What Anne Rice Taught Me

This post was originally published on www.throwmountains.com – a pro church speaking tour that you should have at your church!

Somewhere across America a few weeks ago young “followers of Jesus”, probably wearing a “Jesus is my homeboy” shirt and a pair of TOM’s declared their agreement with well know author and fairly new Christian Anne Rice.

If you were too busy watching the Big Brother live feed to know what I am talking about, here is what happened.  Anne Rice announced on her Facebook page that she “quit being a Christian”.  At first blush there were a few different reactions I personally had and a few things I learned and maybe you did too:

1.       “Oh No we lost one of our famous people!” There is an obsession in American Christianity with anyone who is famous coming to Christ and I often buy into it hook-line-sinker.  It’s like there is this belief that if we could just get Christopher Hitchens, a couple of baseball players (come on we all know the NBA is just too far gone) and a rock-star then maybe Jesus could finally be famous too.   Then I remember that Jesus could have picked any men in the world to start this whole thing with and he picked a bunch of normal, not-so-famous twenty-something.  I hope and pray that all famous people come to Jesus and really follow him, but now so sure Jesus needs them for his PR.

2.       “Well she probably was not a Christian anyway”. This is the “you didn’t break up with me because we were never really dating response”.  Let’s be very clear Anne Rice stated explicitly that she is still very much in love with Jesus and she did not quit on Him.  She is as Mark Driscol said in his Washington Times article on the same subject, “in a season that many, if not all, Christians experience: the great joy of coming to personally embrace the love, forgiveness, and new life that Jesus offers is then followed by the troubles and trials of learning the teachings of the Bible and living with fellow Christians. Truthfully, both are difficult.”

3.       “Yes, Yes, Lets all hate the church”. It’s pretty hip to hate the church.  Lots of people are making a name for themselves with this opinion and I must admit it is often a temptation.  But then I remembered two very important things:

a.       Jesus loved the church.  He actually called it his bride and it’s rude to tell someone you really like them but their bride is butt ugly.  Just sayin. Dan Kimball says it this way, “ Jesus loves the church.  Yes the church is imperfect and we have made mistakes.  But if we love Jesus then we will love what Jesus loves”.

b.      The church is like an extended family.  My extended family ticks me off sometimes.  They are weird and crazy and sometimes I would like to “quit” being a part of the family.  But then where would I go…another family…you see the problem is I would take me and that is more than half the problem.

Living in community is hard, and I imagine that Anne Rice, like many of you are dealing with that.  I don’t know Anne Rice and I don’t know you bit here is what I would encourage us all to do.  Don’t give up on the church, because you are the church and that would be giving up on you.