Gordon, Anne Rice is very open to discussing her decision and has been since her announcement.

She has explicitly stated her reasons for leaving Christianity. They are the same or similar to the reasons that many other believing people are both weary and wary of the institution called Christianity.

In North America we've got Glen Beck explaining the Dead Sea scrolls and their contents to people who lap up his words despite their lack of knowledge or truth. We've got Christian institutions honouring him despite his corruption of the basic truth about Jesus in the context of his Mormon religion. We have Christians parading with signs at the funerals of dead soldiers that declare "God Hates Fags!" and a silence from the Church that should rise up, collectively and say loud and clear "They are NOT Christians!"

I think if she met your friends she would consider them the exception to the rule. As would most people.

We need more than personal renewal - though I completely agree that's where it starts. We need prophetic voices who will stand with authority that comes from service, relationship and integrity and lead us in cleaning up the house of God with his help and by his grace and in his love.

Then prodigals and the conscientious objectors will come back home.

I personally have no problem with Anne's statement on the surface. There are times, as you mentioned, Gordon, that I wish I could just throw up my hands and walk out of the institutional church because of all the nastiness you find within it. I find hope in Anne's statements that she's still a follower of Christ because that is what we should all be striving for. Our faith has been superceded in many ways by the institution and we forget that we're supposed to be following Jesus, not the organization.

That said, I have two concerns: 1) My hope and prayer is that Anne will find a community of believers that she can be welcomed into and that she can find fellowship with. While there is some part of our faith that involves the individual, a large part of faith is in the community of believers, that thing that Paul frequently calls "the body of Christ". It is through the Body that discipleship occurs, encouragement occurs, and the support, love, and living out the Kingdom happens.

2) This is much like the first but with a different twist. By renouncing "christianity" and walking out of the institution, Anne is effectively doing what she is accusing the institution of doing: excluding people from fellowship. In her case, she's excluding institution folks from fellowshipping with her, a "reverse shunning" if you will. Unfortunately, this is not unusual in the Protestant denominations. When we disagree, rather than trying, through love and fellowship, to learn how to get along in our diversity, we instead choose to "divorce" ourselves from the family of God and hare off on our own. My concern is that, rather than calling the church to account for our nastiness, Anne's actions will instead encourage more division, more factions, more separation within the already fractured church.

Whether or not I agree with Anne's theological views is immaterial. I'm sure that there are a bunch of things that I hold dear that other Christians may not like (I'm a conservative Anabaptist of the Mennonite persuasion) but I choose to fellowship with other Christians as they choose to fellowship with me. There are certain things that are "disputable" matters that, rather than making it an issue and breaking up the unity of the church, I consciously choose to keep to myself to maintain the fellowship of love that the church was founded on.

What would I do if I personally met Anne? Probably thank her for standing up for her beliefs, asking her pardon and understanding for myself for anything with which we may disagree, and asking if I can continue to fellowship and learn with her as we walk this road of Christ together. We're all in this together, till death do we part... and even then will not separate us forever...

Sheer, we need men and women of courage today who will stand up and confront the excess, the manipulation and the fraud. Not to take anything away from John the Revelator and especially not from Jesus but we need someone with skin on who'll be in a place to be heard and say, "I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'

And I don't believe this is 'reverse shunning'. That's like saying that Luther shunned the RC institution, the only 'Christianity' of his time/place.

Luther didn't shun the RC... they kicked him out. He wasn't guiltless, though, as he did nothing after that point to attempt to reconcile, he simply went his own way.

The "reverse shunning" is when we decide to pick up and get out and have nothing to do with those who need to hear that prophetic voice. Instead of saying, "Okay, fine, I'm leaving", perhaps we should follow Paul's words and do more of the "do everything within your power to get along with everyone else." Getting up and leaving helps nothing, reconciles no one, and only leaves pain. My heritage, the Mennonites are EXPERTS at this...it's happened at least 4 times all told in the 4 churches I've attended in the past 38 years. Instead of encouraging and cheering people on when they break the unity, no matter how justified it may seem, shouldn't we instead be preaching the message of reconciliation, love, and unity? After all, we were reconciled with God despite our misdeeds, why shouldn't we then do our best, in the Spirit, to reconcile with each other?

Anne Rice hasn't "gone" anywhere or refused fellowship with anyone. She simply refuses to be identified with a name or title and the implications of that identification. In part she does this as a protest of what she's sees as a movement that has parted ways with the founder and his ways.

Getting up and leaving is sometimes exactly what is required to expose the sickness of a dysfunctional family or system.

Luther, here we go again, took your "do everything" approach after he listed his issues. This, at a time, when there was a singular voice for Christianity. Capitulation to the monopoly was the only acceptable response.

In our days when a multitude claim to speak for Christianity it falls to us to speak up or step away or be guilty of agreement by silence. When speaking up with no one to speak to in order to achieve unity - an agreement on what is true - one can only step away. The grace is that one can step away and find themselves in a crowd of others who love Jesus too.

"Christianity" is not the Kingdom. Paul used to curse those who claimed Jesus and. Today we seek reconciliation.

I saw this a few weeks ago and found it interesting. In some senses I get what She is saying. I agree we have mucked up the institution pretty good in some ways. But this is not new. People have been leaving the church since the church began. The reasons are sometimes the churches fault and sometimes the persons leaving.

Somewhere along the line the church should be able to stand for a biblical view of faith without it being called out as wrong. Ann's statement was personal, public but her reasons were very personal. To that end I would only address my comments to her on a personal level.

Forgive the abruptness here but The church with all its problems is beautiful. No offense to you Mr Mcdonald, but not just in those small little communities. It is not beautiful as an exception to the rule. She is magnificent in her love. I travel the world and marvel at the love western christ followers show for those who are hurting. Could more be done? YES! but lets not join our voices in empathy for those whose trouble is with the bible but chose rather to blame the church.

The parent who loves their kid but finds only fault in their kid is either a liar or so dysfunctional as a parent they probably shouldn't be training other parents. Yet we frequently listen to those whose love for the church is lost in a constant stream of criticism.

what if it was our mission to evoke her beauty? Anne Rice, I am sorry you got scratched. I never want that to happen. But guess what, the church, the bride of Christ is and does amazing things in this world. I love her and am devoted to bring out her beauty, sing of her wonder and help her mature.

I totally sympathize with Rice. It seems half the time I share the Gospel with someone, I have to spend most of my time first trying to explain away the ignorant, (fill in the blank)phobic behavior of people who call themnselves "Christian." I wish a lot of these so-called Christians would give the rest of us a break and shut up.

Dan, bummer to hear that. I live in California, the land of fruit and nuts... and never have to explain this stuff.

Brianmpei, I love this you wrote...
"Instead of encouraging and cheering people on when they break the unity, no matter how justified it may seem, shouldn't we instead be preaching the message of reconciliation, love, and unity? After all, we were reconciled with God despite our misdeeds, why shouldn't we then do our best, in the Spirit, to reconcile with each other?"

That's plain, strong, good speech.

My church family is sort of conventionally politically conservative, flag-waving Republican.
That's edgy for me, I don't support the wars in Iraq and AfPak, - the aggression, death and lies. And the Criminal "Justice" business here is systemically cruel and heartless.
Prophecy and 'Jeremiad" do come to mind.
But I stay with my brothers and sisters at my church, all unique and different faces of God.
I joined because I saw the face of God there, in the people. Does that make us right all the time, sinless and smart? No, but there are right motivations and good people in the church.
Speak up when you feel the need - or keep silent - is confrontation really necessary, or is it a bruised ego that demands a sharp reply?.
And maybe church is not the place for lighting the anti-war or anti-empire firebrands. There is the street you know, good for that.
We need our churches and the people in them who teach us so many lessons - certainly humility among so many good souls - but sometimes patience too!
I pray Ann Rice at least goes to church once in a while, sits in the back and just soaks up the comfort and beauty. I like her.

I've had mixed feelings both from Anne Rice's statements, and from much of the reaction. There are three themes I hear. First, the liberals among us are trying use Rice's unhappiness to push the church to the political left. That discussion needs a lot more care and discernment than one person's simplistic rant. Second, we need to avoid changing what we teach because some people disagree with it. We teach our teaching only if we realize that we have misunderstood the Scriptures.
Third, and on the other hand, I really resonated with Gordon's observation of an ex-Christian that"his experience of conversion ... wore out by not being renewed or deepened." Discipleship and spiritual growth have been grossly neglected by our almost exclusive emphasis on evangelism. That accounts for most of the shallowness and ugliness in our churches.

Wayne,I agree with point 1 and 2 for the most part. But I am sorry, point three just does not have any legs in my opinion.

The average church will lead no one to Christ this year. The ones that do will lead on average 1 per 100 people in attendance.

Good leadership will not put in opposition a focus on evangelism with spiritual growth. The bible connects them in Philemon 1:6

The bulk of emphasis I have seen in my 30 years of ministry in most churches is the pursuit of spiritual growth but it is done without the gaol of maturity in Christ.

Our churches are filled with people who love to grow but never mature.

Interesting reflections. One of my greatest difficulties with Anne Rice's announcement is whether or not what she claims as her future course as a "follower of Jesus" and as one "devoted to the Bible" is possible outside of a given "tradition" of Christianity. Is such a move one toward an a-historical faith?

It is difficult to know. Our tradition, I believe, is inherently social. Therefore, to continue on as an admirer or follower of Jesus, apart from a community that identifies as Christian, seems to me a departure from a central piece of our identity as a "people" of God.

As a hospital chaplain, I'm privileged to see the grace of God at work in the lives of hundreds of people every day. I believe that I probably hear testimony to more miracles in such an acute setting than I could in any other setting. My faith in God and in Christ has strengthened by leaps and bounds. But....here is the clincher. God's grace is indiscriminately poured out on Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and atheist. No one seems exempt from God's healing touch and presence.

The Christian Church demands that, as someone ordained into its ranks, we teach and believe that Christ cannot and does not save those who don't profess some specific doctrinal ideas. The Church believes that actual, lived-out dependence on God is very secondary - even optional - to the profession of some specific cognitive ideas about Jesus. The Church proclaims that we are saved by our cognitive ideas. I do not believe that.

It's the Church's fierce desire to keep God's grace to itself - and away from atheists, gay people and sometimes women - that would tempt me, like Anne Rice, to leave the Church.

I hang on to the institutional Church by a thin thread. However, Christ is holding me in the palm of the Divine Hand and will not let go.

Didn't Jane Fonda quit too?

"If you’re a parent, like me, you do have to sympathize with Ms. Rice when she asks why she should put money into the offering plate of a church that uses part of her gift to support political action that is incompatible with her gay son’s welfare."

Maybe that should read "...incompatible with her gay son's _______ preferences."

But for Ms. Rices' sake it's best written as it is since a gay persons welfare would could only mean being accepted and affirmed as normal.

If Ms. Rice is following Jesus, is she able to tell her son to "go and sin no more?" Probably not. It's just no longer sin..." Does she want children taught in schools that gay is normal? Probably since that might be part of what her previous church is fighting against. Sounds like she has bitten the worm on the hook of bogus gay theology and is being reeled in.

The Jesus she claims to follow created us as male and female. The obvious design of our bodies means nothing to her any more. Bashing Jesus creative work proves she isn't following Jesus except to feel good with others who give lip service to following Jesus and deny His power to save and heal any perversion. She is nullifying the commands of God for the sake of gay traditions.

Ms. Rice, quit the Jesus follower game. You are not willing to say you have renounced your faith in Jesus but you have. Is your desire to claim to be a follower of Jesus so some undiscerning believers will buy your books? Are you afraid of persecution by being called a homophobe? I'm sure you don't feel you are doing anything wrong, but like Eve, you have been deceived.

As someone said, "The great danger is not that we will renounce our faith but that we will settle for a mediocre (or perverted) version of it."

"exiting what they call institutional religion and choosing what they believe is a more private, customized relationship with Jesus whom they claim they revere."

Gordon, isn't our "relationship with Jesus" in part a private, daily experience? I would argue it is.

"They think it is enough to keep in touch with the Christian movement through religious TV and occasional arena-sized weekend conferences"

I left formal affiliation with institutional religion (which I define as any full-salaried / lifetime employment religious management structure). But rather than TV and mega-conferences, my community is small meetings in homes, "third-spaces," and global-on-line.

Sure, we can discuss all the relative merits of these new ecclesia (discipleship, evangelism, etc.), but at this point I would likely never go back to the paid-pastor-CEO ecclesial model of gathering.

Maybe this is something close to what you had in mind in your suggestion of "mini-communities of Christ-followers?"

I think actions like those of Anne Rice's ought to prompt us to ask if the Church that Christ founded still exists in the world today. The Church Christ spoke of in Matt 16:18 we know from NT history and the earliest records following that period was composed of concrete, visible local congregations of recovering sinners sacramentally joined to one another through holy baptism, anointing or laying on of hands, and communion under the conciliar leadership of the Apostles (see Acts 15) and their successors. If we conclude that this Church must still exist (that is, if we trust Christ's promise in Matt. 16:18), how can we fail to associate ourselves with it if we truly desire to follow Him? If any of us associates formally with our brethren via an institutional church without intending to say that this is a local expression of THAT very church, and hence expresses something more of the truth about God than my own individual life and idiosyncratic belief system does, woe to us--we are in serious delusion! And if we do formally associate with others for this reason, we ought to do our calling out of sinful practices from within the group with a humble and repentant spirit. If, in all good conscience, we cannot upon reflection equate the Christian institution we formally associate with as fully and properly a local expression of that Church Christ founded, surely a genuine faith in Christ and His promises obliges us to keep looking?

It was when I realized that any church-hopping within my Protestant Evangelical world could be considered a sort of group reverse-shunning that I discovered one more important reason to submit myself to the beauty of the fullness of the Orthodox Faith. I became Orthodox for several reasons, but one was a repentance from this group reverse shunning and the right to pass judgment on my brothers' salvation and worthiness to be in the Body of Christ. The only sacramentally united group of Christians today in full communion with the Church of the first Millenium in terms of actual historic continuity of sacramental practices and dogmatic understandings is the Eastern Orthodox Church. I became Orthodox because I discovered Orthodoxy retained everything that I had learned through experience of God in His grace that was true as an Evangelical Christian and presented this in its fullness. On the other hand, it rejected all that I had encountered within Evangelicalism of contradictions and distortions of biblical truth. Perhaps Anne Rice rejected the Christian institutions she is familiar with because she is still looking for the fullness of Christ that many have found only within Orthodoxy? Maybe she is like some of the commenters in the link below?

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2007/03/02/why-people-become-orthodox/

I think Larry Crabb speaks to something similar in a well written book about "real church." The struggle is honest and I think we feel much of what we do because most churches and church experiences are not authentic nor are they safe places to exist and be spiritually formed. I don't think we understand that all the pettiness that goes on at times is also the soil in which we are formed, in which we learn what it means to be gracious and merciful, to forgive and to be forgiven. I wish we could drop so much of the pretense and consider how this long hard road together with a bunch of sinners is our salvation.

Technically Jane Fonda didn't "quit." She just switched from the Jesus of the Bible to the Jesus of the Gnostic Gospels. I sense that is what Anne Rice is doing as well.

"Ms. Rice, quit the Jesus follower game. You are not willing to say you have renounced your faith in Jesus but you have. Is your desire to claim to be a follower of Jesus so some undiscerning believers will buy your books? Are you afraid of persecution by being called a homophobe? I'm sure you don't feel you are doing anything wrong, but like Eve, you have been deceived"
It is precisely this spirit that drives people like Anne Rice away. And makes it difficult for many to find any authenticity in the Body of Christ. We do not do well with the myriad of tensions we are called to live with when we follow Christ...to love and to hold to truth at the same time being one of them.

I agree with much of Anne Rice's thinking, though I stay with the Church, and yet I am often ashamed of it. Often the "top word" is "love" the "tone" is "hate".
But for Gordon MacDonald.
Your writings have blessed me.
But you are still, I assume, are connected with "focus on the Family." as your bio says.
In early years, I once liked James Dobsen, I thought he had great Christian insight. But it seems that in recent years, every time I hit his program on the Radio, it is: "Write you congressman opposing Gay Marriage," or "Don't let your teenage kids see this or that movie."
Gordon, in the name of the Lord, Dr. Dobsen
is doing great damage, especially to gay
people and their emerging families. From what
you write, how can you go along with the doing of that damage?
Now perhaps it is I that am being unfair here. Let's give "Focus on the Family" credit for thinking that they are practicing
Christian Love. And perhaps I am too judgmental. Lord, have mercy on me.
But you are "connected to them" in your biography.
I don't always resign from organizations that I disagree with, but I will strongly and publicly DISSENT. And sometimes I have been asked to resign.
Where are you?

Roy
Nobody has driven Ann away. She has on her own initiative moved away based on her unwillingness to let God's Word be authoritative in her worldview. Likely there were some cunning messages from wolves saying "has God said gayness is wrong...?" (Remember the deceivers lines to Eve?)She took it in just like Eve. Are believers supposed to coddle such denials and "conforming to the patterns of the world"? If we pretend it doesn't matter and all talk like we are all family, is this now authenticity? What did Jesus say to those who claim to follow God, look good on the outside, but inside are full of hypocricy and wickedness? Matt. 23:27-28, 33

No, I don't immediately assume it is the badness of mean old church people that is the problem, frankly. In 20 Centuries of the church, Christians have never been much better, except briefly, in discrete places. Yet God, presumably knowing that this was how we were always going to be, told us to keep in fellowship nonetheless. What Anne Rice was asked to do is no different than any Christian has ever been asked. We are stuck with each other. The supposed great sweeping of Christianity across the Roman Empire looks rather gradual when you actually run the numbers over the 3-5 centuries it took. The Christianization of Europe was in the context of rulers adopting faith on behalf of the people, and was never complete. "Christian" nations remained pagan well into the 20th C. Just is. We have always been poor Christians. Nothing new in the 21st C.

Anne Rice does not want the truth. I say this not because of my job (acute psychiatric emergencies), nor because my church of 13 years just closed (in Concord NH, Gordon, so you know some of the backstory), but because of what I see in myself. When I grow frustrated with Christians, it is always at least partly because I don't want the truth. I don't want the inconvenience.

We should hear out those who criticise. We should always consider humbly where we may be at fault. We should bend every effort to reach out and keep them in fellowship. But it is dangerous to conclude when they have left that there is anything we could have done. Most people leave because they want to, for reasons they cannot admit to themselves, but find post hoc rationalisations for. Especially in America, where there are always other, more congenial places one could find to worship, people who put up Phelps or Beck as an excuse are just being evasive. It goes to the heart of the Gospel. If we say we want to be good to God, He says in return, well, show Me that with how you treat these people over there. Anne Rice essentially says "No thanks. They're icky."

Can we quit on Jesus? I guess that depends on one's interpretation of what the scripture says about WHO is responsible for our salvation. If scripture is to be interpreted to say that WE are responsible for maintaining our salvation in good standing, how does that differentiate a follower of Christ from any other world religion? Believing you could actually turn away and not believe anymore and give back your salvation seems unbelievably arrogant to me because it is same as stating that a person's eternity is based upon his/her own actions and deeds (or lack thereof) rather than God's. It's saying that I can overcome the work that God has done in me simply by changing my mind.

Scripture clearly teaches that God, not man, is responsible for securing our salvation through Christ's death on the cross and that an exchange takes place in which the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts.

There can only be one explanation for anyone who turns their back on their Christian faith - it was never authentic from the start. Harsh sounding perhaps but once the divine and the human have been joined together, that is work of God and no human can ever undo that. Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ...not even ourselves.

I left the church more than 20 years ago, not for Ms. Rice's reasons (though I completely sympathize with hers), but because the church couldn't give me an answer to my very intimate and bone-crushing experience with the problem of suffering, which goes on to this day.

My pain was my fault and my sin and I learned a hard lesson then: Churches are dangerous places. They are not open to people who are not with the program.

I was no erstwhile Christian. I am a PK; I have a bible college degree; I was an eager and devout young man, and I had every intention of entering a life of ministry.

But my faith died in the end because of the cognitive dissonance between my constant pain and the platitudes from the church.

I certainly did not want this to happen. I fought against the doubts and the questions. I was frightfully scared of where they would take me.

Those doubts and questions took me through a deeper study of theology and philosophy. I ended up an atheist. (As a side note, there is a lot of pontiificating on this website about what atheism is and is not. Seriously, read more; read better. You embarrass yourselves.)

While I no longer consider myself an atheist, I still side with them in the debates with the theists, as I do think that the idea of an omnipotent, benevolent deity is impossible given the state of affairs.

Gordon, in those days at bible school it would have been good to have someone hear me in my pain. I don't think the path would have been any different, but I would have better memories of the church.