In July, Rice decided she had had enough. She announced her decision 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.”
But, the decision wasn’t an easy one.
“It was very painful,” Rice tells NPR’s Michele Norris. “But I’ve always been public about my beliefs, and I’ve always been public about wanting to make a difference.”
“And frankly,” she continues, “after doing it, I felt sane for the first time in a very long while.”
Although there is little to go on and, taking into account NPR’s anti-christian and pro-homosexual bias, it seems that Ms. Rice wants Jesus and Christianity to conform to what she thinks they ought to be rather then being transformed herself. In other words a “me” centered faith.
Frankly, with what I have experienced in the church, with clergy and laity some times acting worse than 3 year olds jacked up on juice and cookies being chased by mad hornets, I can empathize with her. In fact, after 10 years of slogging it out inside the Institution I am much happier serving Jesus non-parochially in a secular job with non-church types. However, I am not about ready to give up regular fellowship and worship with a body of believers. While my time “officially” with in the Church was what it was, God has helped me see that there is church that is not “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious,…” The challenge is to trust the local church again and give and receive from the Body mutually with the occasional 3 year old outbreaks included. 🙂
It’s the “Jesus in the mirror” syndrome. Nothing new, nothing profound.
As the leader of a seeker-targeted church I hear this a lot. We get a lot of people who are not only burned out on churches, we also get people who say they are “church-shopping” (though at times it looks more like church-hopping, moving away from one problem polace or another).
Reminds me of the old saying, “If you’re looking for the perfect church to join, just remember as soon as you do, it won’t be perfect any longer.”
Meh.
This is about deciding that those Christians out there have sullied the name of Christ and aren’t nearly as good as oneself. ; > )
All Christians go through that kind of pride in one degree or another: “Lord, why have you stuck me with all of these nincompoops and buffoons?” And then one day you recognize that you’re a nincompoop and buffoon.
Or . . . you don’t.
We’ll see which choice Ms. Rice makes.
Although I must say . . . announcing [i]publicly[/i] that you have been shocked shocked shocked that you have been stuck with all of these nincompoops and buffoons and that you therefore cannot sully yourself further with them, but now are retiring to just be with you and Jesus is certainly an interesting decision.
Well at least she didn’t decide to go off and start her own church like some other notable Catholics … Sinead O’Connor and George Stallings come to mind … it’s at least a small blessing.
Yet. I’m sure that what with the fictional background, there’s an opportunity just waiting for vampiric christianity to flourish and no doubt it will arise from the swamps of pseudognosticism such as this.
Watch out rabbits!
Well, who cares that a Vapidity has fled a Complexity? Her announcement is mere exhibitionism, one more example of a social curse that has marked this narcisssitic culture for forty years. And she remains attached to Christ. Really. How often have we heard this now, that the speaker is a believer in Christ without believing anything specific. Larry
Larry, let’s not forget she is your sister, or at least, God has invited her to be your sister. Her fate, her eternal destiny, and those of the seekers who live in and around whatever church you attend, are at risk. As it’s been said before, if her soul matters infinitely to God, it should matter to me.
If God can bear all our world’s religious denominationalism – the whining, moaning, arguing, taking one another to court, and even violence done to one another claiming justification on theological grounds – without wiping us from the slate of creation, should we not see forbearance of one another as our first duty as children of God?
I confess that I sympathize with her. How does one embrace a religion that seems to reject one’s child?
#11, your rhetorical question is a tired old canardian.
#12 Does that mean the question is from Canarda? 🙂
#11, by doing even the most elementary research and reading what that religion ACTUALLY TEACHES about homosexual acts and those who are attracted to the same sex.
Bless your kind eart, Dove, but she is NOT my sister – thank Heaven – because I wouldn’t let her in my house. To be sure, she is my neighbor, and I follow C.S, Lewis’ understanding of the second law which is like unto the first, that is, I wish her well, as I wish myself well. But this DOESN”T deal with the real world around us, and what American society doesn’t need is an increase in religious frauds, defenders of homosexuality and loud public voices declaring that their motives and manners are right and meet so to do. NO no no no. She is a rich, loud, religious butterfly whose public image can do as much damage to American culture as a Hitchens. Sure I wish her well, but this doesn’t mean that I want her for a neighbor or should let my kids play at her house with her son. No, absolutely not.
Your charity is admirable, but I do not, and others should not, withhold judgment and condemnation of a piece of bad news Like Ann Rice. I’ll say it again: Christ Himself did not hesitate to judge and condemn those who have earned both. Her soul may be infinitely precious to God, but this won’t be sufficient to keep her from the outer darkness, weeping and gnashing her teeth, if God tries her and finds her wanton. I am told on good authority that God sometimes does precisely this. Mercy and love are not sufficient to save those who, knowing the Law, ridicule and deny it. Dove, can it be otherwise? Should it be otherwise? Is God’s mercy such that none will be condemned? Larry
I like Anne Rice. Love the Vampire novels. I really enjoyed the first in her Christ the Lord Series as well. On her website, she has her profession of faith:
Anne’s Profession of Faith
As many of you know, in 1998 I returned to the Catholic Church. After years of pondering and searching, the great gift of faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ, as Our Savior, came back to me on a December afternoon, and I went home to the church of my childhood, becoming a member and supporter of it with my whole soul.
In 2002, I experienced another transformation. While sitting in Church, talking to Lord, I realized that the greatest thing I could do to show my complete love for Him was to consecrate my work to Him — to use any talent I had acquired as a writer, as a storyteller, as a novelist — for Him and for Him alone.
I walked out of the church a changed person. I felt that I had consecrated myself to the Lord in whom I completely believed. Thence began my journey into intense Biblical study, intense historical research, and intense effort to write novels about the Jesus of Scripture, the Jesus of Faith, in His own vibrant First Century World.
Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt, was the first novel to appear. Christ the Lord, the Road to Cana is the second. I hope and pray there will be more.
Though well researched in every historical respect, these novels seek to bring to life for the reader Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and the God who loved us so much that He came to live amongst us for over thirty years before He died for our salvation on the Cross, and rose from the dead.
I offer these novels to all Christians. And I offer them to all those who have ever enjoyed or valued my earlier books. Please understand: they are fiction, but they are fiction that seeks to bring the reader closer to the Lord in whom my life belongs. You will find no watering down of the gospels in these novels. You will find no modern twists. I am a believer in every word of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
I also believe in Christian art — that we can paint pictures, write music, create great films, and write novels about Jesus and that these efforts can serve Our Blessed Lord.
If these novels of mine do not serve Him, if they are not for Him, then they are worthless.
This is my vocation; this is my life; this is the way in which I hope to render unto God a series of books that honors Him as Our Maker and as Our Savior. I am grateful to all of you who are willing to read these books.
http://www.annerice.com/ChristTheLord-Profession.html
Also, First Things did a great review of her conversion story/Christian literature
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/02/in-defense-of-anne-rice
If you are committed to Christ then you are a Christian and are just as stuck with the church visible as the rest of us.
http://www.churchoftheword.net
It seems to me that a lot of people in this discussion are more committed to their church than to Christ and the Church. Peter: do you love me? Feed my sheep. I see little of this sentiment exhibited here. Sad.
Sometimes we forget that the church was not our idea in the first place. Jesus called a group of disciples. He still does.
No, #9, she is not my sister. She is my neighbor, and I wish her well as I wish myself well. This, saith C.S. Lewis is what it means to love they neighbor. But that doesn’t mean that I am obliged to approve of her and what she does. Should I forbear, as #10 says I should? If I do and if I treat her as you ask, then justice is impossible, isn’t it? That is, there can be no justice if behavior is not judged against a steady, established standard. Both merit and demerit count, both in significance and distance from the standard. WE pray “not counting our merits but pardoning our faults…,” but if our merits are not counted, then justice cannot be done, can it? And God, we agree is just. Then he must count our merits. We may be perpetually short, but that’s what his mercy is for. And to tolerate or forbear, even with the most egregious of errors, can only mean that we can never be just.
Is God’s love “unconditional” as we have heard in sundry places? This appears to mean, as universal forbearance implies, that none shall be judged and damned, for His mercy and love will not permit it. But what of people like Rice who, knowing the law, hold it up to contempt and ridicule? And if she does not see the error of her ways, will he, should he, still be merciful? I may wish her well, that is, that she should see the error of her ways and thereby join the prodigal son. And if not?
Tell me now, why should we tolerate her loud exhibitionism, her ignoring what the gospels say about homosexuality, her bullyragging posture. Wish her well? Sure. Avoid judging her behavior? Why? She has been invited to the feast and has found excuses galore. Where would Christ send her? Larry
Although I share her sentiments that Christians are the way she describes, we do have another word for that: sinners. It is precisely because we are such that we struggle in the church.
I don’t think she quite gets it. Although perhaps the nugget of truth she overlooks is that a Christian may love God, believe in Christ Crucified and his presence to the apostles, and not feel the need to call oneself anything more than a Friend of God.
Anyway, I hope she finds the more perfect faith she’s looking for. I’m skeptical, of course. I think that religion is what nailed Jesus on the cross. She thinks she’s discovered something new in her post-Christian sensibility, but it is, rather, more of the same.
Alas, patients sign out AMA. So can Christians. There’s that bit about perseverance that is so hard for us all. May God have mercy on us all!
No, Larry. The shepherd left the fold and went after the single sheep that had wondered away. He didn’t fold his arms and demand superior attitudes and behavior before letting it back into the fold. That would be the proud pharisee in Jesus’ little story.
I can’t express how strongly revulsed I am by the attitude of scorn and dismissal now that this little sheep has left the fold. Please remind me never to visit your churches. I don’t want to darken your shiny doorways.
It’s interesting, because much of the response to her announcement seems to be proving her point. I don’t see this “I’m better than all of you sinners” mindsent ascribed to Rice in her words. I see frustration at all of the anger, divisiveness, bickering and politicizing. Oh yes, it’s there. Perhaps Christians don’t want to admit it because they feel powerless to end it? Or because they contribute to it?
The Institutional Church that we see now is NOT what Jesus founded. It’s like when St. Francis heard a voice from God asking him to rebuild his church and Francis got busy physically restoring a church that had gone to ruin. That wasn’t what God asked. Or when the disciples complained to Jesus that they saw others outside of their company healing and casting out demons in Jesus’ name. They wanted Christ to rebuke these others on the outside and Jesus told them to leave them alone.
Many people are feeling discouraged and frustrated by all of the bickering and divisiveness in the churches these days. Some believe it is a test of the true faith and they must fight for it. Others believe that the Spirit is calling for change, and they’re fighting for that. And some people such as myself are wondering if God is allowing these ruptures because the Insitutional Church has become lost along the way and a new form is sorely needed.
Maybe the future of Christianity lies in faithful, conscientious believers witnessing to and serving their Savior primarily in their daily lives, as revdons describes it. Keeping the faith in our families, instructing our own children, being Christ’s love and hands and feet in a world that sorely needs it. There will always be a place for a physical church but, rather than it being the focus of our faith, perhaps it needs to take a back seat and play more of a supportive, rather than primary, role.
Ooops, obviously “mindsent” should be “mindset.”
And, justinmartyr, I agree with you. Well said!
Oh well Larry, you matter infinitely to God, and so you matter to me too. Though I have to add I think there’s something the matter with your blog entry.
For my part, having no inside info other than the Bible’s guidance, I can say this:
(1) All those who receive him and believe in his name, God gives the power to become children of God.
(2) No one can know what anyone else is really thinking except that person alone, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
That’s why I said she is either my sister (and yours) or she has been invited to be my sister (and yours).
Unless of course you have some way of limiting her invitation into God’s family or you have been given some divine input into knowing the status of her soul. I’m not that powerful, so I’ll just accept that she is, or can be, my sister … just as you are, or can be, my brother Larry.
“…sustained gay allegory”? I haven’t a clue what that is supposed to mean.
Pax,
Chuck
However, #23, what of the case of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and the sheep refuses to return? What then? For such is the case here, is it not? You don’t have to darken my shiny doorways if you don’t want to, but you DO have to see that the case you suppose in your first paragraph is NOT the case at hand. And I put to you again,what of the one who,invited to the feast, does not go for whatever reason. Christ made this case clear, didn’t he?
Are you telling, indirectly, that none, however flagrant, shall face punishment because God’s love will not permit it? I do hope you will answer this question, because the contemporary view that LOVE conquers ALL, is not supported by the gospels. The good parent will allow his love for a child to forgive only so much without punishment. Or do you believe that the French phrase is true, “To understand all is to forgive all.” Do you believe this #25?
Jesus said to forgive 70 times 7. I don’t literally keep track if I’ve reached 490; I don’t think that was the point. Forgiveness is not predicated on understanding — it’s my response to being wronged. It may not be possible to fully understand why one is wronged — you can’t control another person’s circumstances. You can only control your own reaction to it — forgive, as Jesus commanded, or don’t.
RE: “I can’t express how strongly revulsed I am by the attitude of scorn and dismissal now that this little sheep has left the fold.”
I don’t get JustinMartyr’s comment. I see no “scorn and dismissal”. My own comment merely pointed out that all Christians struggle with their fellow believers. Just the way it is.
Further, how has Anne Rice “left the fold”? She appears to still be a Christian [believer in Jesus Christ and His follower]. She’s attempting to separate herself from the fellow humans who also claim the same beliefs and actions. But that doesn’t mean she’s no longer a believer.
Of course, it appears that her real issue is that “other Christians believe things that I don’t believe and I don’t like that they’re Christians.”
Teatime, I always read your comments with interest.
RE: “I don’t see this “I’m better than all of you sinners” mindsent ascribed to Rice in her words.”
Hard for me to respond to that. I certainly see it. But if you don’t I can’t make you.
RE: “I see frustration at all of the anger, divisiveness, bickering and politicizing.”
See — that’s what I *don’t* see. What I see is that she doesn’t agree with other Christians about some particular doctrines, and that irks her. And she doesn’t like it. And she’s “ashamed” that they’re “Christians.”
RE: “Perhaps Christians don’t want to admit it because they feel powerless to end it?”
I don’t have any problem admitting it at all. Sure they’re anger, bickering, politicizing, etc, etc. That’s what happens when a certain type of activists targets an institution for takeover. These things happen, and then division and conflict occur.
Even were certain religious organizations *not* targeted for takeover because of their societal influence, the believers would still bicker and have anger — that’s just the way sinners are.
RE: “The Institutional Church that we see now is NOT what Jesus founded.”
Right — but *nothing* is what Jesus founded or created. Every single institution, person, part of creation is fallen and not as God intended. What are we to do? Refuse to live in the world and retire to our monasteries to pen diatribes against the actual concrete fleshed-out reality?
RE: “Many people are feeling discouraged and frustrated by all of the bickering and divisiveness in the churches these days.”
Agreed — it’s tough and stressful to have the natural conflict that occurs in organizations when two antithetical worldviews clash and oppose one another. But in a way it’s a compliment. Were Christian institutions unworthy of notice, then nobody would care to be a member or a leader intent on taking over an institution such that it could speak for their activism to society at large. It’s actually an honor to be targeted as an institution or company or organization.
RE: “And some people such as myself are wondering if God is allowing these ruptures because the Insitutional Church has become lost along the way and a new form is sorely needed.”
I think new forms are being started every day — house churches are one example. But my own philosophy is that one can run but they cannot hide. The moment the “new form” became influential or powerful, it would become a target for takeover by those wishing to use its influence for their own agenda.
RE: “Maybe the future of Christianity lies in faithful, conscientious believers witnessing to and serving their Savior primarily in their daily lives, as revdons describes it.”
Certainly that’s an option that many have taken. Of course . . . if one does not fight the political battles in various institutions, then eventually even one’s personal and family hopes and choices will be forbidden or severely limited by the hostile institutions. Again, I just don’t think that ultimately one can escape conflict and legitimate real division or political action.
Let me try again teatime to fix the point more clearly. The wedding guest: What did Christ suggest for him, and did he forgive him 70 times 7? Or did he forget the 70 times 7? And the fig tree? Did he forgive it 70 times 7? Or does the 70 times 7 have limitations as a directive because the context never set Christ To spelling them out; for if this is true, then both the 70 and the wedding guest may exist equally.
Or do your entries mean that forgiveness overrides all violation, and that therefore all will be saved, even those sheep who refuse to hear the shepherd – as is the case with Rice. Is this what the gospels tell us? This last question: May I ask you to answer it directly because the notion now is everywhere that God’s love precludes
all harsh judgments, and that none at last have anything to fear of the outer darkness. Rice is unrepentent and her “attachment” to Christ is, as far as I can see, mere words. Does she too have a Get Out of Jail Free card? Shall we forgive Rice? Shall we forgive Shori? And if we do, may we conclude for gospel reasons that God will surely forgive them too? Is there any intransigence sufficiently great that God will not forgive it?
Now, elves, you may accuse me of pushing too hard, but this question really demands a straight forward answer since so much hangs on it. Larry
Hey Larry Morse, I distinguish between forgiveness and consequences. People may be forgiven — and should be — but consequences often follow actions, even when the person has been forgiven for those actions.
Sarah: the 70 times 7 implies that there is no intransigence, however great, that should not be forgiven. Is this really true? If one forgives, then ones removes the stain of the sin that causes the forgiveness. Isn’t that true? Christ’s death was a form of forgiveness, which lifted primal sin. If we are to forgive infinitely, then is not the implication that God will do no less? If he forgives infinitely, then can he condemn the forgiven to the outer darkness? If he can, what is the purpose of forgiving? Can we forgive and then judge and condemn, using your argument, that consequences are SEPARATE from forgiving? If we are forbidden to judge and condemn, then we contradict what Christ himself did and said, and we make justice impossible to obtain, since the power to punish is intrinsic to justice.
Sarah, is it not the case presently that the “unconditional love” thing has created this notion, that NONE will be sent to hell. Nobody says this, but isn’t this notion widely abroad? Isn’t this at the heart of the discussion regarding Rice? (For clearly she is behaving like a two year old: If you won’t agree with me I won’t play in your sandbox?) Isn’t this at last why no Anglican has the will or the courage to declare Schori et all outlaw, that God will forgive her too regardless of her patent sins. Larry
RE: “If one forgives, then ones removes the stain of the sin that causes the forgiveness.”
No, I don’t think so. I would call the latter “absolution” or “justification.”
RE: “If he forgives infinitely, then can he condemn the forgiven to the outer darkness?”
Yes — I think so.
Forgiveness of a sin does not take away the consequences of that sin.
RE: “If he can, what is the purpose of forgiving?”
Release and healing and peace for the forgiver and the *possibility* of reconciliation between the sinner and the sinned against. Obviously that possibility does not always yield fruit.
RE: “Can we forgive and then judge and condemn, using your argument, that consequences are SEPARATE from forgiving?”
Yes — in fact we often do. One may forgive a person who has stolen, but still turn them over to the law for the law to deal with the societal consequences of that thievery.
RE: “Sarah, is it not the case presently that the “unconditional love” thing has created this notion, that NONE will be sent to hell.”
No I think not. Unconditional love often releases and frees the object of one’s love to go off and live with the swine, and even to permanently separate the loved from the lover. God allows us the freedom to not choose Him, even while He loves us.
Sarah, you have answered well. But I wish to ask your indulgence once more:
1.Is it true that there is no intransigence that must not be forgiven?
2. We forgive, not for the effect it has upon the forgiven, but for the effect that it has upon ourselves? This somehow doesn’t square with real effects. If my father forgave me for being a rotten miserable adolescent, is he not lifting the burden of my guilt from my shoulders? If he does not lift the burden, then surely I can not lift it myself. Is not the high purpose of forgiveness the transference of the burden to the forgiver who alone has the power to absorb and transmute the blow?
( I hope the elves will not cut this short. Only Sarah’s responses have made any sense whatsoever.) Larry
RE: “Is it true that there is no intransigence that must not be forgiven?”
Yes — it appears that Holy Scripture is clear on this matter, and Jesus demonstrates that truth in His body for all of us. The *human* impossibility of this for us sinful humans should do nothing but drive us to the cross and Christ for help with this gift of forgiveness for others. Nothing is impossible with God.
RE: “We forgive, not for the effect it has upon the forgiven, but for the effect that it has upon ourselves?”
Yes, I believe so. Recognize that plenty of people may be forgiven [i]without ever knowing that it has occurred[/i]. Children forgive their long-deceased parents. Relatives of crime victims forgive the murderer. Auschwitz survivors forgive their guards.
But recall that I did provide one *potential* benefit of forgiveness for the sinner — and that is the possibility of “peace with man” — reconciliation between the sinner and the sinned-against. Obviously there will be no reconciliation without forgiveness. But there is often forgiveness with no reconciliation on earth.
RE: “If my father forgave me for being a rotten miserable adolescent, is he not lifting the burden of my guilt from my shoulders?”
No I do not think so — [although certainly the forgiven may feel relieved]. Only Jesus has the power and perfection and authority to lift the burden of guilt, ultimately — we as humans *may* act as proctors for that power and authority — but I do not attribute that to forgiveness but as I said above, to absolution declared under the atoning death of Christ on the cross. Only Jesus can lift the burden of sin as the “first source” of grace and atonement.
RE: “Is not the high purpose of forgiveness the transference of the burden to the forgiver who alone has the power to absorb and transmute the blow?”
I think you are mistaking justification and absolution for sins with the internal and personal act of forgiveness. Forgiveness often does not even provide release from guilt for the offender — often people may be objectively forgiven, but be mired in guilt and shame.
I have written a bit about forgiveness on another blog and if you are thinking heavily about this topic I’d be glad to share the essay link with you via Private Message. It may not offer any further light but who knows?
It’s probably best that I bow out on this, since we have strayed so far and the Elves are so vicious and cruel and bloodthirsty over here. I have often had my comments hacked to small tattered remnants of their former selves by those fanged savage creatures.
[scuttling away hurriedly]
Larry,
I’m in total agreement with Sarah. But, more personally, I guess I don’t understand the root of your concerns that people like Rice and Schori are somehow freed from penalty if we simply forgive them. I make absolutely NO claims or assertions about God’s perfect justice and I leave that to Him.
And even at the human level, forgiveness does not mitigate guilt or absolve, as Sarah points out. But justification is not in our hands — it’s in God’s.
Is it possible that we need the forgiveness rather than Anne — for too often being the “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious” people she sees in us? Are we to take to heart nothing of her decision, or her perceptions, whatever our theological and ethical commitments may be? She is hardly alone in these perceptions. I know many others who have drawn the same conclusions.
This is about to die in the archives, so I will make this brief.
Why do we forgive? Sarah suggests that we feel better if we do.
Is this good enough? Or do we forgive for a stronger reason, that, as Christ came to save sinners, our charge is like unto it, so to speak. That is, forgiveness is for those, who, realizing that they have done wrong, receive from those whom they have wronged the relief of being welcomed home, as the prodigal son was, so that they may continue in their proper path; and the knowledge that such forgiveness exists is the strongest incentive to undo the damage one has done. Making forgiveness nothing more that a one way street strikes as failing to meet the essential test of loving one’s neighbor.
Why should one forgive a wrongdoer when this will only encourage him to repeat the offence? Will handing over to the secular arm, inquisition fashion,remedy the wrong? It didn’t work for the inquisition, and the notion that one forgives ( and then has another punish on your behalf) strikes me a simply callous and a failure before the Christian test. Or, justification, whatever that is,being in God’s hands alone, leaves us with no charge to deal with wrongdoers. What good is forgiveness, given out charge, if it has no effect on the criminal? This trivializes the responsibility. Shall we forgive our brother? What is the rest of the context: it is the prodigal son and his return. For forgiveness to become meaningful and significant, it must be a two way street.
Ann rice shows no sign here that she grasps the notion that her behavior is childish and egotistic (besides being offensive to scripture). Forgive her? So I can feel better and calmer and more relaxed? Or to be reconciled to her? Why would I want to do that?
It would require that I agree with her, precisely as Schori does, for reconcilement. I SHOULDN’T want to be reconciled to her. This would make me culpable too. So I forgive her. So what? She doesn’t care. Why should she? Behold: the Schori Syndrome. Have yoju forgiven Schori today. And its benefits are? Forgiving the fox only makes sense if it changes his taste for chickens. Larry
#38 – that was my thought, too. I’ve recently gone though a similar journey to Ms. Rice’s – I gave up going to church because I couldn’t deal with all the BS. I’ve kept in touch with some favorite people, of course, and felt pretty darn smug when I heard about how the BS continued to flow in absence. Go me and my amazing powers of discernment!
Except…I realized that I had become to go-to person for people to complain about the parish, and that my willingness to dive straight into the dish was helping no one and increasing my insufferable smugness. Of course, one of the main things we griped about was the insufferable smugness of others and…OW! What’s in my eye? hint: it’s not a splinter! Hi, my name is Clayton and I’m PART OF THE PROBLEM!
So now I’m looking at making a very, very humbled homecoming. Hopefully someone will see my repentance and kill the fatted donut holes for coffee hour.
RE: “This is about to die in the archives, so I will make this brief.”
Hi Larry — you just repeated all of the false and irrational canards that you said earlier before you and I engaged in a conversation on this thread. This tells me that it’s a personal and highly emotional thing for you, since you’re repeated what’s already been shown to be demonstratively inaccurate.
I am sorry that you are personally struggling with forgiveness of others who must have deeply wronged and wounded you. It looks as if that struggle is bleeding over into your misconceptions about forgiveness and repentance and justification and absolution and reconciliation in larger matters — an easy thing for all of us to do.