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April 2, 2009Priest Who Professed Islam Defrocked by Episcopal Church
An Episcopal priest who professed two years ago that she was also a practicing Muslim has been defrocked by the Episcopal Church.
Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf informed Ann Holmes Redding, who lives in Seattle, of the decision on Wednesday. Although she lives outside the diocese, Redding was ordained in Rhode Island and remained under Wolf's authority.
"Bishop Wolf found Dr. Redding to be a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two yeas have been open, honest and respectful," the diocese said in a statement. "However Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim."
The diocese learned in June 2007 about Redding's Muslim profession. It removed her from ministry temporarily and told her to spend a year on "discernment of her faith commitment."
After that year, a diocesan committee determined that she had abandoned her Episcopal faith "by her formal admission into a religious body not in Communion with the Episcopal Church." She was restricted from public ministry and told she had until Tuesday to determine if she would renounce either her Muslim faith or her Episcopal ordination. The diocese "deposed," or defrocked, her when she did neither.
"I am very sad," Redding told the Seattle Times on Tuesday. "I'm sad at the loss of this cherished honor of having served as a priest."
Redding, formerly a director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, told Religion News Service in a recent interview that her two faiths "illumine each other much more than they collide" and she didn't spend much time on theological disputes.
"My experience and my call is to follow Jesus," said Redding, who was an Episcopal priest for 25 years, "even as I practice Islam."
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Comments
Man, I wish I was still an Episcopalian. Wouldn't it be great to have a Muslim as the director of faith formation at your Episcopalian Cathedral?
Posted By: Jan Dennis | April 2, 2009 5:58 PM
She should have also claimed to be gay. Then the Episcopal church would have promoted her.
Posted By: Steve B. | April 2, 2009 7:34 PM
How can you practice Islam which denies the death of Jesus Christ, as well as his divinity and be anything like a Christian escapes me....
Posted By: B. Sargent | April 3, 2009 6:19 AM
Is that like being a Christian and an atheist? My son wants to know.
Posted By: Karen C. | April 3, 2009 5:12 PM
I concur with B. Sargent. How could anyone rationally hold together as equally valid and complementary such two radically opposed religious worldviews? For Islam declares, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammud is his Messenger." But Christianity declares, "Heavenly Father, this is eternal life: To know you, the Only True God, and Jesus the Son, your true Messenger." To confess one is to deny the other. Thank God that Bishop Wolff understood this denial, and correctly defrocked this apostate priest.
Posted By: Francis H. Geis | April 3, 2009 5:35 PM
If she recanted in her faith in Christ to become a muslim, i highly doubt she was ever a Christian. Besides, the moment the left the United States to be become a muslim living in the middle east she would quickly change her mind; but that kind of ridiculous thinking is afforded here in America. And to think she was in position of influence in her Church, that is so sad...
Posted By: Travis | April 7, 2009 2:17 PM
Horrifying and Horrible example of how disregarding Theology and Faith can literally lead you to the depths of hell....not to mention cause the Duh Factor...which is when someone in sin can't see the DUH scenario in their own life...been there..and it always still confounds me how sin can so blind all of our eyes!
Posted By: Shellina | April 7, 2009 2:28 PM
I agree with B. Sargent. I never quite get how persons can reconcile two opposing facts and really believe themselves....She's obviously deluded and they made the right move by removing her to prevent further injury to their church. She obviously also needs our prayers!
Posted By: D. Smith | April 7, 2009 8:25 PM
Had this woman experienced a true relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, spent more time praying and studying the Word, she would have known who she could be IN CHRIST. But it seems to me that she simply had a head knowledge of Him and had never experienced His love, in other words, Christ was never in her heart and she was never His. Islam makes a person feel that they are working the right thing b/c they bow down at least 5 times a day with a repetitious statement (that's what Jesus warned against, we are to pray with our heart, mind and soul.. )She'd better read the Koran, women are nothing in Islam. My brother in law is muslim and you know what? He is beginning to understand who Jesus REALLY was and is. Soon another soul will be the Lord's. Pray for Hamid's heart.
Posted By: Rosa | April 11, 2009 8:22 PM
I don't think it's a matter of her holding two contradictory belief systems at once. There's a rather more simple explanation: she doesn't believe in either of them.
Belief in the literal, historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and in His deity has long since ceased to be a requirement for Episcopalian ordination. If one has already discarded this minor little element of Christianity (let us call it), might one not be equally inclined to discard the similarly minor and trivial claims of Islam to the contrary? If one sees that the core of the Gospel is actually political responsibility and concern for "justice," then why not see the core of Islam as the same thing?
Most folks presume that Ms. Redding is claiming that 1+2=6. I expect that instead she is claiming that 1=3 and 2=3, which makes the result of 6 more reasonable..or slightly more reasonable.
Posted By: Ethan C. | April 12, 2009 1:11 AM