Link: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008958770_redding01m.html?syndication=rss

Here we have a woman priest within TEC that is being defrocked because she became a Muslim. I suppose she could have saved herself much grief by becoming a Buddhist. They seem to have some inside track with the Presiding Bishop and her supporters. The defrocking of Rev. Redding, however, brings to mind a couple of issues.

Bishop Geralyn Wolf, of Rhode Island, who has disciplinary authority over Redding, is expected to announce her decision on Redding’s fate today.

Redding fully expects she will be defrocked since Wolf has made it clear that’s the consequence unless she resigns from the priesthood or renounces her Muslim faith.

Redding is not doing either.

“I am very sad,” Redding said. “I’m sad at the loss of this cherished honor of having served as a priest. And I’m also sad at what seems to me to be the limits of vision” about how widely accepting the church can be.

Indeed, to some, Redding’s an embodiment of how more people seem to be drawing from different faiths these days — including a recently elected Episcopal bishop in Michigan who practices Buddhist meditation. They see her story as a call to the church to be more open to such people.

In Christianity and Islam, while “there are streams of tradition that are mutually exclusive, there are also streams that are not mutually exclusive,” said Eugene Webb, professor emeritus of comparative religion at the University of Washington. “Ann is exploring those.”

It would be a good thing, Webb said, if more churches allowed for such exploration since it’s “going to take place one way or the other. It might be better to wait and see what comes of them, rather than decide in advance that it wouldn’t be fruitful.”

The first issue I have is with the nature of Rev. Redding’s acceptance of two faiths. Am I against Rev. Redding being defrocked? No I am not. I seem to remember something about serving two masters and this is clearly what she is attempting to do whether she admits it or not. No matter how the argument gets made, I do not feel I will ever be convinced that the god of Islam is the same as the God of the Judeo-Christian faith.

As a Christian, she must also accept our Lord and Savior is God incarnate came into the world to save man from his sinful nature. Islam, however, views Jesus as a great prophet and nothing more. How can Rev. Redding reconcile these polar positions in her personal theology? Either Jesus is the Son of God as the New Testament contends or he is just a prophet pointing to the coming of the last and greatest prophet Mohammad? Which is it Rev. Redding, you can’t have it both ways.

Now we come to the other issue on my mind. How can Rev. Redding be said to violate her oaths by participating in two belief systems while at the same time TEC is about to confirm a practicing Buddhist, Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, as the Bishop for the Michigan Diocese? The two events when considered side by side seem to be an example of craven hypocrisy. I know enough about Buddhism (being a Taoist for quite some time before the Lord opened my eyes) to know that it is just as incompatible with Christianity as Islam is.

Buddhists do not believe in the existence of a creator God who is personally involved with His creation. This is the most basic tenet of the Judeo-Christian faith. How can someone who lives the Buddhist doctrine accept the God of the Bible? At some point Rev. Forrester must be either lying to himself or lying to those he teaches. To become a Bishop he must swear allegiance to Christ the Lord, yet Rev. Forrester doesn’t believe (if he is being true to his Buddhist philosophy) that Christ is who he claims to be.

This is all so confusing but I know that TEC has it all figured out. They are not confused by any of this which shows us why they are in charge and we are not. Look at what we have misunderstood for thousands of years and God never bothered to clarify until the current incarnation of the Episcopal Church showed up to tell us all what God really meant. I sleep better at night know this.