Novelist Anne Rice posted a message on her Facebook page last week saying “I quit being a Christian.”
Best known for her Vampire Chronicles series, Rice’s reasons for leaving the church are not so much spiritual as secular. She used her Facebook status to directly tell her fans, “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 returned to Catholicism in 1998 after leaving the church when she was 18 years old. While there has been criticism from the religious press, Michael Rowe at the Huffington Post believes she has never been more of a Christian. He writes, “The undeniable fact is that the decision of this sensitive, passionate, and devout woman to leave Christianity is one that Christ himself would likely understand, even applaud.”