Anne Rice e-mailed me...

By Matt C. Abbott

Author Anne Rice e-mailed me in response to my July 30 column. She wrote: "Forgive me but Michael Rowe says it all better than I can. Thank you for addressing the issue on your Renew America blog."

I responded: "Well, forgive me, but Michael Rowe writes like a typical left-wing 'holier-than-thou' anti-Christian bigot. It's funny how some who preach tolerance end up exhibiting the most intolerance."

Rowe's July 30 commentary, which appears on the conservative-bashing Huffington Post website, begins:

Ironically, author Anne Rice may have been more of a Christian yesterday than she ever was, when she announced, on Facebook, that she was quitting Christianity and renouncing any claim to the title 'Christian.'

Rowe then goes on to caricature faithful Christians, who hate the sin but love the sinner, as hate-mongering bigots, the likes of Fred Phelps.

Writes Rowe:

[Anne Rice's] son, bestselling author Christopher Rice, is an outspoken and articulate gay rights activist and crusader.

What must it have been like for Anne Rice to watch and listen as her community of believers spent tens of millions of dollars in California making sure that her son remained a second-class citizen, denouncing LGBT Americans in the vilest, cruelest, ugliest terms, bookended with hearty 'Amens?' How could she have listened to the hours and hours of gratuitous cruelty and hatred from the various churches and the politicians they've purchased for forty pieces of silver in adjusted dollars and not wondered who these so-called Christians were, and how it was — given their bigotry and rage — that she shared a title with them?

At the same time, how many Christian mothers have turned their backs on their LGBT children and cast them out like tragic mistakes, or, worse, embraced them with a toxic, bloody, pitying, non-affirming love that made it clear to their children that they believed they were damned?

Of course, Rowe — not Sacred Scripture or the Church — knows what differentiates a true follower of Christ from a bigot:

Like Rice, our belief in the purity of Christ's teachings has chained us to a body of believers who no longer represent anything of what we believe, and indeed represent the very opposite of what Christ's teachings are. There seems precious little Christ in Christianity as it's understood in America today.

Ah, I get it. A true follower of Christ, according to Rowe, tolerates and even embraces sodomy (and presumably doesn't vote for Republicans, unless said Republicans are pro-abortion and pro-sodomy). In that case, St. Paul obviously wasn't a true follower of Christ; he was a bigot, just like the rest of us who support the divine and natural law.

Rowe's last paragraph is almost vomit-inducing:

Whatever backlash Anne Rice might eventually receive from her Christian readers, or from the Evangelical establishment itself, 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, even as He would likely weep at the holocaust of hatred, bigotry, and collateral carnage that has devolved from the grimy, shopworn religion to which His glorious name has been affixed.

If an avowed atheist happens to write a commentary in defense of Rice, I probably won't bother responding. In fact, I have more respect for the atheist than for someone who asserts that Our Lord "would likely understand, even applaud" Rice's decision and "likely weep" for those of us who actually support His law, clearly articulated in Scripture and Church teaching.

Bottom line: If you support sodomy and/or legalized abortion, don't claim to be a follower of Christ. You're not. Call yourself a secular humanist and call it a day.

© Matt C. Abbott