Interview with a Penitent (Novelist Anne Rice's renewed faith in Christ)

christianitytoday ^ | Dec 05 | Cindy Crosby/Anne Rice

[churchillbuff]

novelist Anne O'Brien Rice's darkly themed books have sold more than 75 million copies. ... Last summer, Knopf, her publisher, stunned the literary world with its announcement of Rice's newest volume: Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, a novel about Jesus' life at age 7.

"This book means more to me than anything I've ever done," Rice told Christianity Today from her home in La Jolla, California. "I'm not offering agnostic explanations. He is real. He worked miracles. He is the Son of God! And there is so much more to write." ...[snip]In 1998, she came to a crossroads. "I realized I didn't have to find the answer to every question or know who was right on every issue. All I had to do is to love and do my best. The rest he would help me work out."

The tipping point for Rice was a longing to take Communion. Catholics believe Christ is present in the sacraments—that they are his body and his blood. ...Although her husband Stan's atheism had not changed, he readily agreed to be remarried in the Catholic church.

Making All Things New Even before she returned to faith, Rice had pondered writing a novel about Jesus. In 2002, she determined to do it. "I was in church, talking to the Lord, saying, 'I want everything I do to be for you,' " Rice remembers. "Then it hit me: 'It will be for you. All of it. Every word.' "

[aft_lizard]

she still is a far out leftist who thinks homosexuality and the like is ok.

Plus this has been posted a few times already.

[aft_lizard]

Rice's own website, www.annerice.com, is a platform for everything from impassioned updates on the needs of post-hurricane New Orleans to Democratic politics and her views on controversial issues (her son, Christopher, also a novelist, is homosexual, and Anne is "an advocate for Christian and Jewish gays and their right to worship and to take the sacraments").

[fishtank]

Whoa.

WORLDmag conveniently ignored that info in THEIR interview.

[linear]

So, you would have preferred that she never came home again?

[aft_lizard]

If coming home means she still believes in things that mock god then yes.

[linear]

I'd guess that God would be the final arbiter of what mocks Him.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

I can't say that I agree with her on everything, but then again I agree with few on everything and this was an excellent read.

[aft_lizard]

I agree. I think she is a great novelist, I enjoy her books immensely. That doesnt mean however that I agree with her sexual references in the books or political point of view.

[Williams]

It's my impression she's a bit of a kook, maybe a very intelligent one. I'm Catholic, but a study of the history of the early Church, and of Judaism, certainly offers reasons why the Jews and Christians survived. Rice has "discovered" this would have been impossible and the explanation is that Christ rose from the dead. In a sense, because the Christian doctrine of life after death certainly was its biggest selling point.

Note she became a lapsed Catholic and wrote her dark novels after attending a university. She claims existentialism and other philosophies had been "denied" to her as a Catholic. Funny, but as a Catholic I've always been interested in other philosophies and religions. No one was "denying" her anything.

[lawgirl]

Regardless of her personal and political views, I will rejoice that she has returned to God and I hope she has rediscovered the peace, forgiveness and unconditional love that accompany a walk with Christ.

[romanesq]

Agreed. The day someone accepts the Lord is a cause for celebration.
It hardly means their humanity and shortcomings are over, only that the process of a better road traveled.

I applaud her and others who understand and appreciate that.

[I still care]

It took me several years of salvation to understand how evil abortion was. Of course, I was an ignorant kid at the time, but I also remember Jane Roe, when first saved, came out and said she thought abortion was ok in certain circumstances.

Jane Fonda, on the other hand, still seems totally ignorant of Christian doctrine and still espouses causes straight from the enemy.

First comes salvation. If that is genuine, the fruit will come, in time.

[Aquinasfan]

First comes salvation. If that is genuine, the fruit will come, in time.

At least we can hope and pray.

[A.A. Cunningham]

As St Paul tells us, salvation is an ongoing process.

"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more now in my absence,) with fear and trembling work out your salvation. For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. " Philippians 2:12-13

[RobbyS]

She shares the hope, fostered by many "liberal;--and probably homosexual priests, that her son's "sexual orientation" is not fatal to his soul.

[John Will]

Is she in eternal angst over the descion?
I have to put up with the "Ann Rice good angsty mcangst vampire" when playing RPGs.

[Calusa]

I've read and enjoyed almost everything she ever wrote. I got to where I'd look forward to a nice, horrific Ann Rice read every year to get me through the year end festivities.
In the absence of a new Ann Rice novel last Christmas I read a book my Mom had asked me for about a writer's searching for the route of the Sojourn into Egypt. The theme is a new interest in the fields of tourism and scholarship in tracing the route followed by the Holy Family. One thread I could see that might pique and inspire her novelistic interest is that some of the sites and apocryphal writings involved are extensions of Pharaonic Religion that have survived and syncretized into the present through the Coptic Church and currently languish under the thumb of Islam. I just hope that having come to terms finally with the loss of her baby daughter as many as 35 years ago and having returned to the Fold, she has not lost her absolute genius for keeping me on the edge of my seat all night in the throes of primeval terror.

[A. Pole]

Anne is "an advocate for Christian and Jewish gays and their right to worship and to take the sacraments"

Other that the former have to repent and the later have to convert, who would not agree?

[ClearBlueSky]

The woman is SERIOUSLY whacked. Everyone in New Orleans knows she's a weirdo of the first order- and that's saying a lot, considering how much it takes to be labeled a 'weirdo' in these parts.
My opinion- she's made a fortune with Satan, and her wallowing in the dark, evil of vampires. Now she wants to make a fortune off of Jesus.
Yeah- right. Has she thrown away her coffin?
She's like the serial killers who 'find' Jesus in prison. How convenient!