celebrity conversions

I read it in the editorial to the latest Books & Culture and was reminded this morning by an email from a friend: Anne Rice, of vampires and vixen fame, has converted (or returned) to Christianity. She grew up Catholic, but clearly rejected that for a while. Now she's back. Her latest book, Out of Egypt, chronicles Jesus' 7th year on earth, narrated by the Christchild Himself. Sounds interesting.

(I can't get the link to work, but you can cut & paste this into your address bar: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9785289/site/newsweek/)

Here's my two responses:

1. Praise the Lord, who draws all His children out of Egypt, even Gentiles and vampires!

2. Like you, I suppose I'm not holding my breath, waiting expectantly for sudden, Biblical greatness from Rice. It is interesting, though, how the evangelical world often responds to announcements of celebrity conversion - they get greatly excited and shove those celebrities out in the spotlight, as if to say, "See, we've got cool people too!" Problem is, a young believer is a young believer, regardless of celebrity status; and if no one takes the time to disciple Rice (or Deion Sanders), they're just not going to be all that helpful in building the kingdom, privately or publicly.