Anne Rice is a best selling author. She has about 200,000 friends on Facebook. She wrote the Vampire Chronicles series. She was once an atheist. Then she had a deep religious experience and became a devoted Catholic.
On July 29, 2010, Rice publicly renounced her dedication to her Roman Catholic faith, while remaining committed to Christ, on her Facebook page:
“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.
"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."
"My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become."
She stated on her FaceBook page that she has been troubled by the Catholic church's stance on such topics as gay marriage, the sex abuse scandals and the ex-communication of Sister Margaret McBride, the hospital administrator of a Catholic hospital who approved the abortion that saved the life of a 27-year-old pregnant woman.
In a phone interview she said: "I believed for a long time that the differences, the quarrels among Christians didn't matter a lot for the individual, that you live your life and stay out of it. But then I began to realize that it wasn't an easy thing to do. I came to the conclusion that if I didn't make this declaration, I was going to lose my mind."
(SOURCE: http://www.vampires.com/anne-rice-leaves-christianity/)
In an August 7, 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she elaborated on her view regarding being a member of a Christian church: "I feel much more morally comfortable walking away from organized religion. I respect that there are all kinds of denominations and all kinds of churches, but it's the entire controversy, the entire conversation that I need to walk away from right now. In response to the question, "How do you follow Christ without a church?" Rice replied: "I think the basic ritual is simply prayer. It's talking to God, putting things in the hands of God, trusting that you're living in God's world and praying for God's guidance. And being absolutely faithful to the core principles of Jesus' teachings."
And she still loves Christ, but she came out this summer and publically said she can't call herself a Christian. She can no longer be associated with so much of what the institutional church represents. She can better follow Jesus without this broken institution.
Kurt can certainly empathize with Anne Rice. He grew up Roman Catholic, having attended Catholic School for six years of his life, being a choir boy and a peer minister. But, like Anne Rice, he found himself with a problem. As a Catholic, you have to believe that the Pope speaks for God on issues of faith and morals. But Kurt was disagreeing with the Pope on issues of the ordination of women, artificial birth control & artificial insemination, and the treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. He never stopped following Jesus, but it took years and two very special faith communities to get Kurt back into the doors of a part of one of these broken institutions called denominations.
So Kurt gets it, and we do too, don't we? Now, it remains to be seen, what Anne Rice will do. Will she actually DO something positive FOR Jesus and FOR the world? She's caused quite a stir as you can see if you "Google" Anne Rice and follow this story. We wish her well. She has made a bold statement.
Followers of Jesus for 2000 years have made the bold act of saying ENOUGH! We're not going to play church anymore! We're going to follow Jesus! But we're not going to do it THIS way anymore. Our church planting coach Paul Nixon, in one of his books, wrote that churches have to choose BOLD over mild. We are following the example of Jesus when we do something like what Anne Rice did.
Just look at what Jesus did in the scripture that we read today in our worship celebration. John 2:13-17 for those reading along at home. This is the story of Jesus overturning the tables at the temple one day. The Temple was the center of Jesus’ faith. It was the "holy of holies." and Jesus was visiting on one of the holiest of holy days. But read along here to see what happens:
13-14When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem. He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength.
15-17Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, "Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a shopping mall!" That's when his disciples remembered the Scripture, "Zeal for your house consumes me."
The temple had become more a place of commerce than a place of prayer. Jesus had enough of this blasphemy and so he did something BOLD. He got angry. And he showed his righteous anger! He showed the people there that this was not honoring God.
Cheri told another story about someone who followed Jesus, and did something BOLD.
John Wesley. He was a young priest in Church of England in 1700's. But John had a problem. For him, church was too caught up in formality and ritual; wearing the right clothes; He was also in his head when it came to religion, he loved God, but with head, not his heart. But he was really in a good place in his life, a tutor at Oxford, everything going for him.
At a Prayer meeting on Aldersgate St; in London in 1738, he wrote in his journal: [I] "felt my heart strangely warmed". Suddenly, it wasn’t just a head thing, his heart was in it. And with that, he began to take Bold steps. At the time, preaching in the open air which was frowned upon by the church. But he started a revival movement within the Church of England, known as the Methodist movement. It was called that because its practitioners were very methodical in their prayer and study life.
In this movement, lay preachers, met in homes, eventually built chapels because homes were not big enough, they worked among the most needy and neglected in society; often preached outside coal mines as the miners got off work. They went into pubs, imagine preaching in a bar! (for those of you not in on the joke, the Village is a former bar & restaurant and the bar is very much still here). They started schools for poor children and orphans in London and other cities. They stressed a balance of disciplined prayer and good works in the world
As his lay preachers and participants moved to America and with the Revolutionary War, in 1784, he eventually made the decision to ordain preachers to send to America and this is what started the Methodist Church. THIS WAS A BOLD MOVE.
While he remained a clergy member of the Church of England until his death, he started a movement that now has 11 million members around the world. Methodism has schools, hospitals, a university in Africa, community centers, 300 hospitals, and dozens of bold new ventures like us, the Village Church. John Wesley, like Jesus, and like Anne Rice, saw a situation and said, "Enough, This has got to change. I can't take this anymore. This is not the way God wants things to be."
You see, institutions, like big church denominations, are simply instruments. They are tools to help us organize large groups of people to do good. At their best, that's what they do, and when they begin to fail us, then we need to let them go, or do something bold to change them.
Here at The Village we are connected to two institutions: The United Methodist Church and The United Church of Christ. The UMC was formed around the time of the American Revolution; the UCC has roots all the way back to the Mayflower. The UMC has about 11 million members; the UCC has a little over one million. Both have their strengths and their weaknesses. We are part of their strength. Both denominations have a national emphasis on planting new churches that are forward thinking and relevant. Both denominations are also dinosaurs. They are struggling into the 21st century. They need to be bold - but it's hard, because most of our local churches are aging and are in decline.
We have an opportunity here with the Village to be a spark, to ignite a fire in these dying institutions. Just like John Wesley shook things up in the Church of England. The Village Church and some other new church starts around the country have a chance to give new life to some struggling institutions. These two denominations, when they started, were vibrant and bold, just like we feel now. Really! Because here is the thing: we all come from the same root - from that rabble rouser Jesus who went into the temple in Jerusalem and turned over the tables when God's house of prayer had turned into a shopping center. PLEASE!
So, we thank Anne Rice for getting the world's attention that we can't do business as usual and call ourselves Christian. But we can still follow Jesus. Jesus was Bold. John Wesley was bold. And we, here at The Village, are bold too. So I'm ready to follow Jesus and be bold. How about you?
What are your dreams about how The Village will be bold? Cheri opened it up to those of us who are the Village on Sunday. And here’s some of what was shared:
It’s hard to consider that feeding hungry kids and taking care of orphans was bold in the 1700's or that we still need to do so today.
We need to be bold in protecting kids, both those waiting to be born through better health care and protection when they are born as well.
We need to be bold in giving a voice to those who do not have a voice, to those who are not heard but need to be.
We need to be welcoming and inviting to those who would not otherwise come into the doors of a church. To show them that there are places where all are welcomed and truly accepted.
How do you want to choose Bold over Mild? Is that boldness something Jesus would do? If so, and you can’t find a group of people to be bold with, consider joining us here at the Village. We’re choosing to follow Jesus boldly and change the world, starting with the corner of Monroe & Central.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment