I have noted in several prior posts author Anne Rice's recent decision to leave Christianity yet not abandoning her reverence of Christ. The Christo-fascists and others have tried to beat her up on the issue. Bob Felton at Civil Commotion notes that she's in pretty amazing company in terms of disdaining the toxic, hate generating cult that Christianity has become for many of its alleged adherents. Here are a few who Bob identifies as being of the same mindset as Rice. It is indeed, good company:*
[Anne Rice] thinks the world of Jesus but don’t, by golly, call her a Christian. She’s in good company.
•Thomas Jefferson famously decided that Bible needed some improving, edited out all the crazy stuff, and re-ordered the red-letter parts, creating what is now known as the Jefferson Bible. He approved mightily of Jesus, but was relentlessly contemptuous of the churches.
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•Friedrich Nietzsche’s Antichrist is probably the last thing that need ever be written on the subject of Jesus and the churches that exploit his name. He, too, admired Jesus — but as for the churches: I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,–I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race.
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Ray Bradbury assumed a stance similar to Rice’s: Bradbury doesn’t call himself a Christian, but says “Jesus is a remarkable person” and considers him a wise prophet like Buddha or Confucius.
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•Gandhi: I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
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With company like that, Rice - and others who adopt her stance - ought to be flattered, not embarrassed. As for the Christianists who have denounced Rice, it is they, not Rice and others like her, who will be responsible for the ultimate death of Christianity.
[Anne Rice] thinks the world of Jesus but don’t, by golly, call her a Christian. She’s in good company.
•Thomas Jefferson famously decided that Bible needed some improving, edited out all the crazy stuff, and re-ordered the red-letter parts, creating what is now known as the Jefferson Bible. He approved mightily of Jesus, but was relentlessly contemptuous of the churches.
*
•Friedrich Nietzsche’s Antichrist is probably the last thing that need ever be written on the subject of Jesus and the churches that exploit his name. He, too, admired Jesus — but as for the churches: I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,–I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race.
*
Ray Bradbury assumed a stance similar to Rice’s: Bradbury doesn’t call himself a Christian, but says “Jesus is a remarkable person” and considers him a wise prophet like Buddha or Confucius.
*
•Gandhi: I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
*
With company like that, Rice - and others who adopt her stance - ought to be flattered, not embarrassed. As for the Christianists who have denounced Rice, it is they, not Rice and others like her, who will be responsible for the ultimate death of Christianity.
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