Will Anne Rice be saved?

Anne Rice, the celebrated author of vampire novels who announced her Christian conversion a couple of years ago, has now announced she is turning her back on the Church but still embraces Jesus.

On her Facebook page, Mrs. Rice said:

I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

The fact she begins with “anti-gay” may speak volumes. She is the mother of novelist Christopher Rice, who is homosexual. Many in our society cannot understand how a Christian can assert that homosexual behavior is sinful, while at the same time being entirely loving and supportive of people who feel attracted to members of the same sex. Some of those who don’t understand are unbelievers who see Christians as hateful. Others who don’t understand are Christians who have failed to grasp the heart of their Lord toward sinners — and their own self-righteousness.

More to the point of this blog, however, is the observation of one commentator who wonders what her announcement means in terms of her salvation:

Maybe it’s a permanent move away from the gospel, showing that she never quite made it all the way into communion with Christ. If so, let’s represent Christ and continue to point her to the Jesus she finds in some way mystifying. It could be that Anne is a Christian who is having a wave of doubt and rejection.

No one can know what actually is going on in the depths of another’s heart. No one can know what the Almighty has in store for Anne Rice. And it is possible that Mrs. Rice never actually was born again in the first place.

But it seems entirely inappropriate to second guess her experience. It also is fallacious to assume that if she has moved permanently away from salvation, she was never truly in communion with Christ. Requiring a Calvinist “once saved, always saved” interpretation of Mrs. Rice’s circumstances ignores the clear warnings of Scripture that a person who is a genuine believer can turn her back on Christ, deny him before the world, and be lost in eternity.

I hear what Anne Rice is saying and grieve, but I see no reason to despair that the Lord one day will restore her as he restored Peter after his denial of Christ. I also see no reason to  doubt the sincerity of her original profession of Christ. If she is irrevocably turning her back on Christ, it’s not necessarily because she never embraced him to begin with. To insist on that interpretation is to contradict the witness of our Lord that it is possible to “hear the word and at once receive it with joy,” yet “when trouble or persecution comes because of the word, … quickly fall away.” Mark 4:1-20

Disowning Christ

“Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:33 NIV)

A person may disown Christ actively, by what he does, repudiating the One who died to save him.

Can one also disown Christ passively, by what he does not do? Is it apostasy when we fail to bear witness, to be fruitful, to make disciples? Or is that active disobedience, our refusal to obey a direct command?