“Today I Quit Being a Christian” – Part 1

A few days ago, Anne Rice, erstwhile vampire novelist and a ‘reverted’ Roman Catholic from atheism, wrote on her Facebook page,

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…

…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.

As I read her announcement and various reactions to it, I found myself in a familiar, uncomfortable place—torn between sentiments. My knee-jerk reaction to the words of Ms. Rice was aversion to what seemed to be bitter, exaggerated accusations. As one who claims to be a Christian and who belongs to the Orthodox Church (second in the world only to the Roman Catholic Church in number of so-called members), I wanted to argue all the fine points of her statements. Surely there is a much more holistic way to understand Christianity than what people within its ranks seem to be against or how they may unbecomingly assert their ideologies.

My second reaction was empathetic grief for the spiritual, psychical, and even physical injury suffered at the hands of people who claim to be Christians. Like some who responded on Anne Rice’s Facebook page, I once wandered from group to group seeking to find a refuge where the community spoke the truth saturated in large doses of Jesus’ love. Even after I believed to have found this home within the Orthodox Church, as at other times, I encountered a crossroads of whether to associate with “organized religion” or not. The Introduction to my forthcoming book, Voyage, describes part of my struggle:

I had to face again the paradoxical fact that the Church is indeed God’s “holy people” in which the “Holy Spirit” dwells, but we are also fallen people—a mix of good and not so good. The Church is an extremely complicated organism. I know from personal experience that her constituents can perform astonishing acts of sacrificial love and grace and yet perpetrate ways to hurt, marginalize, or overpower members of her own body. It is a truism to say that the Church is not yet perfected, but I have taken a long time even to begin to tolerate this imperfection with more mercy than criticism. Thus, once more, as I had so many occasions in the past, I asked myself, “Do I belong here?”

I finally concluded that, yes, there is a place for me in the visible, “institutional” Church. (Perhaps I will write more on that sometime.) However, I am coming to accept that I will need to grapple regularly with my understanding of what we call “the Church” and where I belong in relationship to it and to Jesus, her “Head.” No matter what everybody else may be doing or saying about being a Christian, I am responsible to take stock of my own life.

To be continued