Anne Rice: “Some of us don’t want to be thrown down the stairs by the followers of Christ”

Listen to our interview here!

About a week and a half ago, celebrated novelist Anne Rice made waves – first on Facebook and Twitter, then in international media coverage – for quitting the Christianity that she had joined about a decade before. Quoth her Facebook page:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Holy Explosive Declarations, Batman! This all sounded familiar, as she’d denounced atheism half a decade previous with similar passion and articulation. I should know – I was there. Five years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Anne for Relevant Magazine after her profession of Christian faith and the launch of her Christ the Lord novel series. She was in nearby Birmingham, Alabama, for an incredible night of conversation with a priest, a rabbi, and a Baptist pastor. (The feature article was never online at Relevant, but an unabridged version can be read at the Burnside Writers’ Collective site.)

So naturally, with the impact of her current declaration, I couldn’t resist catching up with Anne and asking her what’s changed since we last spoke – and what’s stayed the same. You can hear the results of this far-reaching conversation right here on Homebrewed Christianity.

Let me know what you think!

(Two details: Our interview starts at the 7:40 minute mark, though the witty introductory repartee between Chad Crawford and Ryan Parker is definitely worth listening to. Also, I committed a significant faux pas in my fast-talking introduction to Anne before our interview; I mistakenly identify her current Angel Time series as her “return to vampires.” This is not the case; its a metaphysical thriller involving angels, but not blood-suckers. Sorry.)

I’m no Anne Rice, but you can follow me on Twitter @zoecarnate and on Facebook here.

Thank God for Evolution?

Spencer Burke interviews my friend Michael Dowd on his ground-breaking (and controversial!) book Thank God for Evolution. The science/faith debate has been raging since at least the Scopes Monkey Trial & is unlikely to go away anytime soon. With that said, Dowd offers us some fresh new perspectives. Check it out in HD & get the show notes here!

Here’s a video excerpt from one of Michael’s typical ‘evolutionary evangelism’ services…

Elevating the Conversation Between the Church and the Gay Community

This two-part Think:FWD interview between Spencer Burke & Andy Marin (author of Love is An Orientation) is a must-see.

Part 1 –  Loving Your Gay Neighbor

Part 2 – Elevating the Conversation Between the Church and the Gay Community

Urban Justice & Youth Ministry: Alexie Torres Fleming

Get the HD quality video & show notes here.

PS: Do you Twitter? Let’s follow each other! I’m @zoecarnate

Diana Butler Bass: Looking Into Christianity from a People’s Perspective

In case you missed this –Diana Butler Bass discusses her significant new release A People’s History of Christianity with Spencer Burke!

Get the HD quality video & show notes here.

PS: Do you Twitter? Let’s follow each other! I’m @zoecarnate

DJ Hapa – Preaching Remixed

Get the HD quality video & show notes here.

PS: Do you Twitter? Let’s follow each other! I’m @zoecarnate

The Mystery of Music – Don Chaffer

Have you heard the new Waterdeep album yet? It’s a-mazing.

Get the full-length HD quality video & show notes here.

PS: Do you Twitter? Let’s follow each other! I’m @zoecarnate

TheOOZE.tv has launched

Behold:

More to come at TheOOZE.tv

Unleashing Creativity – A Podcast with Teel Montague

Do you get the Oozeletter? If not, you really should. Each month, you get a fresh serving of all that is Ooze-y around the globe.

This month, TheOOZE features a podcast interview of Teel Montague conducted by yours truly and Brittian Bullock. Here’s what Brittian has to say after our time with Teel:

Creativity, artistry, imagination, experiment have been powerful metaphors in my life lately. While I’ve always been one of those people who have been encouraged to pursue my passions by my family or others around me, I’ve also gone through phases in my life where my environment squelched all practical expression of creativity. I think of the 6 years I worked at UPS, crunching numbers, sifting through the mindless mundane, hearing corporate mantras. It’s not so surprising that those were the least experimental and most fundamentalist years of my life. In my present primary work at a local college, I’m surrounded by people who encourage expanding horizons and exploring new opportunities. I’m hardly surprised that a more generative season of life has set in.

Still, as one reader recently commented on my Church as Art, Community, and Transformation article, there are always those rare folks who can weather incredibly repressive external situations that should squelch creativity, but end up simply unleashing it. Those are the people who I admire at the end of the day.

raw_250X250A();

Mike Morrell and I had the opportunity to interview just such a hero recently for TheOOZE community — her name is Teel Montagque. Teel is an image creator (painter/drawer), musician, designer and inventor. She extends her craft to children that have emotional and behavioral disorders, and she’s a single mother of teenagers.

As she describes on the podcast, she’s gone through a divorce, ending a long-term marriage. She’s a business owner, trying to ride out a plummeting economy. Needless to say, she’s facing some incredibly stifling life circumstances. But somehow…somehow…it’s producing a deep sense of creativity and renewal. She’d never recorded an album before, but felt it was time. She took a collection of songs that had been rumbling around for decades, added some new ones that had emerged in the recent turmoil, and opened up her heart. She also invented a sleek protective skin for iPods called the Eye Ghost…she designed it, created some crazy space age material for it, and put it on the market. It’s doing very well in Atlanta, and now other markets. This is incredible to me!

So please – join Mike and I in conversation with this remarkable woman, and let your own creativity be stirred. It’s never too late to allow Spirit to channel something new in you. The only time we have is now.

DOWNLOAD THE PODCAST BY CLICKING HERE

Three Must-Listen Podcasts

I love me some podcasts. I know some people say they’re so 2004 (or at least 2006), but c’mon – do I really have time to watch a ton of videocasts? Nosiree. So I’ll still listen to my MP3 wonders. Some of my faves are here, but this week several have surfaced that deserve special note:

Andrew Jones is on the Something Beautiful Podcast! I haven’t heard Andrew’s voice in nearly six years, when I was with him as a wee lad exploring the hinterlands of England. He shares his riveting testimony here, how Jesus wrecked him and why ‘church’ isn’t attractional or rocket science, but beautifully subversive and a party. Encouraging listening.

Dave & Dave on Steve Brown on atheism, losing and finding faith.I’ve blogged about both Daves Schmezler and Sanford, and their awesome books Not the Religious Type and If God Disappears, respectively. They come together here on my favorite Calvinist’s radio show/podcast, Steve Brown Etc., sharing their stories of atheism, exploration, faith, dark nights of the soul, developmental stages…good stuff.

And finally on Homebrewed Christianity: my main man Tripp Fuller interviews one of the best singer-songwriters ever, Bill Mallonee (of Vigilantes of Love fame) about music, lyrical honesty, art, and eucharistic spirituality. His transition from 20 years of house church fellowship to Catholicism is particularly fascinating to me, though they talk about far more than that. (Tripp, how ’bout getting Joseph Arthur on the show next??)