Rebuttal to Renouncing Christ

A fellow blogger whom I follow regularly and highly respect his point of view; wrote a blog which I must reply to. For me, being a Christian myself, I feel it will haunt me if I don’t write it down and release it to the universe. I hope he will excuse me for borrowing his line.

This is in no wise meant as a put down to my friend. It is just me giving my point of view as he gave his. I hope he doesn’t take this personally.

The title of his blog was, Renouncing Christianity. In it he included a statement written by Anne Rice and posted on Facebook which reads:

“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” – Anne Rice

I am an old time gospel preacher and a fundamentalist at that. So, at the risk of sounding judgmental, it appears to me that Ms. Rice has missed one very important point. She didn’t become a Christian by being those things she now refuses to be. If she is, or ever was, a Christian, she became one by believing in Jesus Christ as her Savior and living her life by the example that he set for us.

Jesus told Satan, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) When he said every word, he meant every word. Man has not been given the privilege to pick and choose the words of the Lord and accept the ones that sound good to him; and reject those that offend him. It is true, Jesus spoke words of love and gentleness and meekness and kindness; but he also spoke words of rebuke and rejection. He once told Peter, one of his staunchest followers, “Out of my sight Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you don’t have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Matthew 16:23, NIV) Peter later became one of Jesus’ most faithful disciples.

Those words that Jesus spoke that hurt us are meant for our good just as the good words he said. The gospel is meant to expose our faults and our sins and help us to repent of them. Jesus’ goal is to have everyone saved from their sins.

The way we live our lives that pleases God is for us to believe and live by his word. Christians are supposed to take their stand for the things that God stands for and against the things that God is against.

God told Isaiah, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! (Isaiah 5:20–21) Look around you and see what has come from secular humanism. It sounds to me like God himself is anti-secular humanism.

Wake up and smell the roses Ms. Rice. You can’t see the forest for all those trees.