Anne Rice gave herself back to God just a few short years ago, and yet barely a week ago, the critically acclaimed author of “Interview with the Vampire”, announced that she was to quit being a Christian, due to their attitudes to feminism and homosexuality. In the moment I read the words I felt the kind of pride that makes a young cynic like me stop and take notice.
As an unashamed fan of her stories of the Vampires and the Witches that walk among us, I have always felt a deep and almost spiritual bond to Anne Rice. I felt nothing short of divine praise was due to her contribution to literature, as she dealt both sensitively and with a great deal of depth, those themes that many authors might be wary, if not downright afraid to touch.
During my adolescence she introduced me to the power and beauty of a world that was so real and vivid, that it turned many of my ideas about life and sexuality completely inside out. In many ways I owe part of the young man I am today to her, and her “savage garden” of aesthetics. Her back catalogue of fiction had affected me deeply, and made me proud of my own sexual identity, something which had been a difficult concept for me to understand even late into my teenage years. While reading her books she became my teacher, and she helped me to form my own personal philosophy, to life, love, sex and beauty.
In 2002 however her life and her career took a drastic change, when she “consecrated her writing to Jesus Christ” and that she would write “directly” for him. After returning to her childhood faith of Catholicism in 1998 she began to feel that her past literary accomplishments were to prepare her for that step, and she confirmed this on her personal website. Myself, and I am sure many other fans of her previous work were saddened to see the end of her previous works, and perhaps even worried when her new book “Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt” hit the shelves in 2005 and seemed in subject matter to be a far cry from where she started.
On a personal note I felt a sharp and palpable pang of personal grief, and almost a sense of betrayal. How could a woman who created such masterpieces turn herself to a religion where the views of homosexuality were still left wanting. Why would someone, who wrote so beautifully of the empowerment of women and their control of their own private destinies, decide to write only on behalf of a faith system where abortion was a grievous sin? Out of principle I chose not to read her later work, if only for the fact that I was worried that I would only find Christian Rhetoric burning through the pages in my hands.
However last week, coincidentaly while rereading “The Witching Hour”, I read about how she had quit being Christian. My curiosity was inflamed I did some research, and Rice actually confirmed her views on her Facebook in response to an inflammatory statement from “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide” a severely right wing Christian ministry. She stated on the social networking site that:
“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.”
She wrote in response to a statement by the ministry that
I was moved in ways I could not even process for a few long minutes. However I soon had to smile, and I felt something wonderful had occurred. Though Rice has maintained that she is a faithful Catholic, she was horrified by the views taken by some so-called “modern” Christians, and that “following Christ does not mean following His followers.”
Perhaps this is my own specific brand of hero worship talking, but there is something so deep and meaningful about this statement, and it helps me to reaffirm my own faith in humanity as a whole. With a few well chosen words Rice has maintained her own faith, and her own love of Jesus, while simultaneously rejecting the idea that homosexuality is wrong, and turning her back on the religious right wing.
Rice, by taking her own stand by not conforming to beliefs that she finds herself morally opposed against, and so shows the world that they are allowed to have faith, and yet they do not need to follow those that spread messages of hate and ignorance to the masses.
Anne Rice herself is the mother of a gay son, Christopher Rice an author who lives in California, and regular writer for the American LGBT related news magazine the Advocate. Rice has maintained that the decision was not due to her son’s orientation, but more to do with her own beliefs and opinions. As a fan boy or her work and vampire fanatic, as a proud gay man, and a staunch humanist, my heart goes out to her bravery, and her willingness to stand up for peoples rights. I can only hope that others follow her proud example, and help to weaken the iron grip of many of these hate spreading ministries have on their "communities" and "congregations".
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