Anne Rice—who cornered the market on sexy vampires long before Stephenie Meyer, then renounced their horny, bloodsucking ways to “write only for the Lord” in 2004—has left Christianity behind, realizing that she could make a fortune with another Lestat novel right now that the problem with Christianity is all those darn Christians. In a post on her Facebook page (that was subsequently picked up by CNN), Rice wrote the following:
“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.”
Rice later added that she remains committed to her central “faith in Christ,” but that “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.” Rice has not indicated whether her rejection of Christianity will result in a return to more secular literature: All of her most recent works—including her Christ The Lord series and the 2008 memoir Called Out Of Darkness—have dealt exclusively in the realm of Christian fiction and non-fiction.
In the meantime, the second in her Songs Of The Seraphim series, Of Love And Evil, is due this November, and it’ll certainly be interesting to see how its Christian audience will receive it in light of this announcement. Given the tone of some the responses to her posts ("Thanks for the hateful and uninspiring rants. I'm sure Our Lady of Prompt Succor is weeping at your infidelity;" "The One True Church is not the problem, Anne. People who place their own wisdom, opinions, pride, malice, and arrogance above the Church are the problem"), the answer is: with total love and forgiveness. Or wait, probably the opposite of that.