An Open Letter To Anne Rice
"For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always, but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else." –Anne Rice
I read some of your recent remarks regarding your faith and your choice to renounce Christianity and I was compelled to write some of my thoughts in hopes that you or others like you would reconsider your opinion of Christianity as a whole.
Not everyone who takes on the name moniker of Christian is a religiously driven, hateful person. In fact, many of us have become troubled with the label as it lumps us in with a lot of people with whom we do not agree. In fact it has become a term so broad that it has lost a lot of its meaning.
From your statement, it seems as though you have not given up on God or Jesus, but have merely become disillusioned with those who claim His name in order to maintain power or compel other people to live the way they deem fit. You are in good company. Many Christians throughout history have discovered upon closer studying the Bible that God was not interested in bringing people into the “right” religion, but rather He has always been drawing us all into a renewed relationship with Him. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against the religious people of His day.
Everything that Christ did—coming here to live amongst us in the way God intended people to live, dying with no guilt or rebellion to deserve that death, and rising again victorious—was all done so that we could again approach our Creator with no hindrance. There no longer need be any guilt, or certainly religious hurdles, between us and God. All we need is to trust Him and repent of the rebellious independent streak we all have that caused us to turn away from Him in the first place.
It is my sincere hope that your disillusionment with your religion does not cause you to give up your search for God. I hope that you are now able to find your way into a relationship with Him on His terms, and not some man-made religious version of what that has become.
Sincerely,
One Who Cares
I read some of your recent remarks regarding your faith and your choice to renounce Christianity and I was compelled to write some of my thoughts in hopes that you or others like you would reconsider your opinion of Christianity as a whole.
Not everyone who takes on the name moniker of Christian is a religiously driven, hateful person. In fact, many of us have become troubled with the label as it lumps us in with a lot of people with whom we do not agree. In fact it has become a term so broad that it has lost a lot of its meaning.
From your statement, it seems as though you have not given up on God or Jesus, but have merely become disillusioned with those who claim His name in order to maintain power or compel other people to live the way they deem fit. You are in good company. Many Christians throughout history have discovered upon closer studying the Bible that God was not interested in bringing people into the “right” religion, but rather He has always been drawing us all into a renewed relationship with Him. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against the religious people of His day.
Everything that Christ did—coming here to live amongst us in the way God intended people to live, dying with no guilt or rebellion to deserve that death, and rising again victorious—was all done so that we could again approach our Creator with no hindrance. There no longer need be any guilt, or certainly religious hurdles, between us and God. All we need is to trust Him and repent of the rebellious independent streak we all have that caused us to turn away from Him in the first place.
It is my sincere hope that your disillusionment with your religion does not cause you to give up your search for God. I hope that you are now able to find your way into a relationship with Him on His terms, and not some man-made religious version of what that has become.
Sincerely,
One Who Cares
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