A pastoral response to Ann Rice 'quitting' Christianity

Many people, in their comments here and all over, sue venom at the modern church for "not learning the acceptance that Jesus taught."

Never, ever, ever in the Bible does Jesus or anyone else teach acceptance or tolerance of anything it lists as sin. In Matthew 7, we see Jesus teaching that the way to Eternal Life is a narrow (exclusive) way, and few people are on it. He also says that the way to death and eternal punishment is a wide (tolerant and accepting) road, and many are on it.

Later on Jesus states that there are many who, on the Day of Judgment, will cry out that they lived life "for Him," but will be denied access to Heaven, for He never knew them.

We live in a world that wants morality and religious beliefs to be an all-you-can-eat buffet. Jesus doesn't offer that, He offers a narrow road of salvation.

Take it or leave it, but don't expect a HOLY God who demands holiness of His followers to be "accepting" of your lifestyle. God hates sin.

"Now we see through a glass darkly but then we shall see Him as He is". Those were the words written by the apostle Paul to emphasize how little we really know about Christ and His glory.Our knowledge being impeded by all the cares and distractions of this world.We must love one another as ourselves like God commands us to in the Holy Scriptures.We also must stand on God's Word and follow it without trying to read it in such a way as to accommodate our own tendencies and desires.Ms Rice makes a good point in rejecting the attitudes shown by some Church members and leaders towards some minority groups as she doesn't want to be associated with such attitudes and opinions .Therefore I think she made the right decisions in dissociating herself with certain church groups in Christendom.But she must remember that she is still a member of the Church at large being a believer in Christ.

Jesus Said:

Matthew 5:44 (New International Version)

44But I tell you: Love your enemies[a] and pray for those who persecute you,

John 15:20 (New International Version)

20Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.'[a] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

Matthew 10

34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'[e]

37"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Luke 6:27 (New International Version)

Love for Enemies
27"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

John 14:15 (New International Version)

15"If you love me, you will obey what I command.

Iggy, I feel your pain. I have been in a similar, but not exactly the same situation as a single parent, and my son is also now 16. The unfortunate truth is that Christian churches do a TERRIBLE job overall at ministering to single parents & their children. And there are more of us than ever. My son is not an atheist, but is now really questioning our church since he never really totally felt accepted in it or another church that we went to for a while (I changed churches for a similar reason as yourself; felt needy & wanted my son to be accepted). The first church was very old fashioned & some of the people were judgmental & the second one was rather strict, but overall nicer. However, one of the little boys in it (this kid was homeschooled) button-holed my son, asking him if he was really a "Christian", that did it for him, in addition to the "earth was created in only 7 days" crap that was taught by one of the less educated Sunday school teachers, also a homeschooling mom. We ended up moving to a different state for economic reasons, and now we are back at a church in the same denomination as the first, but a more friendly version, thank God. Jesus said "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." Remind your son that this applies to ALL children, not just to children of 2-parent families. I pray that your son comes to know God. I know one thing, that children of single parents often grow up to be very good parents and spouses themselves, because they felt the pain of being without the other parent.

@Kate, Jesus mentioned sexual immorality, which falls into the sexual immoral ways of the Levitical law, and his apostles mentioned homosexuality as sin. He mentions sodom and Gomorrah repenting if they saw his works. Love does not rejoice with wrongdoing. This article is not meant to be some gay bashing, I believe this guy to be an honest christian and no christian who reads the bible would go against Christs ways. Believer knows that everyone will have to give account before God, and that is why he says to pray, that God may grant some heart changes. I have friends who were once gay, saw it as sin after hearing the word of God, and renounced it. No debate. Its in there. I thought it was a nice article. If you hear a christian speaking in a different way to not pray and to not think of homosexuality as a sin, they are not following what God says and have twisted and ignored scripture to fit their views and what their ears would like to hear.

Even in his own message, Driscoll is falling into the version of "Christian" that caused Anne Rice to leave the Church in the first place. Read these words from an outsiders point of view:

We should also pray for her. She buried her gay best friend John Preston, who died of AIDS in 1994, and...her son, bestselling author Christopher Rice, is a gay rights activist whom she loves even while she reads the Bible's denial of his lifestyle as a God-honoring one. So, let her fellow Christians pray, love, and wait for Jesus to keep working on her as he is on us, thanking him that at least our struggles are not as publicly scrutinized as hers.

Is that pity? Hypocrisy? All I see is...pray for her...gay gay gay gay gay. Driscoll, come out and say it. You are clearly as intolerant and hypocritical as the "Christians" she is fed up with. Let's get a true Christian (in every sense of the word) to write an article about Anne Rice's announcement and the after effects. Someone that sees that it is because of her unwillingness to judge and persecute...and her unconditional love of ALL people...that she does not want to be lumped together with so-called Christians anymore. Whatever happened to "...and the greatest of these is love?" and "Love your neighbor as yourself?" This move is one of the most Christ-like actions she could have ever taken and I applaud her. Driscoll, you may want to write with a little more love and understanding and a little less self-righteous pity and judgment the next go round.

p.s. And if you want to get right down to living by Jesus's words and actions, Jesus never mentioned homosexuality in the Bible. Not out of his mouth. Not once. So I am not sure why it's the target of every hot topic debate when issues like greed and adultery, which He did speak out on, run rampant.

Jesse:
It is a sad subject. I have a very dear friend who is convinced that I, and all of those people with whom I worship Christ and seek to deepen that relationship through the Bible and by trying at least to do what it actually says and encouraging one another by meeting and discussing and growing in our faith, are foolish and bigoted. He is quick to remind me of my sins of which he is well aware of in order to try and back me off of my point of view. But when I admit my sins, he changes tactics and condemns me for using the Bible and Jesus to justify my sins. When I say yes I do that very thing because I have no other hope than what is found in the scriptures and this way of thinking is more than a crutch, it is my foundatation and source of meaning, He will demean me and accuse me of being unimaginative or close minded. Even though I have been educated to a very high level according to the world's standards, all credibility seems to be lost when we affirm God's Word as a better Judge of what is Good and what is Evil than we are at this endeavor. We advocate our inferiority to God while they herald man's supremacy over God and even go so far as to claim God is dead because we invented Him in the first place. What a joke. Did we invent ourselves too? I know I didn't invent myself. But the only thing left to hate as immoral in our cutlure is a morality grounded in ethics. What one 'ought' to do as a general matter is now seen as bigotry. Meanwhile one's behaviors have come to define how someone was born. But what one believes is said to be irrelevant and meaningless unless it interferes with anyone else or makes them feel uncomfortable. These are the only beliefs worthy of suppression in our culture. What is vulgar is up for debate, what is true, right and wrong is all a matter of interpretation unless you affirm the Judeo-Christian God of redemptive history. Then it seems we are the target of a justified witch hunt by those who are enlightened beyond our simple minds as those who would honor and revere this God who we believe is historically as well as presently active in Creation as revealed in scripture. The Jesus I worship did not care about the status quo but he did care a lot for sinful people who admitted that they needed help. That was all Jesus asked for: i.e., belief in our obvious need for relief and a humble request for assistance. It does not matter if our weakness is with our sexual desire or our sexual preferences or our inability to push back from the table. Defining our weaknesses as a state of being instead of a choice is the biggest enabler there is for more confusion, pain and trouble. We are now literally enabling our culture to self destruct by saying its ok to beleive in anything and everything but a real, concistent God who cares about our choices. Lets not enable the culture when the Ann Rices of the world or the King Sauls of the world or anyone else for that matter, take it upon themselves to redefine what God has clearly asked us to do.

This subject always makes me sad. We start talking about the Christians as if they are a plague to the name of Jesus. One of the main reasons people leave the body of Christ (and the Church is His body of which Jesus is the head) is that they run out of grace for their fellow brothers/sisters. To be a follower of Jesus is to literally be like Jesus, to run the race, i.e., to do our best to be like Jesus, HE is the prize (not heaven, that's the destination). Jesus would never leave His Body, He couldn't if He wanted to. And to say there wasn't a Church Body during the time of the book of Acts, is silly. Who do you think Paul went around talking to?

Anyway, back to what I was saying, it makes me sad when we don't have grace for each other to act like idiots. And we all do and will continue to act and do stupid and hurtful things. Jesus knows this, and STILL has enough grace to believe in us and encourage us to pursue Him and His beautiful nature. When we leave the body where we are attending church, we essentially say, "I'd like to love you and help you as you learn to love like Jesus but I just don't have enough grace in me. I am just too weak in that area, sorry." The reality is that their weakness may be in Christ-like character, but your weakness is in Christ-like grace. So who is worse off? The tragedy is that the one who leaves the church (but still "loves" Jesus), does so offended at those in the church. And offense is a disease from hell. It rots your insides. I think most of the time people are just angry that Jesus still has hope and kind things to say towards those Christians in the building (you just left). So they leave, disgusted with the people, instead of being angry at God, the one who tolerates their bad behavior.

Sorry, rambling now, but I really really love those who have a problem with the current body of believers. It is a valid point, just not one that I choose to "camp out" on, it tends to bring division in my heart which I know is from the devil. I just find that those that are angry with the Church have a strong need of healing inside. It's nothing to be ashamed of, just recognize that you need some healing in that area. God is faithful to heal the humble heart. I do believe that the healing almost always comes when you submit to God and surround yourself with His body.

Thanks for listening, if you made it this far. I'd love any feedback. jessejskinner@gmail.com

Jesse

I am a believer in the only hope for all of the world being focused on one central historical figure, namely Jesus Christ the uneducated peasant whose logic, understanding, power, skill, compassion and judgment of reality makes all people who have ever lived either submit to his superiority as a discerner of Good vs. Evil or decide that he was a lunatic or even worse, that he was a liar. I find that Jesus alone is my only hope to sort out the human condition and Jesus alone tells us who we are with the gentleness and example of a leader who really does feel the pain of his followers, unlike many notable characters in our lives who have claimed to do so with little or no example to follow. But Christ has spoken about what is expected of us in our decisions about how to use this temple that God dwells in called our bodies. Whether its a prostitute caught in the very act of adultery or a woman with 6 lovers at a well, a thief on a cross right next to him who was previously mocking him or a prostitute who finds him as the only man who she could ever really trust, Jesus never hated us by lying to us about what is and what is not sin. The perfect life which was necessary to serve as the once and for all sacrifice of the sins of the whole world would have been insufficient if our savior acted as we are prone to do in trying to make God in the image of our preferences. Whether its homosexual or heterosexual immorality, the first step to healing from sin is to call it what it is. Homosexual acts used to express affection are no more or less a sin than heterosexual acts used as leverage to consummate our preferences into instituions in our lives. The marriage institution is created by God alone and not civil governments. Marriage alone is an image of God, male and female, like no other blessing or institution except for the Church itself. We dont pervert the Church and we dont pervert marriage to make God in our image based upon our preferences. To do so, as Luther said is neither "Prudent nor safe". We cannot love people if we lie to them about what Jesus has said both in person and through his chosen Apostles. Any subsequent voice of authority who contradicts the very words of Christ and those who have been endorsed to guide us through life's trials with the revelations handed down to us in scripture must be called for what they are: Against-Christ. With are with Him or against him. I hope Mrs. Rice repents of her desire to be the Judge of Good and Evil. Thats what got us into this mess in the first place.

It seems like quite a stretch to suggest that a person who loves and follows Jesus Christ must worship and associate with people whose attitude and behavior are contrary to the teaching and person of Jesus. The combative tendency of many Christians and their open hostility toward anyone who disagrees with their religious beliefs, does give off the appearance of godly souls so much as unredeemed egos. (Is a religious ego any more attractive to God than an irreligious ego?).

I now retract my earlier statement. To argue that because the Bible says of Christians, "we love the brothers" we therefore must belong to Christendom is not a stretch but specious. Loving "brothers and sisters" does not necessarily entail going to church or living in community with them. Besides, some brothers are easier to love from a safe distance.

When people who identify themselves as Christians exhibit the most deplorable characteristics of the Pharisees (a close parallel to today's Christian Fundamentalists) who in the gospels are depicted as Jesus' most severe critics, it is ludicrous to say one must belong to their company to be a true Christian.

Perhaps it is because Rev. Driscoll (as "founding pastor of Mars Hill Church")is so deeply involved and invested in the institution of church--"Religion, Inc."--that he is unaware of the large number of Christians who comprise a vast spiritual community in our North American culture that thrives outside of formal church structures. I would not fault him for having a biased view of this issue--in his position, how could he possibly address it apart from an obvious conflict of interest?

When Christendom disenfranchises a person such as Anne Rice, who maintains a deep attachment to Christ in spite of what she has experienced from his people, we would do well to ask questions about why Christianity looks like such an ugly religion rather than whether someone can disassociate from it and still be a follower of Jesus.

@Brady

"Every "good" thing we do outside of Christ is actually evil."

Verse?...oh wait, there is none.

All of the passages that speak of the filthiness of "good works" refer to religious ritual righteousness, not incidental altruistic acts.

Have you ever heard of this scenario before? 29 year old woman at bus stop on the way to an abortion and is led to Christ, she keeps the baby and successfully raises baby...local church come to find out is a cult under the tutelage of Pastor Carl Stevens (Bible Speaks) woman becomes confused and leaves church. Relocates back home, thinks she finds a better church, but unfortunately is so needy she ends up expecting too much from the church and people so they withdraw from her. Now she is in same boat as before getting saved....lonely, no girlfriends and told by the women in her church that they tried to love her, woman leaves church 2 years ago...now 46 going on 47 still raising baby who is now 16 and whom also was never recognized, or treated with unconditional love throughout his little life as a christian in this church...now, son is atheist, mother (me)is totally self sufficient, self reliant, more confidant then ever in all her years on this planet and still successfully raising son. Praying that since the seed has been planted son will return to his faith in God not modern day born again churches who don't know the meaning of unconditional love and acceptance the way Jesus did

@jzenman: If you are a christian (believe and place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ), then you ARE the church, whether you like it or not.

The verse in 1 John is for believers, not all mankind. Non-Christians aren't capable of love. Every "good" thing we do outside of Christ is actually evil.

To JZENMAN:

I do not believe Mark ever mentioned John being one of the "synoptic gospels," secondly he wasn't even referring to the Gospel of John, rather the first epistle.

Thirdly, you challenged his statement by questioning context, yet did not provide any context to your own assertion.

First off John is not one of the synoptic gospels and was written in a more poetic form. But regardless of that, I think you have taken your quote out of context. I'm not sure what translation that is but just a quick search on Google brought up this for 1 John 3:14 "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death."

You made it seem like that passage was meant for only those in the church. But it's obvious it is meant for all of mankind. Also what kind of Christian would you be if you only have love for your friends and those in your own church? Or only those who love you back? Your love should be for all people and even your enemies.

Even when you read the Gospels and you look at the whole story in it's context you just don't get the idea of there being a "church" at the time. You could even say it was anti-church because of what Christ said about the Temple Laws and the so called religious people of the day. He even went so far as to overthrow the table of the money changers. Not to mention his rant on the Pharisees in Matthew.

The Church might be ok for some people but I wouldn't say it's the most important thing in Christianity. The most important thing is love.

Christians are always telling people that when they die they will meet Christ face to face. Where will the Church be then? We will all be alone on that day. And "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25:40.

By the way, that passage I rarely ever hear Christians bring up these days. And there's a lot more that never seem to be mentioned. That's why I don't go to church anymore.

Well said; keep the writing up brother. But, might I say, "Anne Rice can't follow Christ when she doesn't believe-support his word." Its totally contradictory and it makes her a hypocrite. We're supposed to believe Gods word in its entirety. Picking and choosing what you agree or don't agree with doesn't work. As Christians, we don't have to support-agree with a certain lifestyle that is against our beliefs, but we should never hate the person because they're different. We push people away with hate. The only way we're ever going to lead anyone down the right road is by showing them love, unconditional love, even if we don't support them. We can hate the actions, but we should never hate the person. And by loving the person, despite there actions, Christ will truely shine through us. We must love and find common ground with people first. And instead of forcing and hating our beliefs upon someone, we should encourage in a bold and peaceful manner. As Christ handled himself.... And if that person still remains lost, so be it. We all have free will and we will all have to face judgement in the end. But, we must remember, If its Gods will, surely it will be taken care of. Christ loves everyone, but he doesn't love the sin that consumes our lives. Thanks for the article.