What it means to be a Christian, part I

Author Ann Rice has announced on her Facebook page that she has quit being a Christian. Her reasoning is as follows:

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.

Understandable objections, although perhaps the problem may be that she is just hanging around with the wrong bunch of Christians. I personally know many Christians who are not anti-gay, anti-feminist, or anti-science. It is interesting to hear this announcement from Rice just days after the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the US, formally and publicly welcomed gay pastors into the denomination. Of course, what it really boils down to is that "Christian" is a label, and like a lot of labels you can still be a person of faith whether you call yourself a "Christian" or not. She apparently hasn't given up on her faith, stating that she "remain[s] committed to Christ as always."

Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal church has, meanwhile, presented a different vision of what it means to be a Christian than the one that Ann Rice describes, in a sermon published in the UK newspaper The Guardian. Schori states that "We must challenge the human tendency to insist that dignity doesn't apply to the poor, or to immigrants, or to women, or Muslims, or gay and lesbian people."

That's a vision of Christianity that I can live with.