Former Gothic-horror novelist Anne Rice, who penned two acclaimed novelizations of the life of Jesus after returning to her Catholic roots, has announced that she has "quit being a Christian."

Writing at her Facebook page, the author of the "Christ the Lord" books carried by some Christian retail stores, said that she remained 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," Rice said. "For 10 years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else."

Before the release of 2005's Out of Egypt (Knopf), Rice was best known for her vampire novels. She then said that she felt called to write for God, and has since also started an angels' fiction series called "Songs of the Seraphim." In 2008, The Road to Cana (Knopf) was named among the year's top Christian fiction by Library Journal in its annual Best Books list.

In her Facebook postings, Rice said: "In the name of Christ, 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 an earlier entry linked to a report about a church that preached that "God hates fags," she asked, "When does a word (Christian) become unusable? When does it become so burdened with history and horror that it cannot be evoked without destructive controversy? ... Maybe commitment to Christ means not being a Christian."

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