Illumination and Darkness

“One of the things I noticed is that you have a holy imagination,” Reverend Jones said. “Christians since the beginning of the Christian church have written works similar to your novel, works like the Gospel of Thomas, which prompt our thinking. I see your book as an inspiration; we don’t clamp our minds shut and say ‘this is all I’m going to believe;’ we allow our minds to expand. I think that those who read your book are going to have questions - good questions that seek answers.”

“I hope so,” Rice rejoined. “It certainly made me ask a lot of questions about my faith. I originally thought when I started to write this that I wouldn’t have to take a stand on any matter of faith. Then I realized that I couldn’t write a half a page without taking a stand on everything! Saying I do believe in the virgin birth, I do believe Jesus is God, I do believe, all of this. It forced me to a very great conclusion, spiritually. All Christian art does this in a way; you draw really close to your subject matter; you have to! Otherwise, you’re not going to have Christian art.”

It might not seem like a huge gamble in a world filled with best-selling Christian self-help books and top-grossing Christian-themed films, but Rice knew that she would be taking at least two acute risks in putting pen to paper in service of Christian art. For one, she’d risk alienating her fans and mainstream literary critics, who are likely to find creatures who go bump in the night more palatable than what must seem like much more tame and well-worn “religious” terrain. Secondly, she’d risk the ire American Christian subculture itself; all eyes would be watching her portrayal of Jesus, especially in light of her decision to write from his perspective in a first-person narrative.

“You have to risk something to get the benefit. And for me as a writer, it made sense to risk everything.”

A New Kind of Christian?

Rice’s seven-year-old Jesus is divine, but very human. “He grew in wisdom and stature, Luke’s gospel says. We believe this, right? We believe all of this. Well okay, what was this like?” For her, this meant that Jesus willingly emptied himself of divine knowledge, and lived day to day much like a normal boy. This is consistent with the New Testament’s narrative and a bunch of early church creeds, in case you were wondering. When asked if she was tempted to take more liberties in telling Jesus’ story, she replied “I felt the challenge was to take the Jesus that I completely believed in and make him real, and not in any way have a half measure. Visitation by angels, the Virgin Mary…I had to tell it this way, because this is what I believe. And so I had to say, ‘This is going to be real in this book.’ This is real.”

But if her view of Jesus can be painted as “conservative,” the resulting fruit in her life is what some would consider anything but.

“I want to love all the children of God,” she said in a recent interview with her publisher. “Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist - everyone. I want to love gay Christians and straight Christians.”

In making these twin confessions her rallying cry, Rice has gained the reputation of being both historically rooted and generously inclusive in her Christian faith. When we had a moment alone - just me, Anne, and the entourage - I had to ask her: “Do you feel like there is any tension between following the Jesus revealed in the Bible, and embracing people from many religions and lifestyles?”

“I don’t think there’s any tension here,” she replied without hesitation. “I think that’s what Christ told us to do - to love everybody. Jesus said go teach all nations, He didn’t say ‘go teach certain people.’ He put out his arms to the whole world. And he couldn’t have made it clearer in the Gospels, that he wanted to go and reach all people. Jesus didn’t care who he was seen with or where he was seen. He went to where the people were, and he opened up his arms. He was incredibly accepting.”

She later underscored this very point to hundreds of people in the audience - a blend of assembled Christians and curious, Goths and Jewish folk, elderly people and college kids, readers new and old. “For me, the path to serving Christ is through tolerance. It’s through understanding how much other people want to come to God.”

“Ever since the 2004 elections,” I mentioned to her, “I have observed the phenomenon of Christians who are difficult to pigeonhole; people who are committed to Christ but color outside the lines. Spiritually and politically, do you tend to think of yourself as “conservative,” “liberal,” or neither?”

Her response resonated perfectly with what I’ve been sensing about her: “I’m a Democrat and a liberal. But a very conservative Catholic. But a liberal Catholic too…a radical Catholic.” How perfectly Ricean.

Seeing her anew as someone who has been drawn to a radical expression of her childhood faith, I decided to ask her about another kind of conversion. “Your characters - vampires and witches - are pretty far removed from our everyday experience, but they have something in common with all of us: a deep spiritual longing. What do you think is the draw of the occult and Wiccan practices for so many of the younger crowd today?”