Called Out of Darkness

This book, by former vampire-series author Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire and a number of others, several of which became hit Hollywood movies) chronicles Rice's journey from faithful Catholic in New Orleans' dense and ultra-conservative 1950s Catholic enclave to radical Berkeley-educated atheist intellectual to a devout, albeit socio-politically-at-odds return to faith. It should be an illuminating read for disaffected evangelicals who struggle with faith even as they take refuge in the mysteries of the liturgical church.

On the surface, Rice has little in common with evangelicals. When she was a child, she wanted first to be a nun, then a priest (and was mystified by the prohibition against women priests). Unlike the average evangelical, she never bought the party line on gender. In fact, she was and still is absolutely committed to a genderless priesthood and sits at the very far left on gender-related social issues. Off to college in the 1960s (Berkeley, no less), she found an intellectual community that more clearly reflected her social views, and she walked away from the church without looking back.

The book describes her return to faith, after 35 years as an atheist, which she terms "an act of the will." She felt drawn, she says, by the story of Jesus. The audacity of it. She read the Bible for the first time in her life (pre-Vatican II, Catholics typically kept the family Bible, if they had one, laid out carefully on the coffee table — it wasn't read so much as admired, an icon rather than a resource). She read the scholars (and wondered at how liberal scholars could question the story of redemption she saw so clearly). She read widely, everything from Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life to N.T. Wright and C.S. Keener, crossing denominational and socio-political lines freely.

She describes herself as a "Christmas Christian" — wholly, unreservedly certain of God's Incarnation in Christ and its central importance, if we are to believe he also was crucified bodily in our place, for our sins, and then resurrected to the life that we will share with Him. She also is unreservedly devoted to the Catholic Church, its worship and the iconography that gives it shape. Unlike many cradle Catholics, she was not put off by the changes she saw, despite the fact that she was (pre-Berkeley) raised with the Latin Mass. Surprised by the post-Vatican II Church, she nevertheless embraces the English Mass and accepts all the attendant transformations.

Upon her return, she discovered the Nicene Creed, and marveled at its succinct encapsulation of what she had come to believe. (For the litmus-test crowd, yes, she can say "Jesus is Lord.") She also "prayed, studied, cried" and asked Him for guidance. And what she got was a simple mandate, which she says was a significant turning point in her life, straight from the Sermon on the Mount: That she must love both her friends and her enemies. (How she came to this realization, the subject of Chapter 13, says much about the value of coming to the scriptures wihtout preconceptions.)

What she did not get was a command to abandon her commitment of love when faced with those who live outside the church's declarations on gender roles and sexuality. Her views affirmed at Berkeley remain unchanged. A lifelong Democrat, politically, she says she finds nothing in the Scriptures that has moved her to change her party affiliation or her social views, including her affirmation of gay and lesbian aspirations to marriage and family. But she also allows that, even in the secular world, the jury is still out on what effects such social changes may have. And she allows for the possibility that she is wrong. Further — and this is the salient point — she has purposed to set aside her vast differences with the Church hierarchy on issues of gender and human sexuality. Her return to Christ and to His Church, she insists, is permanent:

Too many make the mistake I made. They leave the loving figure of Jesus Christ because they feel they must leave His churches. I will never leave Him again, no matter what the scandals or the quarrels of His church on earth, and I will not leave his church either.

Noting that it is often more difficult to love one's friends than one's enemies, she says:

I'm convinced it takes immense courage to remain in a church where one is surrounded by hostile voices, and yet we must remain in our churches and answer hostility with meekness, with gentleness, or not at all!

Setting aside what divides us for the sake of love and unity? Allow for the possibility that we might be wrong? Could be an important word for evangelicals. Can we hear an admonition from across the aisle? Of all the things that Jesus could have named in John 13:34 as the way the world would know that we are His disciples, he chose "if you love one another." Radical stuff.

[Note: I suggest reading this post in context. The preceding post sets up a discussion that begins in this post and will continue through the next several. - Mike]