Today's "quote" is actually a letter from Rev. Kittredge Cherry (pictured at right) to author Anne Rice (pictured below with her gay son, the novelist Christopher Rice). I've added the images that accompany this letter.
Dear Ms. Rice,I read the news that you quit being a Christian because you refuse to be anti-gay and anti-feminist.
Believe it or not, you can be Christian AND support gay rights and feminism! I’m a lesbian minister and author who blogs about gay, lesbian, bi and trans spirituality and the arts at http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com.
There are thousands of churches around the world that affirm LGBT people. You can find links to them through my website JesusInLove.org.
It sounds like you have made an important transition from being a church member to being a post-institutional, individual follower of Christ. Congratulations. I believe that this is one of the stages of spiritual growth to which Christ calls us.
I feel a special connection to you because, like you, I wrote first-person novels about the life of Christ. I also enjoyed meeting your son when he moderated an authors’ panel discussion on which I appeared as finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.
A book review comparing your Christ the Lord novels and my Jesus in Love novels is available here.Here is an excerpt from the review:
Cherry in essence begins where Rice's narrative ends… Cherry's primary objective is to depict Jesus as fully human in terms of sexuality, while maintaining, as Rice does, that Jesus was not genitally sexually active. Her rational for this, which I find marvelously sensitive and cogent, is that Jesus realizes his divine nature would inevitably produce an "imbalance of power" that would not permit the full and free interaction of "consenting adults" which sanctifies all human sexual interaction. Jesus also recognizes, in Cherry's vision, that he is "married" to the Holy Spirit.
Ms. Rice, I thank you for supporting LGBT people and I hope that you will continue to grow in your relationship with Christ.
Blessings,
Rev. Kittredge Cherry
Recommended Off-site Link:
Novelist Anne Rice Ditches Christianity for Christ - Cathy Lynn Grossman (USA Today, July 30, 2010).
See also the previous Wild Reed post:
The Inherent Sensuality of Roman Catholicism
"It sounds like you have made an important transition from being a church member to being a post-institutional, individual follower of Christ. Congratulations. I believe that this is one of the stages of spiritual growth to which Christ calls us."
ReplyDeleteHi, Michael. Will you and your readers discuss with me what this quotation from Kittridge Cherry means? Does it mean that being an individual follower is a superior stage of spiritual growth? A more advanced stage than the need to belong to a community? I suspect that the growth potential of working within an institution is greater than that of a disengaged individual. Am I wrong?
Thank you for reposting my open letter to Anne Rice -- and for finding the best photos of my book cover and myself.
ReplyDeleteI want to respond to Paula. I did not mean to say that being an individual follower is superior to being a church member. I was thinking of Jesus’ often-repeated command to “Repent!” The Biblical word means to change one’s mind. It seems that Jesus was asking people to undergo a kind of conversion experience in order for God to become real to them. For people who were raised in the institutional church like Anne Rice, this often seems to mean leaving their church of origin or at least rejecting some parts of it in order to follow the second half of Jesus’ command, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
I hope you don’t mind if I share part of your comment at the Jesus in Love Blog for further discussion.