The Episcopal Church’s Muslim-Anglican priest has been given six months to recant of her profession of Islam, or be defrocked.Last week, the Bishop of Rhode Island, the Rt Rev Geralyn Wolf affirmed the decision of a diocesan review committee that the Rev Ann Holmes Redding had “abandoned the Communion of the Episcopal Church by formal admission into a religious body not in communion with the Episcopal Church.”
In an interview with the Seattle diocesan newspaper in June 2007, Dr Redding stated that she was both a Christian and a Muslim. “The way I understand Jesus is compatible with Islam,” she said. “I was following Jesus and he led me into Islam.”
Islam and Christianity were complementary, she had told the Episcopal Voice. The Muslim profession of faith, “there is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God,” did not contradict anything in Christianity, nor did the professions made at a Christian baptism contradict anything in Islam, Dr Redding said.
The language of the creeds was not to be taken in a literal sense, she explained. “We Christians, in struggling to express the beauty and dignity of Jesus and the pattern of life he offers, describe him as the ‘only begotten son of God.’ That’s how wonderful he is to us. But that is not literal.”
On March 25, 2007, Dr Redding was made redundant as director of Christian Formation at St Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle due to financial pressures. While serving under licence in the Diocese of Olympia (Seattle), Dr Redding remained a priest canonically resident in the Diocese of Rhode Island under the jurisdiction of Bishop Wolf.
On July 3, 2007 Bishop Wolf announced that she had issued a “Pastoral Direction” to Dr Redding suspending her from the ministry and giving her a year “to reflect” on her views. Dr Redding honoured the suspension but was able to take up a one-year teaching post in New Testament studies at the Jesuit-run Seattle University.
Bishop Wolf extended the suspension an additional 90 days, but last week served notice that Dr Redding must either recant or resign from the ministry of the Episcopal Church. If she does neither, she will be removed from the priesthood --- using the same canonical procedures that have been used to depose conservative clergy who have quit the Episcopal Church for other Anglican provinces.
Dr Redding told the Seattle Times she had no intention of recanting, as she did not believe her views on the person of Christ were out of the mainstream of the Episcopal Church.
"I'm saddened and disappointed that this could not be an opportunity" for the church to broaden its views, she said. "The automatic assumption is that if I'm one of 'them,' I can't be one of 'us' anymore." But "I'm still following Jesus in being a Muslim. I have not abandoned that."
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(Source: RI)