Anne Rice Talks About Quitting Christianity

[Ian David]

Novelist Anne Rice appeared on The Joy Behar Show and discussed her recent decision to quit Christianity.

Rice, who practiced Catholicism since 1998, announced via Facebook that she would leave the faith because of its antigay and anti-feminist views, including opposition to abortion.

“I’d seen one thing after another happen,” said Rice. “One thing after another that organized religion had done basically in our secular culture or done publicly somewhere in the world that had caused me considerable moral discomfort. My anger was building up, my confusion was building up. I wanted to exonerate myself, say, ‘I’m not complicit in all of the different things that Christians are doing publicly around the world. I want to step away form this. My commitment to Christ demands a certain honesty and authenticity from me and I am moving away from this group of his followers.”

Behar asked Rice whether her gay son Christopher, also a writer, inspired the decision. Rice said that while having a gay son keeps her especially informed, she has long been aware of the issues.

Watch the interview. http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=showbiz/2010/08/04/behar.anne.rice.christian.hln



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http://advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/08/05/Anne_Rice_Talks_About_Quitting_Christianity/

[onehandle]

1. She is also known for being kind of a loon.

It's kind of like if suddenly Victoria Jackson quit being a Conservative.

She would still be Victoria Jackson.

[Jim__]

2. Loon or not, she has earned the right to speak out.

source

Rice's own personal trials have been Jobean in scope: the loss of her young daughter, Michelle, to leukemia in 1972; the death of her beloved Dutton editor, William Whitehead; the AIDS-related death of her best friend, gay writer John Preston. And, in 2002, came the cruelest blow of all, the cancer death of her husband of 41 years, poet Stan Rice. Any of us would be forgiven for collapsing -- mentally, emotionally, or spiritually -- in the face of any of these individual tragedies. Rice took them all on her shoulders and bore them courageously over the course of one of the most public and prolific literary careers of the modern age.

...

What must it have been like for Anne Rice to watch and listen as her community of believers spent tens of millions of dollars in California making sure that her son remained a second-class citizen, denouncing LGBT Americans in the vilest, cruelest, ugliest terms, bookended with hearty "Amens?" How could she have listened to the hours and hours of gratuitous cruelty and hatred from the various churches and the politicians they've purchased for forty pieces of silver in adjusted dollars and not wondered who these so-called Christians were, and how it was -- given their bigotry and rage -- that she shared a title with them?

[PanoramaIsland]

6. Hey now, what's wrong with loons?

Loons are beautiful.

[humblebum]

3. I admire how she said,

"My commitment to Christ demands a certain honesty and authenticity..."

[DeSwiss]

4. A woman of sense. - K&R ...n/t

[iris27]

5. So she leaves Christianity as quickly and as with as much media attention as she went back to it

several years ago. Somehow I suspect this move is motivated by the same desire as the last...increased publicity in hopes of increasing book sales. Honestly, did she somehow not know the church was anti-gay, anti-feminist, and anti-choice when she returned to it? It's not like these are newly-held viewpoints for them.