Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Life

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America, Anne Rice, prayer

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.

The above quote was posted by Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, on her Facebook account. Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s last complaint — that Christianity is anti-life.

This is complaint is a bit of a head scratcher. With the Church being one of the last vanguards defending the sanctity of life and crying out that all human life, regardless of race, creed, language, sex, age, sexual orientation or any other artificial division you want to come up with (especially when it comes to the unborn and those on death row), it is difficult to see how Christianity is anti-life.

If, however, by “life” Anne Rice is referring to those things one might be contemplating if stating, “I need a life,” then it is quite possible to understand Christianity as “anti-life.” Long has Christianity insisted on a high moral standard that in the eyes of most Americans today might seem restrictive, draconian and even life destroying. Ironically, the Church might very well say the same things about the way many Americans go about trying to live their lives.

According to the Fathers of the Church, we are constantly assaulted by what they call the passions. These are like thoughts or ideas that lead us to sin. Life in Christ and His Church helps us combat these thoughts and ideas — it empowers us to say no and to find freedom in Christ. In contrast, the Fathers see succumbing to the passions akin to slavery.

Realizing that our former self was crucified with Him, so that the self which belonged to sin should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin. — Romans 6:6

An extreme example of this path is drug or alcohol addiction. It starts out as “living” — having fun, partying with friends, etc. The passions then lead us down a road that says we can’t have fun without drugs or alcohol. Then it becomes we can’t live without drugs or alcohol. Finally, it becomes do anything in order to get our next fix. This is not freedom, it is slavery.

Those things in the life of the Church that seem to interfere with “life” — prayer, asceticism, etc. — are actually means by which we control the passions. They are the means by which we shake off the shackles of slavery and find true life and freedom in Christ.

It’s Not Christianity vs Science, It’s Christianity vs Scientism

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Abortion, America, Anne Rice, Atheists, Environmentalism, Science, Scientism, Worship

When I was doing research in order to write yesterday’s post about Anne Rice’s claim that Christianity is anti-science, I also came across this bit of wisdom from Catholic Apologist Fr. Barron:

He makes a very important distinction between science and what he calls Scientism. The former is the practice of doing science — hypothesis, observation, analysis and application. Due to its limitation of dealing with the empirical and observable, science is not suited for answering the kinds of questions philosophy and religion play around with. Scientism is the belief that science can answer these questions. In order to do that however, one must reduce the world, human experience and knowledge to the empirical and observable. This path is fraught with danger.

In the Orthodox Vespers service, we pray the following:

Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your commandments.
Blessed are you, Master, grant me understanding of your commandments.
Blessed are you, Holy One, enlighten me with your commandments.

In other words, in God there are three ways of knowing: doing, understanding and transformation. Science concerns itself almost exclusively with the second — understanding. Scientism thus radically reduces knowledge and what knowledge is and can be. When we do this, we necessarily limit what is a human person. When we limit what it means to be human, we necessarily tolerate discrimination and eventually violence against those persons who fall outside our artificial definition. There is a reason we de-humanize our opponents in war and call them derogatory names like Yankee, Bourgeoisie, Jap, Gook, etc. It allows us to remove them from our artificial definition of “human person” and thus making them more easy to kill, imprison, torture, etc. Need I remind anyone yet again that the unborn in the U.S. fall outside Scientism’s definition of “human person?” They cannot reason nor understand, therefore it is perfectly legal to kill them.

Scientism also poses a threat to science itself. Since Scientism exaggerates what kinds of questions and problems science can answer, it has a tendency to lose sight of what the purpose and methodology of science is. A good example of this is the recent Climate Gate scandal. A good number of those advocating man-made global warming are not scientists, but rather adherents  to Scientism. Having made the assumption that science can answer questions like, “what is the purpose of human kind?” these advocates of man-made global warming not only ignored empirical data, they manipulated it in order to reflect a pre-determined outcome. The purpose of science was no longer to observe and analyze, but to determine human behavior. When the data didn’t cooperate, they changed the data. This has the potential of damaging real scientific work for years to come.

Thus, the mythic dichotomy of Christianity vs Science really doesn’t exist (nor can it, as I explored yesterday); however, there is a dichotomy between Christianity and Scientism.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Science

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Anne Rice, Science

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.

The above quote was posted by Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, on her Facebook account. Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s seventh complaint — that Christianity is anti-science.

This is actually one of the more difficult complaints to deal with, because it is so far ranging and there are so many myths to deal with: Genesis, Galileo, science vs. religion, etc. Let me begin by deferring to Catholic Apologist Fr. Baron:

In other words, science and religion are not competitors, because they ask and answer different questions: science seeks out the empirical and observable to understand a variety of objects and phenomena whereas religion concerns itself the spiritual. God and the ultimate cause of the universe are outside the scope of science, which cannot observe in an empirical way God and His works.

I would like to go even further than Fr. Barron to say that science as we know it today could not have come about sans Christianity. Science cannot be practiced unless one accepts a world view in which the world is rational and predictable. The whole scientific method is predicated on the assumption that if an experiment is repeated, it should produce similar results — that it is actually possible to control several variables in order to test how one variable behaves under certain givens. In addition, science assumes that we are rational and creative beings capable and free to explore, observe and understand the world around us. These assumptions are fruit of the Christian understanding of creation: God, the supra-rational, created the cosmos and declared it very good (Gen. 1:31), created humanity in His image and likeness (Gen 1:26) and to be co-creators with Him ( 2:19).

Hinduism and Buddhism understand creation as illusory, thus cannot support or spawn the assumptions of science. Islam means submission. It does not recognize human freedom nor does it encourage the questioning of creation — to do so would be to question Allah. Yes, Muslims have excelled in practical science (such as astrology) but science as we know it today could not have arisen out of Islam. There is a reason why modern science was born in the Christian West — because it was Christian.

Thus, Christianity cannot be anti-science. It does not ask or answer the same questions as science and is the soil in which the flower of modern science was able to take root and bloom.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Secular Humanism

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Anne Rice, Humanism, Secularism, Transfiguration

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.

The above quote was posted by Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, on her Facebook account. Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s sixth complaint — that Christianity is anti-secular humanist.

To be perfectly honest, Christianity (by its very nature, which is all about the sacred) is the antithesis of secularism. I am left scratching my head as to how anyone could be secular and Christian, given that a Christian world-view is holistic and strives to make everything in life sacred:

And blessed be His glorious name forever! And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen. — Psalm 72:19 (71:19 LXX)

Humanism also has an anti-religious connotation in that it focuses on human needs, problems and potential to the exclusion of the supernatural. The great irony in this, from a Christian point of view, is that to deny God is to deny one’s own humanity. Not only are we created in the image and likeness of God, but God Himself, in the second person of the Trinity, united Himself to humanity with such intimacy that He willingly was tortured and willingly died on the cross. Not only was His humanity resurrected from the dead on the third day, but it ascended with Him to be enthroned at the right hand of the Father in glory. In Christianity, one cannot speak about being human without speaking about God.

In comparison, secular humanism pales when it comes to an understanding of human needs, problems and potential. It tends to focus on the rational and the autonomous self. This view actually succeeds in de-humanizing humanity, because it reduces the whole into two of its many parts. Such things as our emotions, our physicality and our need to be part of a greater community (to name just a few) are either ignored, dismissed or seen as detrimental.

A classic example of this de-humanization is right here in the United States — our legal view of the unborn. Though they feel pain, have the physical need to be inside the womb and show a curiosity about their environment (as demonstrated by ultrasounds showing fetuses reacting to the voice of their parents and trying to grasp at needles during amniocentesis procedures), they are unrational, and unable to be autonomous beings. Therefore, when we reduce what is human to reason and autonomy, the unborn do not qualify as human beings.

This is nothing new. I invite everyone to see how those who supported slavery, discrimination against the Native Americans and the Jim Crow laws, etc. made the argument that that all of these various groups were irrational and therefore sub-human.

Christianity’s vision of humanity is all-inclusive (and I never tire of quoting these passages):

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. — Galatians 3:28

In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! — Col. 3:11

In addition, we understand that the image and likeness of God within every human person involves becoming like God. We all have the potential of what Orthodox theologians call theosis — a divinization of our humanity as revealed to Peter, James and John by Christ on Mt. Tabor:

He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. — Matt. 17:2

And realized by St. Stephen in his martyrdom:

And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel. — Acts 6:15

Thus, Christianity is much more holistic in its understanding of humanity, much more inclusive and insists on a much greater potential for humanity than secular humanism.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Politics

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Abortion, Anne Rice, Church and State, death penalty, Democrat, Philemon, Politics

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.

The above quote was posted by Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, on her Facebook account. Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s fourth complaint — that Christianity is anti-Democrat.

I am going to assume that since Rice capitalized the word “Democrat” that she is referring to the political party, as opposed to the form of government. In either case, Christianity has always had an intriguing relationship with civil power. On one hand, we are to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s (Matt 22:21). This can be seen in both the liturgical practice of praying for our civic leaders — even those Roman emperors who were actively persecuting the Church. In the Apostolic Constitutions, it implores Christians to “Be subject to all royal power and dominion;” however, it does qualify this statement with these very important words: “in things pleasing to God.” Thus, when faced with the prospect of sacrificing to the idol of the Emperor, early Christians were compelled to refuse, thus breaking the law and choosing, in most cases, to be tortured and killed as martyrs.

Thus, in a Christian world-view, politics always play second fiddle to Christ. Indeed, Christ Himself demonstrated this in the sixth chapter of John:

Jesus, as He realized they were about to come and take Him by force and make Him king, fled back to His hills alone. (John 6:15)

Christ did not come to play politics. Thus, as Christians we should always be wary of politics and political parties and ultimately be willing to rise above them in order to be what God wants us to be.

Case in point, let us examine some very unChristian aspects of each political party here in the United States:

• Republicans tend to defend the death penalty for violent criminals. As Christians, we need to understand that even these vile examples of humanity are still made in the image and likeness of God and that they should be afforded every opportunity to repent and turn back towards God. The death penalty denies them this chance.
• Democrats tend to defend abortion. As Christians we see even the unborn as fully human, unique and unrepeatable. To destroy them inside the womb is murder, dehumanizes the unborn and ultimately denies humanity to an entire segment of the human family.

Thus, both parties fail to uphold a Christian world-view. That isn’t to say that they do not have redeeming factors, but we are called to transcend politics and do what is right in the sight of God. When we place our loyalty to any political entity — whether it be a party, a nation or an ideology — above God, disaster follows. One need only look at the early 20th century in places like Germany, Russia and China to see the outcome of party above God. It cost the world millions of lives.

For an excellent example of a Christian transcending politics, see St. Paul’s letter to Philemon. He is obedient to the law of the land — he sends back the run away slave Onesimus to his master Philemon; however, he calls Philemon to welcome back his run away slave, not as a slave, but as a brother. Thus, Paul, while obeying the law moves beyond the law to something greater — a vision of the world where:

by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free — and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. (1Cor 12:13)

Indeed, according to tradition, Philemon does welcome back Onesimus as a brother. Not only is Onesimus freed, but is eventually ordained as a bishop.

Thus, Christianity is not anti-Democrat. Rather it is beyond Democrat (or Republican).

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Sex

Tags

Anne Rice, Conception, Sex, St. John Chrysostom

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.

The above quote was posted by Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, on her Facebook account. Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s third complaint — that Christianity is anti-artificial birth control.

To be fair, this complaint is more specifically an anti-Catholic stance than an anti-Christian stance, since not all brands of Christianity take Rome’s hard line on this subject. Although there are positive things one can say about Rome’s position (abstinence is the only birth control method that is 100% effective), it has roots in the theology of St. Augustine who, if we are to be honest, was unduly influenced by both his Manchean past as well as Neo-Platonism.

Mancheaism is a gnostic religion that sees the material (including the human body) as evil. Neo-Platonism has a cosmology where God is equated with simplicity. The more complex something is, the farther away from God it is. Thus, the Mind is seen as higher than the Body, and must struggle against the Body. St. Augustine thus understands sex to be the body rebelling against the mind and is therefore equated with sin. In this view, the only redeeming aspect of sex is children.

In contrast, St. John Chrysostom states in his Homily 19 on 1 Corinthians 7:

Sex is not evil; it is a gift from God. But it can become a hindrance to someone who desires to devote all his strength to a life of prayer.

Just as with all gifts, sex can be used in a demonic as well as a salvific way. St. John understood sex in the context of marriage not as a concession to the flesh but as a means of making husband and wife one.

This view stems from a very basic Christian understanding — Christ physically took on a human body because He wanted to save the totality of our humanity, not just our soul. In turn, our body and all of its functions can and should be an integral part of our salvific transformation in Christ. Indeed, the Orthodox Church celebrates feasts of Conception (St. John the Baptist on June 24 and the Theotokos on September 8). Sex is an integral part of the history of Salvation.

To understand sex in the way St. Augustine does drives a wedge between sex and marriage and ultimately between sex and the Church. Whereas marriage is a sacrament, sex is evil. This world view is not only unhealthy, but ultimately not Christian.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Feminism (Updated)

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Anne Rice, Christmas, equality, feminism, Secularism, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Photini, Theotokos

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. — Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicals

Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s second complaint — that Christianity is anti-feminist. This is actually a tougher task than it might seem, not because the Church is inherently anti-woman (it most definitely is not, as will be seen) but because there are so many different brands of feminism. For simplicity, I will deal with the definition of feminism as found in Webster’s Dictionary:

1. the theory of the political, social, and economic equality of the sexes.
2. organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.

Let me begin with the radical equality found in Christ:

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. — Galatians 3:28

This reality is ultimately found in the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ — an activity in the Orthodox Church that is open to every member of the Church, regardless of age, sex or ethnic background. Beyond this, women have been specifically highlighted in the life of the Church:

• the first person to hear the Good News of the Incarnation: a woman (the Virgin Mary — Luke 1:31)
• the first sign performed by Christ in His ministry: done at the request of a woman (the Virgin Mary — John 2:5)
• those who were brave enough to stand by Christ at the Cross: women (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, Salome, the Virgin Mary, etc. — Matthew 27:55, Mark 15:40, Luke 23:55, John 19:25)
• those who were first given the Good News of the Resurrection: women (Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and Salome and others — Mark 16:6, Matthew 28:6, Luke 24:1)
• the first person to witness the Resurrected Christ: a woman (Mary Magdalen — Mark 16:9)
• the first apostle: a woman (St. Photini the Samaritan Woman and Equal-to-the-Apstles — John 4:39)
• the first European convert: a woman (St. Lydia — Acts 16:14-15)
• the Saint the Church invokes more often than any other: a woman (the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary — of the Twelve Major Feasts, five are Mariological: Nativity of the Theotokos, Presentation of the Theotokos, Christmas, Annunciation and the Dormition of the Theotokos)

All of this is rather significant, given the context within which Christianity arose. In the ancient world, women were second class citizens. An institution dedicated to making women second class citizens in a world that saw women as second class citizens would never rely so heavily upon the testimony of women, nor raise women to such a degree of honor. Thus, Christianity fits both definitions of feminism according to Webster’s.

Additionally, there is no other philosophy, religion or political entity that can justify or defend the equality of women better than Christianity. Divorced from the radical equality found in Jesus Christ, all of these quickly fall apart in the face of the real objective inequality between men and women (men are definitely not the equals of women in terms of childbirth, for example). In order to justify equality in the face of this objective inequality, one must in some way deny reality and force a false reality upon oneself and others. The beauty of Christianity is its acceptance of these objective differences and, at the same time, the miracle that in Christ we are radically equal despite these differences.

UPDATE: I just ran across a sermon by St. John of Damascus on the Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. I share this quote, because it flies in the face of any notion that Christianity is anti-woman or anti-feminist:

There is no one in existence who is able to praise worthily the holy death of God’s Mother, even if he should have a thousand tongues and a thousand mouths. Not if all the most eloquent tongues could be united would their praises be sufficient. She is greater than all praise.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Homosexuality

Tags

Anne Rice, homosexuality, Secularism, Sex, Sin

In my last post, I started writing a series in reaction to something Anne Rice, author of The Vampire Chronicles, including Interview with a Vampire, announced on her Facebook account:

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.

Today I am going to tackle the first of Rice’s complaints — that Christianity is somehow anti-gay. It is at this point that we must pull out Romans 1:26-27 because any discussion of homosexuality and Christianity must wrestle with this passage:

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

There is a great temptation to read this verse in terms of seeing the act of homosexual sex as equivalent to the homosexual person. This can be seen in an element of the gay community which demands that homosexual sex is what makes a homosexual fully human. For example, Michael Callen writes in his book Surviving AIDS:

One strain of seventies gay liberationist rhetoric proclaimed that sex was inherently liberating . . . In other words, I should consider myself more liberated if I’d had a thousand sex partners than if I’d only had five hundred.

However, it is very important to understand who St. Paul refers to when he uses the word “them.” St. Paul is speaking about Greeks (Rom 1:16). He is not talking about homosexuals, but rather a society that

aiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. — Romans 1:22-23

In other words, they turned away from God. The “degrading passions” Paul speaks of in Romans 1:26-27 are a consequence of this separation from God and the “due penalty for their error” is the wages we all earn for sin — death.

To put it another way, there is a difference between the human person and the action. If we make the mistake of confusing the two, we end up with, on one hand, the belief that homosexuals cannot be fully human without homosexual sex, and, on the other hand, that homosexuals are irrevocably evil because the act is sinful. This view of humanity cannot be supported with Scripture. Take, for example, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers– none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. [emphasis mine]

Note how sodomy is not especially highlighted as specifically evil when compared to other sins, but, rather, is on par. Also note how these classifications are only applicable to those who are actively committing these sins — these human persons are not equated with these sinful acts. Rather, we become fully human when we unite ourselves to Christ. In other words, one can be homosexual, a full member of the Church and a fully realized human being without homosexual sex.

God, according to Christian dogmatic formula, is one in essence (nature) and three in hypostases (persons). Since we are made in the image and likeness, we share in this trinitarian reality. We are one in our human nature and a multitude in persons. It is this one nature God took to Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, we are called to acknowledge this reality in every person regardless of who they are or what they have done because their nature sits at the right hand of God in glory in the person of Jesus Christ.

In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! — Col. 3:11

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. — Galatians 3:28

This is the likeness of the image and likeness we are all called to strive for.

In contrast, a vision of humanity that merely strives for identification as a homosexual (or whatever) actually limits what it means to be human. Thus, Callen’s gay liberationist quest to find fulfillment in having sex with a thousand men as opposed to five hundred thoroughly falls short. Rather, it is an egregiously selfish act that radically de-humanizes not only himself, but those he uses for his sexual gratification. These faceless thousand are reduced to nothing more than a momentary sexual thrill. This is particularly loathsome when Christianity demands that they be fully and holistically acknowledged as human beings capable of embracing the searing energies of God.

For a more complete reflection on homosexuality from an Orthodox point of view please see Christian Faith And Same Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections by Fr. Thomas Hopko.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Vampires

Tags

Anne Rice, Atheists, myths, Secularism, Vampires

Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, including Interview with a Vampire, announced this week on her Facebook account:

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.

This is a sad chapter in what I considered to be a marvelous story. Rice used to be an atheist (is it any wonder she was desperately searching for some kind of eternal life in her attempts to make vampires into heroes — more on that later). She found herself, became a Christian and vowed never to write another vampire book. Thank you God; however, in this one statement, she has shown that she has lost herself again. She has succumbed to a series of myths about Christianity propped up by modern secularism. Her complaints against Christianity are nothing more than propaganda talking points hammered over and over again upon us until we assume that they are true. In fact, when examined closely, Christianity does much better than secularism at all of these: homosexuality, feminism, birth-control, politics, humanism, science and life.

Over the next several days, I plan to tackle each of these myths — as enumerated by Anne Rice in her complaint against Christianity — and demonstrate how Christianity handles them. Hopefully, it will become obvious that secularists are projecting — that the very thing they accuse Christianity of being, they actually are.

Firstly, though, I wish to cover ground that Anne Rice has already successfully moved across — our modern fascination with Vampires.

Vampires

Anne Rice is part of a modern literary phenomenon — the attempt to rehabilitate monsters by making them into sympathetic heroes. Rice’s monster of choice was the vampire. I have long found this trend to be disheartening, because it fails utterly to understand the purpose of the monster.

The Greek word for monster is τεράς from which English gets the words terror, terrified, etc. There are two definitions for this word:

1. a sign, wonder, marvel
2. in a concrete sense, a monster

This sense of signs, wonders and marvels are all related to revelation — how we, as human beings, encounter and understand the divine and our relationship to it.

In this sense, monsters reveal to us our sins — how we become separated from God. Monsters are sins personified — they are a reflection of what we become when we allow sin to master us. Thus, vampires reveal the sin of trying to become eternal sans God. The result is a monster. They are dependent upon that which they despise — fragile and finite humanity — for that which sustains there immortality. In feeding upon the blood of humans, they risk killing the very thing that they once were and are dependent upon. Thus, they find themselves in an extremely lonely and maddening situation — their own fear of death and their immortality prevent them from ever becoming close to that which they long for but can never be — human. In the end, they are monsters and are entirely alone in their monstrosity.

I believe it is this very reality that Anne Rice finally saw within her own work. The monstrosity of reaching for immortality without Christ finally revealed itself to her through her own attempts to make that very monstrosity palatable. When I learned of her decision to abandon this work and embrace Christ, I rejoiced. I only now pray that God continues to reveal Himself to Her so that she comes to terms with the myths about Christianity that she is now helping to propagate.