{"id":1324,"date":"2010-07-31T11:50:04","date_gmt":"2010-07-31T18:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=1324"},"modified":"2010-07-31T11:50:04","modified_gmt":"2010-07-31T18:50:04","slug":"on-anne-rice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2010\/07\/31\/on-anne-rice\/","title":{"rendered":"On Anne Rice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novelist Anne Rice, who had famously converted to Catholicism, has issued\u00a0the following statement:\u00a0 “I refuse to be anti-gay … to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control … to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism … to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.” <\/span><\/p>\n

When I first read this statement, it really hit me hard. I refuse to be all those things as well! (Well, I’m not really sure what she means by “anti secular humanism” — if that means I’m “against” systems that exclude the notion of God, I suppose I am “anti-” that.\u00a0 And I’m not “anti-gay,” although I do hold to a “traditional,” covenantal Christian view of human sexuality…)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Are there days (hours, minutes…) when I doubt, and wonder why I keep identifying with the body of people that sometimes are “anti” all these things — yup, yup, yup. But I identify with Jesus, or better he identified me, and so I’m joyfully part of the mixed up mess that is his body in this world!<\/p>\n

And this is what I really don’t understand about Rice’s statement: many Christians have managed to find other Christians with common sentiments — heck, I’ve earned a theological credential in a seminary that, Praise the Lord, takes this kind of concern seriously! Why couldn’t Rice have done the same thing? I teach in a Catholic school, and those of my colleagues who are serious Catholics, including our campus Priest, aren’t anything like what Rice describes — not even close! (Well, a few of the really devout Catholics are “anti-artificial birth control” but for some very serious theological and spiritual reasons that I’m not going to rail against…)<\/p>\n

Anyway — it seems to me that Rice could have just picked up an issue of Commonweal or Sojourers and many of her worries would have been put to rest, or at least she would have found some food for spiritual thought.\u00a0 \u00a0That, I don’t get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Novelist Anne Rice, who had famously converted to Catholicism, has issued\u00a0the following statement:\u00a0 “I refuse to be anti-gay … to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control … to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism … to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-lm","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}