Anne Rice Leaves Christianity

Legendary author of Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice has left Christianity. "As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

"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."

As you can imagine, this is creating a bit of stir - much of it in the Christian world being negative and yet I find it refreshing in some ways. Christianity has become like most of the world religions. It has it's laws to abide by, it's belief system, it's rituals all helpful tools to faith. But reading the different blogsites and reactions to Anne Rice reveals more ugliness than beauty. I wonder if Jesus foresaw that his followers would be more known by who and what they are against.

I find it more helpful to refer to myself as a follower of Jesus than a Christian for different reasons. My upbringing and my many conversations with other Christians have supported that if one believes certain things about Jesus and confesses other things that one is "in", "saved", "going to heaven". For me, this puts the faith on a faith system of belief (however/whoever is articulating it) rather than a faith and continued following of the person, Jesus.

What do you think?