Last week author Anne Rice, who famously penned numerous vampire novels such as Interview with the Vampire, and later wrote about the life of Christ after her conversion, announced she is leaving Christianity. Yet this announcement was not what I initially anticipated. She is leaving Christianity, but she is not leaving Christ. She wishes to continue in her discipleship to Jesus but will disassociate herself from his other followers, who she considers to be “anti-feminist,” “anti-gay,” and “anti-Democrat,” among others things.

As a Christian who does not define myself according to any one of those categories, I couldn’t help but feel I had been unfairly stereotyped. She painted Christians in rather broad strokes, to say the least. However the reason I’m writing about this today is that Rice has voiced a very common concern that most Christians, at some time or another, wrestle with themselves: Disillusionment with the church.

Personally, I struggle with this temptation frequently. It is difficult to see Christians espousing hate in the media and not cringe at your perceived association with them. It is also very hard to witness seeming hypocrisies within your own church, and to remain there with a clear conscience. The church can be the source of very real injury, and that is why many people succumb to bitterness or disgust, and leave.

With that in mind, let me tell you why I haven’t left. And to do this I’m going to direct you to someone far more articulate than myself: C.S. Lewis. In his novel The Screwtape Letters, Lewis composes a series of letters in which one demon (Screwtape) is coaching another demon (Wormwood) in the art of ensnaring humans. In the following passage,  Screwtape explains the best way to short-circuit a Christian’s involvement in the church community by manipulating his perception of the Christians around him:

“If the [Christian] knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner–then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question ‘If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?’ You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simple won’t come into his head. He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believe he has run up a very favourable credit-balance in the Enemy’s ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these ‘smug,’ commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can.”

So often we forget that the church is for sinners. We are a part of the Christian community because we are broken people seeking redemption. Given this fact, the shock and dismay we experience upon an encounter with actual sin is like a member of Alcoholics Anonymous being scandalized by the discovery that there are alcoholics there! On the contrary, we should expect to find sinners within the Christian community. That does not mean we approve of the sin or say nothing when Christians perpetuate injustice, but the presence of sin within the Body of Christ should not shock us, nor should we see that sin as somehow outside of ourselves. Jesus had a habit of associating with tax collectors and prostitutes, and his character has not changed. I simply forget that I am a part of that crowd.

That is why I have not, nor will I ever, leave the church. Yes, the church is full of ugly, shameful sinners, but Christ wouldn’t have been crucified on a cross if our condition had been otherwise. As long as I live I will seek to be a Christian who is holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:16) and is known by my love (John 13:35); and as long as I live on earth I will fall short of that goal. That is why I am thankful that the church is a redemptive refuge for sinners–otherwise I would have nowhere else to go.