Much was made of Anne Rice’s conversion a decade ago. Via the Anchoress, Rice has left the church. Her arguments for doing so are all based on earthly things, and open the door for her to create her own faith, sans Hebrews 10:25. As the Anchoress notes, most Christians do get sick of ourselves, so it’s hard to blame others for getting sick of us. We “do the thing so badly.” Given our fallen human natures, this is baked into the cake. Paul himself experienced it:
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
(Romans 7:15-25 ESV)
The fact is that in experiencing the flaws and sin of others, our own sin is evoked. And then we can deal with it, we can repent, we can thank God for how he is using trials – big and small – to mature us in the faith. This is integral to the process of sanctification. Bearing the flaws and sins of others spurs growth. It spurs patience and kindness. It teaches us not to envy or boast. Recognizing our own flaws and sins in response helps us overcome irritation and resentment. This is how we learn to love others as Christ loves us.
The Anchoress does a nice, gentle job of knocking down the straw men Rice has set up – for example, the Catholic church has not asked her to be anti-gay. And while I don’t subscribe to Catholic doctrine, the principles enshrined in the documents the Anchoress lists are certainly compatible with Protestant doctrine as well.
Rice’s comments may be read here, but this sentence really struck me:
I refuse to be anti-secular humanism.
Now, perhaps she meant “anti-secular humanist” specifically meaning the person espousing those beliefs, and if that’s so, then I agree. We are certainly called to love those folks and to show them the love of Christ. But in the event that she wrote precisely what she meant – and because she makes her living as a writer and is good at it, I believe she did – then let me point out the idiocy of that statement. If you are a secular humanist, you necessarily are anti-Christianity. And if you are a Christian (or any other faith) you are necessarily anti-secular humanism. You can’t, you cannot, it is truly impossible, genuinely believe in both of those things simultaneously. To attempt it risks death by cognitive dissonance.
Rice is perfectly entitled to criticize Christians’ behavior, and to question or critique their doctrine. This is entirely biblical – while we are not called to judge those outside the church, we are certainly called to judge those within it. This is the very healthy process by which doctrine is debated and formed and upheld, and by which the very definition and reputation of Christianity is protected. Exempting yourself and your ideas from that process makes it all too easy to convince yourself of things that are not true, and by acting on them, sin. I think a serious debate of the issues Rice brought up would benefit us all. By all means, let’s address the postmodern drift of the church she’s inadvertently embodied! Let’s address our reputation in the world. Let’s contend for the truth. But rather than make her case calmly and rationally, she’s angrily left the field. And that’s a shame.
Added: HotAir commenters have some snortworthy remarks, including. “There is a God and He thinks just like me.” Well, we all suffer from that delusion from time to time.
