Thanks…your review sold me. I don’t usually have time these days for fiction but I’ll make time for this book.

I’m so excited to read this book – after reading the first book I’ve been eager to know more of her vision of the possibilities of Christ as a fully human young man who is also the Savior. Have always loved her writing – thanks for posting this – and how cool is it that you got to talk with her.

I have a large lump in my throat about this David. How is this not just “Interview with a Messiah?” Jesus and Avigail, instead of Lestat and the Talamasca? I am every bit the Evangelical, Conservtaive, Born-Again, Bible-believing Christian that so many in the press so flippantly toss around as a “label,” with the exception that the liberal media have no clue that we actually think things through as a matter of intellectualism. Every Evangelical Christian I interact with, which has been many from coast to coast, are well aware of the fact that Jesus was “tempted” in every way that we are. And there are already MANY books in Christian book stores that do not ignore that fact. Why the need for another temptation treatise? Titillating novels are – all puns aside – a dime a dozen and obviously common and typical. Shouldn’t Mrs. Rice use her powers of scribe to better use by engaging in apologia and not just another “product” offering?

Donny,
I couldn’t agree more.
Any orthodox (small “o”) Christian, regardless of denomination, is well aware that Jesus confronted three temptations in the desert that were far greater than any sexual temptation might be, and also, as you said, being fully human as well as fully God, probably confronted the every other temptation as well.
I still have hope for Anne Rice, though. Just waiting to see it fulfilled.

I read this book in 2 days & loved it.
Her book supports everything the Bible teaches & tackles an issue that is hard for many to understand. Although He is God, He was born as a Human. Anne does a great job of exploring these issues & telling a story of what it could have possibly been like for Him.
Her book is different then others, because it explores the ideas of what Jesus would have been thinking as He encountered other people in His everyday life.
Overall I found the book to be a respectful & loving look at Jesus understanding his role as the Messiah & as God.

The ubiquitous “ness” of the topic, makes running out and buying the book hard for me. And the overall support of Mrs. Rice is something I have great trepidation of. My money going to her cause? What is her cause? She obviously has one. Christians have been writing and preaching on this subject since the founding of the Church. Jesus Himself doesn’t hide the fact about just the nature of man-woman attractions. To be a conservative orthodox “Christian” of the original variety, proclaiming the human nature of Christ Jesus is basci theology. Certainly nothing new and revelatory. Jesus went so far into history as preaching on “our” culture of today. Imagine that. You can’t even drive down a freeway without some beautiful woman advertised in fifty-foot display. And now we have sodomy “proudly” encouraged. Anne Rice needs to be kept in a category of wariness for Christians because the agenda-laden nature of her professional and personal life lends itself to attacking the foundational truths of the Gospel and Apostolic witness. She has the ability to do this in very sophisticated, covert and creative ways. There’s nothing wrong in doubting Anne Rice. That she believes that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah), is nothing that puts her writings into some awe inspiring category. Even the demons knew about the Truth of Jesus, and they, though very real, like fictional vampires, shriek away from the Cross. “My people perish for a lack of knowledge,” says the Lord. “Test all things and hold fast to that which is truth.” Jesus went so far as saying that the enemies of His followers would be found in their own homes, in their own families. Study Anne Rice (and her family) and put everything in proper context. That is a Christian doctrine. David Kuo is a very good man, but when it comes to following a leader, there is only One in the body of Christ. We Christians were purchased at the highest price in all of eternity. We should at least try to value it by contending for it. We are to be wary as serpents being trod upon: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues.” Mrs. Rice has intimate connections to a community (GLBT), that greatly threatens Christian life and freedoms. Ignoring that there are very many “powers and principalities” battling against the Church, is not in keeping with the historic witness of Christian life from age to age. Let us pray that Mrs. Rice can overcome her own temptations to interject all that is wrong in the world today, into her professional work on a subject; that has no end in opinions that are right and those that are wrong. Testing all things, is a proper Christian response to works coming from darkness and into the light.

Donny, what would it take to make you a happy person?

What a beautiful piece. It made my heart hurt a little bit, but at the same time, I was longing for more. The best possible thing a book recommendation can do

Donny,
I suggest you do some research on Anne Rice.
Anne used to be an atheist, but after her husband died, she returned to the church & is now a practicing Catholic. She has stated that she will only write for God & that if she ever does write a vampire novel again it will be vastly different then her past novels & will involve the redemption of Lestat. Also I don’t know how you can sit here & comment on a book you refuse to buy or even look at.
You seem to really be judging her by her vampire novels.
I suggest you go to http://www.annerice.com & you’ll see how drastically she has changed.
I also think how you are going about attacking Anne Rice is very un-Christian like.

“Donny, what would it take to make you a happy person?”
Posted by: John E. | March 6, 2008 10:34 AM
///
John, I am a very happy person when parasites and other false teachers are shown in the proper light. It’s somewhat alarming that one day the story board has vampires and demons as subject matter, and the next day the names are changed to portray a Biblical theme. That’s not interesting to you just a bit? Protecting my brothers and sisters in Christ from those leading them astray is quite the joyous journey. Mrs. Rice may be a sweety, but “testing” what she offers is a mandate for Christian life, written by very weighty testimonies.
Matt, I am well aware of Mrs. Rice’s story. And that of her offspring. It is her “agenda” I am more concerned about. It’ll surface.

Donny – you have fallen into that very, very dangerous trap of confusing political opinions and theological commitment. I challenge you – read the book. If you don’t like it, if, after reading it, you can find it in your heart to continue writing what you write about it – about her – I will personally refund the money. It is a very, very dangerous thing to assume you know someone’s heart – and their writing – without ever met them or read the work. Deal? David

When and if I grow up – I hope I can be as mature in responding to someone as you have just been – it is a very good thing to remind people only GOD knows motivations or intentions. It was a good thing to remind ME at this moment – thank you David.

I heard your review on NPR yesterday, Mr. Kuo, as well as your inteview w/Terry Gros a few months back on Fresh Air. How to put this to you politely, Mr. Kuo? I think you came to understand that the Faith Based Initiatives program was a piece of travesty? Well, I think your comprehension of the abilities of Anne Rice as a writer is a bit of a travesty. I think Anne Rice–well, I have once or twice attempted to read Anne Rice. In my estimation–and my estimation includes an extensive background in Classics (I can read Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, a bit of Russian, German, etc.) religious studies, philosophy, western literature, art, etc.–Anne Rice is a “pot boiler” level of writer. I am well aware how enormously successful she is at her chosen career. I suppose what makes her successful is that her self-selecting readers have less than fastidious tastes in the quality of the writing they read. Why don’t you go out and pick up a copy of a translation in English (unless you are able to read Greek, but given the quality of tastes in what you consider transcendent writing and the quality of your own writing, I rather suspect not) of Nikos Kazantzakis’ “The Last Temptation of Christ.” You may rent the movie if you want (I have not seen), but I earnestly suggest you read what it takes to be a Nobel prize winning author before you decide what is the greatest piece of writing you ever read.
In the future, David, I suggest you not try out as a serious reviewer of books. Unless, that is, you first fill up the apparent vaccuum in your education with having read some serious literature. This, generally, is my quarrel with most earnest Christians: maybe they have or maybe they haven’t read the Bible, but they certainly seem not as a generalized lot of the most of them, read any genuine world class literature.
Thank you, L.S, Jardine, M.A.

Oh, come on, L.S. Jardine in Massachusetts, I’ve read all the Left Behind books!

L.S – Thanks for your comments on my blog. I am not sure what provoked your deep anger at me but I am sincerely sorry for whatever it is I did to upset you. You are right, I am not as learned as you are. I do not know Greek or French or Latin. But as I look through my shelves and shelves of books – at Solzhenitsyn and Shakespeare, at Joyce, Calvino, James, and Welty – not to mention the Greek and Roman classics, I think it is fair to say I am not exactly illiterate. And I think it is important to note that I did not say this was a book for the ages. I didn’t say this was anything close. I said it was an extraordinary book worth reading and it is. It is because it provides a brilliant, humble, original take on the unknowns of Jesus life. I wish you the best, David Kuo

I’ve read four or five dozen Louis L’Amour books. I hope nobody with a Master’s degree ever finds out.

Jardine, the sound a fly causes to happen when it makes an aerial retreat from where it was sitting, is the origin of the term “Buzz Off.” Did you know that?
Often, all a college degree means is that you have read a lot of some parts of some books that an opinionated and usually Humanist-leaning school employee told you to read (or else!) and you passed some tests that garnered you your “degree.” An education can be no more enlightening a process than learning how to thoroughly clean the bowels of the fecal matter that bears a striking resemblence to the “opinions” of so many learned individuals these days. The next day full of crap once more. Nothing more, nothing less. Ad infinitum. That’s latin.
David, I’ll get the book at a library. I do not trust Anne Rice’s “social” agenda and certainly do not want to support it. I smell gay rights coming soon to a novel of her’s in the future. Apples some times hit the ground and roll back against the tree they fell from. I do not question her walk with the Lord, but my spidey senses are tingling.

“To be a conservative orthodox “Christian” of the original variety, proclaiming the human nature of Christ Jesus is basic theology.”
You’re absolutely right. We believe Jesus was (and is) fully divine AND fully human. But one it comes to His human nature, we believe he wasn’t just simply human, but the perfect human, the new Adam.
That’s why this idea that he’d be so strongly tempted by a pretty girl is rather far-fetched.

Jesus would have been very charasmatic. To think that no women would have been interested him would be weird. Of course Jesus wouldn’t have ever pursued anything like that, but that still doesn’t mean that there might not have been women who were interested in Him.
Some of the posts above I sense are harboring a deeper “hatred” towards gays. For example someone’s above reason for not liking the book is because the author’s son is gay.
When are the majority of Christians going to start moving in positive directions like helping the homeless & those in need & being a shinning light!
Instead we have the “gay haters” & those who “stand outside abortion cliincs.” These, “Christians,” are a lousy example for the rest of us.
Yes I believe that Homosexuality is a sin, but that doesn’t make a gay person evil. People sin every day. Moses was a murderer & Noah was a drunk. David cheated on his wife & had an innocent man killed.
But, God still loved these men.

David, I wonder if you could write about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the perniciousness of the gay agenda and the religious right coming up in lurid detail. Maybe if you use grape jelly. No, that’s purple like Tinky-Winky. Strawberry? Oh, bother.

The Lord has really been speaking to me through an old Bobbsey Twins volume. Unfortunately, it’s in Hungarian, which probably puts it beyond the reach of the average neanderthral who posts here.
Canucklehead, B.O., B.S.

Köscönöm, Canucklehead.

Neanderthal, here. Hungarian Bobbsey Twins sounds like porn to me.

Matt,
In the examples you cited, all those men repented for their sins. All christians should be forgiving and not condemn the sins of others. However when gay people persist in, and celebrate behavior that is clearly spelled out as sin they are a long way from being like Moses or David.

As a liberal (or progressive, if you will), I disagree with you on some significant issues. But I find your blog uplifting and a great help as I wrestle with the questions of my own faith. And sometimes, as when I was reading this review, you just down right inspire me. Really not pertinent to this day’s posting, but I thought it would be nice to tell you anyway. Peace.

“When are the majority of Christians going to start moving in positive directions like helping the homeless & those in need & being a shinning light!”
Matt, do you mean like the Bible-believing Conservative Evangelical “fundamentalists” in America have been doing around the world in dangerous and poverty-stricken places for decades?
We Christians wouldn’t have to even mention gays and lesbians, that is to say “homosexuals,” if they would just be decent and just go away and live their convoluted lives in their own communities. Instead they parasitically implant themselves in solid Churches start recruiting, and rant about phobias and bigotry when asked to stop and go and sin no more. You cannot deal with a liberal or “progressive” religioso in any sense without having to deal with their incessant trumpeting of the Humanist Manifesto in place of the Gospel.
No matter what kind of book a leftist writes, it almost always leads down a different path than the one the Apostles were shown to walk and showed us how to walk.
And abortions? It is not the Evangelicals (the Bible affirming kind)that are hiding their heads in the sand. Actually it is the liberals and progressives (Humanists one and all), that are hiding heads. But they are not their own. Here’s a fitting perspective on how to deal with those inserting liberal and progressive views into the Christian community:
“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.”
That pretty much sums up the three hot political issues of The Left. And of course there’s the threat Jesus issues to people that would lead children into sin. It precedes what I just presented above in Matthew 18. Prediction about GLSEN and PFLAG? It sure looks eerily appropriate to what’s happening today. History repeating itself.

“When are the majority of Christians going to start moving in positive directions like helping the homeless & those in need & being a shining light!”
Same question could be asked of Muslims, Jews, etc. How come it never is? These are religions that also include charity as a great virtue, and yet, no one ever asks questions like this of them.
Come to think of it, no one ever complains about less-than-perfect Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, New Age adherents, etc. They only complain of less-than-perfect Christians. Why are we held to such a higher standard than the rest?
The only answer that I can think of is this: we are held to a higher standard, because Jesus was (and is) of a higher standard than the rest. He wasn’t just another guru, another teacher, another rabbi. He’s something else completely. And I think people sense that. And it makes them really, really uncomfortable.

In the NPR piece, you said Rice’s book is a “really brilliant refutation of the Dawkins of this world,” but you didn’t say anything about how this is a refutation. I’d be interested in hearing more.

I have read some of Ms. Rice’s work and find her to be the literary equivalent of a Big Mac.

I am done with this chat room.
The converstation has gone away from the book to one person’s deep seeded hatred towards gay people.
As a straight man who is comfortable in his sexuality, I don’t have the need to carry on this conversation.

I am excited about a book that will direct people to Christ of the Bible. He is so contrary to our world — his desire to uphold Old Testament morality is only eclipsed by his desire to blow the Pharisees away in His desire to show grace. But, most of all, I am excited to read this book because of Rice’s portrayal of his great faith in God, the Father. The one thing that Jesus is MOST impressed by in the Gospels is when Jews and Gentiles alike have faith in His power in their very personal, life or death situations. This is the greatest test of an individual. And Jesus looked at each person’s deepest sin and challenged them — Nicodemus thought good works were enough — Jesus revealed his arrogance, the woman at the well thought she could find fulfillment in sex, He showed her how only He would fill her need to be loved, and Paul revealed the sin of the Pharisees by showing how they were indeed, the older son who never repented in the story of the prodigal son.
I llok forward to a book that might show the humanity of Jesus. He was fully human and fully God at the same time. This is something James Joyce could not comprehend. Neither can Dawkins or most of those who think they are “found” in this country. especially me.

I think I understand the emotional stuff that Andrea’s saying, but I’m still very curious about the comment that Rice refutes Dawkins.

Lord, have mercy. I’ve been away for awhile. David writes a lovely piece about a book he finds to reflect the Gospel – and the attack dogs strike. Donny, you will be happy only if those that you consider evil or wrong are sufficiently punished – well that’s not exactly the Gospel.
Canucklehead – the Bobbsey twins is one of my earliest reading memories. I have a first edition. Nan and Bert, Flossie and Freddie – is that right.
Doug – Zane Grey certainly reflects the moral view of many on this blog. Except with panache and a western twang – I have family members who have lived their lives in imitation of a mythic Zane Grey universe
I’ve started reading Mrs. Rice and find that her work is quite amazing on many levels. She is a seeker and it shows.
I don’t think she refutes Dawkins – find him rather full of – well – full of it. Spring break is coming up, I”m going to read a bit of Anne Rice and some trashy murder mysteries and perhaps something really pretentious. Proust or Hesse or something equally “literary”. Suspect, I’ll get the most out of Rice and will enjoy the murder mysteries. Heck, it’s spring break – forget the Proust.

Over Spring break, I too am going to get me into some heavy reading. First, it’ll be the Danny Orlis series. Then I’ve emptied the local library of The Hardy Boys. But the one I’m really looking forward to is Left Behind, Part CCMXXXLII: The Anti-Christ Earns an M.A.

Matt, don’t let someone like Donny keep you out of potentially interesting and enlightening conversations that occur on this blog. His sad obsessions are his own problem; ignore him and the nonsense he spews.

Yeah, right. Buy the book. Whatever.
What evidence do we have that Rice has really reformed? I’ve not seen a single interview where she’s offered to donate the profits from her pornography, or even indicated that she’s taken steps to stop it from being published further. (For those who don’t know, Rice has written and made substantial profit off of a series of perverse pornographic books involving extra-marital sex and adultery, sadism, homosexuality, and a few “isms” that don’t even have diagnoses under the name “A. N. Roquelaure.”) Is she donating those profits to charity? To groups fighting the mainstreaming of pornography? To the Courage Apostolate? To groups helping people get free of pornographic addictions? To the efforts to preserve traditional marriage. To ANYTHING remotely Catholic?
I’m not remotely convinced she’s really Catholic. I’ve seen no interview where she talks with regret about how she’s helped lead others to sin, or even acknowledged how directly opposed to Catholicism much of her work (from which she’s still getting revenue) has been. Her “conversion” just looks like more exploitative egotism. If anybody has evidence to the contrary, i.e. that she’s been speaking out against homosexuality or pornography, I’d love to see it, but, it she is trying to reform, she’s certainly not talking about it as much as she is trying to sell her “religious” books.