Not being into vampires I hadn’t heard of Anne Rice until I read about all the fuss she kicked up over her quitting Christianity. She has apparently announced on Facebook that she can’t be doing with all the intolerant nonsense preached in Christ’s name and that she is un-following the religion. She isn’t turning away from Jesus, however, since she finds nothing wrong with him. It’s just most of his followers that she has issues with.

Anne Rice is an American. This explains a lot, for in the US they have been fighting their second civil war for many decades – they call them the culture wars over there – and it seems that it is a reaction against this that has led Rice to make her decision. And one can’t really blame her when one notices the amount of bile that seems to flow in the US on issues such as homosexuality and abortion. Those American Christians really know how to slug it out!

One of the better reactions to Rice has been by Brian McLaren – a leading American emergent Christian and prolific author. He writes in CNN’s blog saying that he understands Rice’s reasons but rejects her decision. He is not about to quit church precisely because it is full of people who fail in their religious walk – and are therefore like him. In other words, he finds grace for those he struggles with.

But does he?  In his writings – and, I presume, in the outworking of his ideas – he is actually calling for a very different church. He calls for a ‘big tent Christianity’, a place where there is tolerance for different viewpoints – even on the ‘fundamentals’ of faith. And he himself in many of his writings redefines much of those fundamentals.

It seems to me that both Rice and McLaren are intent on leaving behind the Christian religion as it stands in the West. Rice is leaving behind organised religion altogether whilst McLaren is leaving in order to build something new. I’m with McLaren, by the way. How about you?

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