The Works of Anne Rice

[Deleted]

No longer calling herself a Christian. Basically, she's not ditching the faith, just the label/identification:

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 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.

On one hand, I totally get what she's saying. I'm an atheist who's fine with spirituality but dislikes organized religion, for all those anti's she just listed. But on the other, and I'm sure this is influenced by my general dislike for Anne Rice and her pretentious self-important drama-rama, I can't help but roll my eyes because she was the one to make a big damn deal about her religious conversion/reawakening/whatever and say she was only going to write for the Lord and cover her website in angels and links to Christian sites in the first place. I read at least one interview from her that was very condescending to those who hadn't seen the light and had the same epiphany she'd had. It's just kind of typically Anne Rice to be all "I AM NOW CHRISTIAN, THE BEST CHRISTIAN TO HAVE EVER CHRISTIANED, AND WILL ONLY WRITE ABOUT OUR LORD, LISTEN AND BE ENLIGHTENED!...NO I QUIT CHRISTIANITY, I HAVE FAILED, I AM AN OUTSIDER!" Good for her for not being homophobic and anti-feminist and all that, though, although I generally kind of consider those things baseline decency and not something you really get a cookie for.

Also, I recently read a synopsis of one of her latest novels, Angel Time - it is about a professional hit man whom angels send back in time for some kind of retributive purposes. It sounded hilariously awful.

[Deleted]

Angel Time sounds like some kind of religious-themed drag show. Or else a code for masturbation.

[biondetta]

I think she's always been a bit mentally unstable, probably exacerbated by various tragedies in her life. I wonder if she's finally on medication and that's what's leading to this break from organized Christianity. Maybe she's sort of leveled out.

I loved her (earlier) books as a teen, but I must admit they don't hold up quite as well now that I'm in my late 30s.

[tabby]

She was interviewed on NPR yesterday about her break with Christianity, and much eye-rolling ensued Chez Tabby. Most of our comments were along the lines of, "So, you weren't listening to what was comes of the Vatican when you made your much-publicized conversion to Catholicism?"

Also, "Christian" is not the same as "Roman Catholic."