Disappointed with Church

A famous novelist made news last week when she announced she was quitting Christianity. Anne Rice was already well-known for her seductive vampire novels, like Interview with a Vampire, when she announced in 1998 that she was returning to her childhood faith, Catholicism. She began to write novelized accounts of New Testament stories as a way of reflecting her new found faith.

Recently, a friend apparently called her attention to the hateful rants of some angry online preacher in Minnesota. He hates gays and despises Muslims, and tried to find some lesson in the fact that Muslims hate homosexuals too. Ms. Rice was so offended that she wrote about how hard it is to belong to a church that's so full of contempt for groups of people. A day or two later on Facebook, she announced she would continue to admire Jesus, but that she was done with His Church for good.

I can sympathize with Anne Rice. I am often offended by the comments of some of the fringe people who say they are followers of Christ. Most Americans are now aware that those cruel, scowling hate mongers who protest at US military funerals not only profess to be Christians, but Baptists as well! Frankly, those strident zealots have nothing in common with me except that live in America.

But when people write off the Church because of the behavior of a few, they are revealing a lot more than they intend. I am ashamed of some of the things my fellow Americans say and do, but I would never renounce America and move away because a few head cases make outrageous remarks. Sometimes I even disagree with comments made by our Presidents, but people in America are free like that. If I should ever discover that large numbers of Americans were organizing to harm one population group or another, I would fight that conspiracy until my dying breath. But nobody can stop their fellow countrymen from expressing their ideas- even stupid ones!

That's also true of the Church. In order to guarantee freedom of religion for all, no one has federal authority to say which group is really a Christian church, and which group is simply a fringe, hate group. Even within most churches and denominations, no one has the authority to go around expelling counterfeits, hypocrites, and evil members of the Visible Church! Jesus made it clear that there will always be tares (weeds) growing up alongside the true believers in the Church. They won't be separated until the End. We would probably never uproot them all, and we'd become suspicious and hateful by trying so hard.

Jesus tells us to be discerning. "You will know them by their fruits," he counsels us. In other words, before I assume someone is actually a part of the Church of Jesus Christ, I should examine the results of his life and words. If someone's life and words are not Christlike, he is not a reflection of Christ or His Church. I don't need to leave the church to get away from him. He doesn't belong!

I'm sorry Anne Rice has hit this stumbling block in her search. I wish her well and I hope she'll keep looking to Jesus. It probably feels purifying and cleansing to make dramatic public statements about evil people who hate in the name of religion. But if Ms. Rice will keep looking, she will eventually find a group of New Testament believers who love Christ with all their hearts and their neighbors as themselves. She will find a true welcome there, and that bond of community will feel even more satisfying and wholesome than all those verbal hand grenades she was lobbing at the Church last week.