TWELVE YEARS after choosing Christianity over atheism, bestselling author Anne Rice has “quit being a Christian” because of the religion’s attitude to birth control, homosexuality and science.
In a message posted on her Facebook page, Rice said she was “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,” the author wrote.
An atheist for decades, Rice returned to her childhood faith of Catholicism in 1998. In 2002 she "consecrated her writing entirely to Christ, vowing to write for Him or about Him". She began to write novels about the life of Christ, completing Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt in 2005, and publishing Christ the Lord: The Road to Canain 2008 when she also released the memoir Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, about her conversion at the age of 57.
Rice posted on Tuesday revealing her distress about a news story in which an American “punk rock ministry” said that “executing gays is ‘moral’”.
“No wonder people despise us, Christians . . . I don’t blame them. This kind of thing makes me weep. Maybe commitment to Christ means not being a Christian,” she said.
Later, she linked to a report about the Westboro Baptist church in Kansas, which “spreads the message that because the United States condones homosexuality, abortion and divorce, all Americans are going to hell”, according to the story.
“This is chilling. I wish I could say this is inexplicable. But it’s not. That’s the horror. Given the history of Christianity, this is not inexplicable at all,” Rice wrote, pointing to Gandhi’s statement: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” – (Guardian service )