jesus Christ, which he entrusted to his apostles and their successors, and is still standing despite the powerful Facebook salvos of the author of Interview with the Vampire:

Rice says although there were "last straws," there was no one event that caused her to reject organized religion.

"This is something that had been going on really almost from the beginning of my conversion in 1998," she says. "From the beginning, there were signs that the public face of Catholicism and the public face of Christianity were things that I found very, very difficult to accept."

Still, Rice says she tried her best to ignore the facets of Christianity she didn't support and concentrate on the ones she did. As time wore on, though — and as Rice continued to live and study as a Christian — "more and more social issues began to impinge on me," she says.

Maybe it's just me, but admitting to ignoring "facets of Christianity"—why oh why doesn't she simply say, "tenets of Catholic doctrine"?—makes it sounds as though Rice 1) wasn't willing to engage with the entirety of Church teaching, 2) was perhaps unfamiliar with basic moral teachings of the Church, 3) and wasn't willing to put her own beliefs and notions to the Truth Test.

It was very painful. But I've always been public about my beliefs, and I've always been public about wanting to make a difference. And frankly, after doing it, I felt sane for the first time in a very long while.

Rice says the final straw was when she realized the lengths that the church would go to prevent same-sex marriage.

"I didn't anticipate at the beginning that the U.S. bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage," she says. "That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society.

This is a bit of a stunner, for it suggests that Rice either didn't know what the Church teaches regarding marriage and homosexuality, or else thought, for whatever reason, that said teaching could be changed and revised, perhaps simply because she wished it to be so.

"... When that broke in the news, I felt an intense pressure. And I am a person who grew up with the saying that all that is needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, and I believe that statement."

Note that Rice never, as far as I've seen over the past five years, provided any reasoning or arguments for her stances on issues such as "same sex marriage," contraception, and women's ordination. She simply assumes her position is correct and she apparently believes that clichés and emotive sound bites are all that are needed to demonstrate the validity of her position. Meanwhile, the Church has formally issued all sorts of documents about those various matters and numerous Catholic authors—both at academic and popular levels—have written articles and books explaining and defending Church teaching on these and other issues. Yet, apparently, folks should simply accept by faith Rice's statements as infallible pronouncements of objective truth. I hope she understands the reluctance many of us feel about that completely insane and illogical course of action. Finally:

Rice says since this decision, she has a "new freedom to confess my fears, my doubts, my pain, my conflicts, my alienation," and she says she intends to take advantage of this freedom.

"You know, I don't really like disappointing all my Catholic friends," she says. "I don't really like disappointing all my Christian friends and contacts. I really don't like it. It's painful. But I did what I felt I had to do."

Luther had sola fide. Rice has sola sensus. My question still stands. "Emotions should be servants," wrote Robert Hugh Benson (himself a convert from Anglicanism), "not masters—or at least not tyrants."

Speaking of Rice:

• One Anglican priest wrote, in The Telegraph: "Rice evidently is not returning to her atheism, however. She makes it clear that she has not lost faith in Christ, only in Christianity, by which I take her to mean the Church in its organised forms. But reading what she has to say above compels me to say that she hasn’t left at all. She’s just converted to the Anglican Church. Welcome to our world, Anne." Need more be said?

• Martin Cothran had the best, get-to-the-point response to Rice's announcement.

• And Jeff Miller, the Curt Jester, keeps it short and real on Twitter: "Funny how Anne Rice's leaving the Church got so much more media coverage then her returning to the Church did."

• A Cautionary Tale: Augustine, Aquinas, and Anne Rice (July 29, 2010)

Comments

[Janny]

She "returned to the Church" to sell her book about Jesus. She "left the Church" when her true colors took over and sales to Christians no longer mattered as much. It's not like this is the first time she's waffled. Look for another "conversion" if she has another "Christian" book she wants to sell in future years. It's that simple, it's that manipulative, and why it's not being stated as such in more places is the only mystery here.

Pray for her. She's one mixed up puppy.

JB

[Maria]

This is really no surprise! She never convinced me of her sincerity. The sad thing is that so many thought it was wonderful to be touting her books as so great. They never caught my attention but my parish priest/Pastor loves them and The Shack and keeps recommending them to everyone. Then again, our Pastor makes fun of the Gospels at times. This past Sunday, instead of explaining the Gospel, he told us the way to fix money problems was to leave a will and started talking about whatever he thinks is important to him. Anne leaves because the church is not liberal enough for her and I will always stick around, regardless of the silly liberal priest at my parish, who makes me sad that he's allowed to be that way and mislead the faithful.

[Steve Cianca]

I am so weary of these liberal self-righteous boilerplate confessions about why it is so impossible to remain in the Church and how courageous and virtuous they are for breaking with such a "quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous" institution.

My dear, stop kidding yourself: when you leave Christianity to follow the gospel of secular humanism, you are no longer following Christ--except maybe accidentally--no matter how much you protest otherwise.

The response of the Anglican priest was quite amusing--and predictable.

[Francis Beckwith]

"quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous"

Like white on rice.

[Teo Matteo]

How can one believe in the real presence of our Lord, and recieve him at his table, and then walk away muttering, "I will now take advantage of my new freedom and not return to that"?

[Mark Brumley]

How much culpability there is here is ultimately for God to decide. However, as a convert, I have to wonder about the sincerity or good sense of someone becoming a Catholic who continues to hold views on key subjects at odds with the faith to which she was supposedly converting.

How could Anne Rice have had even a modicum of awareness of the Church's teaching on homosexual relations, marriage, abortion, and a number of other issues and have chosen to become a Catholic, if she was unwilling to change her mind and heart on those things? And how could an intelligent person like Rice not have known what Catholicism teaches on those subjects? The public/private face distinction to which Rice refers may explain how she rationalized such a "conversion", but it is just that, a rationalization.

The public teaching of Catholicism is certainly a major element of its "public faith". There is no esoteric private teaching that differs from its public teaching. If you want to become a Catholic, you must embrace, i.e., profess, Catholic teaching, including that teaching which forms the central aspect of the Church's "public face".

Some people may kid themselves that the Church will change this or that fundamental teaching. But even that doesn't explain why, here and now, someone would publically choose to embrace Catholicism, when one's profession is, here and now, at odds with what one believes on serious points of morality.

Catholicism is, after all, a matter of faith and faith involves a commitment, a choice, concerning what one affirms as true, not simply who one's friends are or what one thinks one day might happen. One of the main reasons the Catholic Church is a community is that as Catholics we profess the same faith, right here and now. People may not understand fully what the Church teaches, but if they have Catholic faith, they are committed, at least implicitly, to the truth of the Church's teaching. If they deliberately reject central elements of that teaching, it's to hard understand how they can be said to have faith, even implicit faith. They may, following a distinction made by CDF in Dominus Iesus, have a kind of "belief", but that is not, in the precise sense, the same as "faith".

Yes, there can be cultural and familial elements to one's identification with the Church. Yes, doctrine develops and disciplinary norms sometimes are modified. Yes, many Catholics struggle with this or that aspect of the Church's teaching while continuing to identify themselves with the community of the Church--especially when they're cradle Catholics.

But to convert to Catholicism means, among other things, to embrace the Catholic faith as it is right now. It is not something one finds oneself having grown up in or which one merely hopes one day with coincide with one's beliefs. To choose publically to identify oneself as a Catholic, while rejecting key elements of Catholic teaching, and then later to reject identifying oneself as a Catholic over those very elements, makes no sense.

In what sense, then, did a "conversion" happened to begin with? Only God knows, but the rest of us are entitled to wonder. The Parable of the Sower and the Seed comes to mind and not without justification.

[Nancy D.]

A priest/Pastor who loves The Shack? You may want to remind this priest/Pastor that the Mystery of the Holy Trinity is the Central Mystery of the Christian Faith.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm

[Christine Burnett]

I had the misfortune of reading one of her vampire books some years ago, and to be honest, I never did believe that she had "converted". As a previous blogger stated, it appears that this was only to sell her book about Jesus. At any rate, there is no reason to give her any more attention about this except to pray for her and for all those whom she led down the proverbial garden path.
Certainly there are sufficent and wonderful Catholic writers far more worthy of attention.

[Sandra Miesel]

Commentators who question Anne Rice's sincerity might want to check her memoir, CALLED OUT OF DARKNESS. She wasn't converting, she was reverting to the Catholic Church. Changing her mind after 12 years won't help her third volume on the life of Christ, so I doubt that commercial considerations had anything to do with her reversion.

[David K. Monroe]

I don't doubt Anne Rice's sincerity at any point - I think that what has most likely happened is that she has chosen to side with her own opinions regarding social and political issues rather than accept what the Church teaches at the point at which her political/social opinions and the Church's teachings come into conflict. The tragedy is that her conscience is leading her in the wrong direction, and she is likely unaware of that.

I think that there may be a crisis point in spiritual pedagogy, and she may have reached it. But we don't yet know that end, and probably won't for some time.

[Nancy D.]

Perfect Love is desiring Salvation for our Beloved. The Truth of Love, The Word of God Made Flesh, Has called all of us out of darkness into the Light of Love. If we Love someone in the fullness of Love, we will not deny them the fullness of The Truth of Love

[lisajulia]

Anne Rice doesn't need our criticisms or judgments. She needs love, compassion and prayers.

[lisajulia]

I see it is you who don't like to be challenged. Where is my post? All i said was Anne needs prayers, love and compassion and not judgment and you won't post that?

[Chiyo]

I've never seen such an out-pouring of Christ-like compassion and empathy for a soul who has obviously been torn between love of Jesus and love of her son. This article and the comments on the page has been inspiring! ---> It has proven Anne's point. And I'm so grateful I left all this crap behind over a decade ago.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

It has never been easy but it is, nevertheless, necessary:

John 6:66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Matthew 10: 34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

[Howard]

Maybe she can write a sequel: THE DARKNESS CALLS BACK.

[Blue Catholic]

From "Blue Catholic" (full disclosure--that's me. But in addition to contributing to the discussion, I'm shamelessly plugging a new Catholic blog. Hope that's OK!)

What Anne Rice gets Right

Buried within her otherwise banal and thoroughly predicable recantation, there is (it seems to me) a theological gem. Regardless of whether this was intentional on her part, she seemed to equate leaving the institutional Church with leaving Christianity itself. That is, she wishes to divorce herself from Christianity, but not Christ. For many, the suggestion that there is synonymy between the Church and Christianity is a mistake. Could not AR simply join a Christian congregation whose political leanings and doctrinal emphases are more in line with her own? I read somewhere that, since her de-conversion, the United Church of Christ has professed some kindred spirit with AR and invited her into its fold. She allegedly declined on the grounds that she wishes to avoid any institutional form of Christ following

Now, there is some honestly here I can appreciate. I may be attributing to her more theological acumen than she actually has, but that she should disavow Christianity while still professing love for Christ suggests an awareness that Christianity is, in fact, ecclesial, and necessarily so. That is, there is no Christianity apart from an organized structure that attempts to administer the sacraments or mediate faithfully the teachings of Christ and the apostles. So conceived, the notion of “institutionalized Christianity” is a bit redundant. It is no surprise to me, therefore, that by abandoning the institution that is the church, she is abandoning Christianity for a more (in her view) authentic form of personal faith.

I take note of this part of AR’s narrative precisely because an increasing number of my students profess to be Christians but resist identifying with any particular ecclesiastic tradition. In fact, many of them insist that ecclesial affiliation has nothing to do with being Christian. Students increasingly exhibit a conscious aversion to institutionally-prescribed beliefs and practices and instead align themselves with less formal, “Christ-centered” or “relationship-based” movements (I'm actually using some of the phrases from just such a movement). It doesn’t occur to them that one cannot be Christian and a self-governing spiritual being who selectively identifies with certain theological beliefs. Historically (and you know this), the term “Christian” signaled an affiliation with a body of believers and a subordination to teachings and sacramental rituals bequeathed by Christ and preserved by duly appointed teaching authorities. Anne Rice seems to understand this, which is why (I suspect) she, by rejecting the legitimacy of the aforementioned authorities, rejects Christianity as such. On this score, at least, I applaud her refusal to use the term “Christian” so promiscuously, and would like to see some of my students follow her example.

[Mark Brumley]

Thanks, Sandra. That clarifies things--but only a bit.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

From what Ms.Rice says now, it is quite obvious that she didn't know nor obviously care what the Church teaches on moral issues, so I think it is a moot question whether she is/was a convert, revert, heretic, or "fill in the blank". To hell with celebrity and celebrities.

Where is the concern for the Body of Christ and for the damage she has done with her public whining. Where is the outrage for the damage done by His disobedient servant to the honor of God?

Ms. Rice is confusing her fictional Christ, the one of her emotions, with the Real Christ who asks love for love. Perhaps Jesus is appealing to her: Please, you have squandered so many graces that I have given especially to you. Why do you persecute Me, Anne?

[Manuel G. Daugherty Razetto]

`I believe Mark Brumley is quite right to show bewilderment and surprise when he said.. "makes no sense".

But if we look front towards her behaviour and consider the two principal elements of it: the Intellect and the Sensual then we realize that an intelligent person with superior mind can be, at times, erring to the extent of criminality. It's the sensorium who blurs and twists the understanding. Some geniuses have been dictators, drinkers, cruel and unreasonable people. It is our senses that overcome reasoning. Rice is obfuscated by her feelings and nothing else. Good balance of these factors are the product of maturity and, in the present case, also a solid conviction of Faith.

[LJ]

And I'm so grateful I left all this crap behind over a decade ago. -Chiyo

Since you are here it seems it wasn't left too far behind, now was it?