Interesting Question in the New Year

Is it possible to quit being a Christian, but still believe in Christ? I think this is a very interesting question to pose...and I am sorry if I am opening a can of worms with it, but I am as desperate to know the answer to the question as the next guy on the street.
Earlier this year, Vampire Writer Anne Rice announced that she was done with Christianity. On her facebook page, she said: "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. 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."
Rice has been outspoken about her faith in the past. In 1998 she had returned to Catholicism saying she wanted to glorify God in her writing and she stopped writing her vampire novels. I can relate to Rice's predicament, sometimes churches can be a hotbeds of intolerance and cruel condemnation. Unfortunately, these condemning Christians can outweigh the good ones.
Rice is quick to point out that she isn't abandoning religion, just that her commitment to God is as firm as ever. "I want to keep that commitment front and center in my life. But I have to walk away from the churches. The anger and frustration becomes so toxic that you have to conclude this is coming between me and God, and I can't let that happen. I can't follow his followers." Rice says.
So here you go, I agree with this. My anger and frustrations over Christians and their views of how I was living my life cannot and will not interfere with my relationship with God. And that is what it comes down to. I don't want to be part of a world that assumes they know what is going on without any facts to back it up....How does one know the story just by looking at a picture? I am a strong independent woman that loves my children and does everything I can to provide for them. Unless you walk in my shoes, how can you make judgement in the name of God against me...God loves me, why is it so hard for you? Just because I am open to new ideas and like to investigate things, doesn't mean that I don't believe in what the bible says. If educations means not believing in God, then I would hate to believe that God wants us to be ignorant. I have no place for ignorant people in my world.
This is reminiscent of what Mahatma Gandhi once said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Or, in the words of another famous Christian, U2 frontman Bono, who said: "Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit."

My Life in C.H.A.O.S

Wow, it seems like 2010 has just begun and we are already starting 2011. This fast pace lifestyle that has been ushered in only means ones thing in my house: Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome or Chaos. I want to take a moment to examine a certain injustice that is taking place in households across the country. It involves one much hated word…housework. It is very important that I explain something here. I have a four bedroom/ 2 living area house that is home to 1 adults, 2 children, two dogs, and one turtle. There is always an ongoing battle to defeat the ever present dust bunny, monster pile of laundry, and the waste land that is known as the playroom. A very wise man once said, “Housework is what a woman does that nobody notices unless she hasn't done it.” To that comment I say, “Preach on brother.” Another comment comes to mind. If a woman cleans a house and nobody sees it, was it really ever clean? This predicament is a conflict of how do I be a good mother, wife, friend, newspaper editor, marketing director, clubwoman, and all around person in this state of CHAOS?
When I have the answer to that question I will be sure to let you know. I know one thing for sure, getting out of CHAOS doesn’t happen overnight, it takes baby steps, and it also takes the realization that being all the above named things is WAY more important than my house looking like Martha Stewart lives there. I can tell you that this is something that my little organized heart has to take a deep breath over daily.
A very good friend of mine in San Angelo was known for her scatterbrained ways, and most of all the disarray of her home, partially because she had five children all under the age of six. She was an integral part of a ministry I was involved in and she actually wrote a column one time titled, “A friend loveth at all times, except when her house isn’t clean.” She struggled constantly with the idea that she didn’t feel like she could have people over to her home because of the chaos that was always found there. Her dust bunnies weren’t just bunnies, they were things that ate bunnies for breakfast, think full-blown dust wolves.
Her approach to the situation was to take each day as it came and find other ways to minister to people than have them at her home. She didn’t stress over the state of her home, and she was still able to be a good leader.
Now you would think that God in his infinite wisdom would have thought about things like cleaning, but I guess it doesn’t say in the Bible that on the third day God created dirt or the vacuum cleaner. After giving this much thought and contemplation, I figured that the only solution was to move to a completely sterile environment, like one of those white rooms that you see on futuristic movies. There would be no dirt and maybe we could all wear disposable clothing that we could just throw away after we wear them….one can only dream. But until I find that great clean home with no dirt and no chores like laundry, dishes, or horror-of-all-horrors toilet bowls to clean, I will be content to blare my favorite Sheryl Crow CD, pull back my hair and go bunny hunting. Don’t call me a housewife, I prefer Domestic Goddess.