I’m declaring myself both a believer and an unbeliever. I think I’ll make a good bridge person.
Month: June 2007
Both Christian and Muslim
Perhaps you’ve read about the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding. She is an Episcopal priest(ess) in Seattle who has decided that “Jesus led her” to be both a Christian and a Muslim.
Redding, who will begin teaching the New Testament as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University this fall, has a different analogy: “I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I’m both an American of African descent and a woman. I’m 100 percent both.”
Right. Except being African-American and being a woman are not mutually exclusive aspects of one’s identity.
We should not be surprised at such a statement, however. We could say that it is just one more example of the apostasy of mainline denominations. We could say that this is just another story about the cafeteria religion of modern America. It is both of those things, but it is also about something deeper and more ancient: Me. Sorry, God, but I will do what I will do, and I will be Who I will be. (Oh, was that your Name, God?) Ann Holmes Redding is simply reaping fruit that’s been rotting on the branch next to an empty space where Adam and Eve once stood. It tastes sweet on the tongue, but it turns bitter in the digestive tract.
I thought about posting a question on the Seattle Times live chat yesterday, but what sort of question can you ask of such a person? What about such-and-such a place where Jesus says, “…”? Or here, where Paul says, “…”? Do you really think that the authority of the Christian Scriptures has played any part in her choice? This is all about the authority of Me.
Redding doesn’t feel she has to resolve all the contradictions. People within one religion can’t even agree on all the details, she said. “So why would I spend time to try to reconcile all of Christian belief with all of Islam?
“At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That’s all I need.”
Of course it is. Christians ought to take heed of the way she puts things and beware lest they let their feelings and understanding rule their faith and, ultimately, the Faith.
I feel for orthodox Episcopalians and Anglicans (I think there still are some) who would challenge Redding’s reading of Christianity. They are undermined by their “bishops” at every turn.
Redding’s situation is highly unusual. Officials at the national Episcopal Church headquarters said they are not aware of any other instance in which a priest has also been a believer in another faith. They said it’s up to the local bishop to decide whether such a priest could continue in that role.
Redding’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting. Her announcement, first made through a story in her diocese’s newspaper, hasn’t caused much controversy yet, he said.
We’re Episcopalians; we revel in the “highly unusual”! Dear Lord, preserve us from the “exciting.” And preserve us from the likes of “pastors” such as these:
As much as she loves her church, she has always challenged it. She calls Christianity the “world religion of privilege.” She has never believed in original sin. And for years she struggled with the nature of Jesus’ divinity.
She found a good fit at St. Mark’s, coming to the flagship of the Episcopal Church in Western Washington in 2001. She was in charge of programs to form and deepen people’s faith until March this year when she was one of three employees laid off for budget reasons.
In other words, she never was a Christian in the first place. Muslim? Why not? Her story should serve as a warning in another way as well:
Ironically, it was at St. Mark’s that she first became drawn to Islam.
In fall 2005, a local Muslim leader gave a talk at the cathedral, then prayed before those attending. Redding was moved. As he dropped to his knees and stretched forward against the floor, it seemed to her that his whole body was involved in surrendering to God.
Then in the spring, at a St. Mark’s interfaith class, another Muslim leader taught a chanted prayer and led a meditation on opening one’s heart. The chanting appealed to the singer in Redding; the meditation spoke to her heart. She began saying the prayer daily.
Around that time, her mother died, and then “I was in a situation that I could not handle by any other means, other than a total surrender to God,” she said.
She still doesn’t know why that meant she had to become a Muslim. All she knows is “when God gives you an invitation, you don’t turn it down.”
In March 2006, she said her shahada — the profession of faith — testifying that there is only one God and that Mohammed is his messenger. She became a Muslim.
If the leader of the congregation cannot stand firm against a false god, how will the people?
1“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. 2Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the LORD. 3Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD. … 13In the prophets of Samaria I saw an unsavory thing: they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray. (Jeremiah 23:1-4, 13, ESV)
As always, Kyrie eleison and maranatha!
“The Fool Says In His Heart, ‘There is No Global Warming'”
There is a new dogmatism sweeping the world. It is the dogmatism of “climate change.” I am not convinced that it is anything other than the normal ebb and flow of the earth. However, whether it is real or not is quite irrelevant to its disciples. As is, for that matter, whether humans are causing it. The devotees of gaia are certainly convinced that the earth will be destroyed by humans if nothing is done to change our current habits.
There is a reason why great fervor overtakes Al Gore and his sycophants: they have found their god and they will protect its reputation at all costs. In the current use of the term, they are fundamentalists for their cause, as much as any backwoods, s’uth’n Bible-thumper. This means that there is no room for any actual discourse on the merits of their case. Witness the heretic-burnings that take place in the newspapers and talk shows when anyone dares to question the reigning orthodoxy. The response is either rage or bemusement, as if viewing a strange, long-lost specimen.
It is not, you see, so important that climate change is real, as it is that humans wish to be in control. Because if it is humans that cause the problems, humans can fix them, right? If only we can just reduce our carbon emissions, or purchase “carbon offsets,” or “go green,” or recycle more, or kill all the cows, or….or….or…. THEN everything will be alright, and we will preserve the earth (whether the human race survives is not all that important to the cause’s more radical martyrs). Because we are in control.
And if we are not, what then? What of all our striving? What will happen…after?
That is the question. If there is no end beyond these means, then the preservation of the earth is the end. It is the goal. And it is idolatry. Christians preserve the earth because it is God’s, not ours. We do what we can and we leave the results to God. We are stewards, not owners. But that would push us humans out from in front of the control panel–and that the climate-change apostles cannot abide. Because, as the well-known psalm has it: “The fool says in his/her/its heart, ‘There is no global warming.'”
Calling a Thing What It Actually Is
Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 21: “A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the things what it actually is.”
I am done with euphemism. “Gender” does not exist. It is sex, male or female. “Gay” and “straight”? No: homosexual and heterosexual. “Selective reduction” is the murder of siblings. “Choice” must always be qualified: the choice to do what? “Reproductive technology” = how to provide more abortions and keep those religious zealots from restricting it in any way. “Funding for family planning” is just a nicer way of talking about how to provide abortions for poor people (maybe they’ll just go away!). “Passed away/gone on to a better place/etc.” Stop. It’s death. Calling it something else will not change what has happened.
I’d appreciate your translations of common euphemisms.
How To Grow A Church in About Eight Steps
Besides being hilarious, Josh the Fearsome Pirate has some good things to think about next time people in your church are wondering why the church isn’t growing.
New O’Connor Letters Released
If you are interested in Flannery O’Connor (as I am), you may be interested to read this article.
There Is (Almost) No Chance…Oh, Wait
It’s not the exception that proves the rule; it’s the exception that proves there should be rules. Michael Schiavo and your ilk, take note…
Despite doctors’ advice that he would not live, his wife never gave up hope and took care of him at home.
“He was a living corpse,” she said on TVN24.
“Now he can sit in his wheelchair and we have breakfast and coffee together,” she said.
“I would fly into a rage every time someone would say that people like him should be euthanized, so they don’t suffer,” she told local daily Gazeta Dzialdowska. “I believed Janek would recover,” she said, using an affectionate version of his name.
“This is my great reward for all the care, faith and love,” she told the AP, weeping.
“He remembers everything that was going on around him,” she said. “He talks about it and remembers the wedding of our children. He had fever around the time of the weddings, so he knew something big was taking place.”
In 1988, when Poland was still run by a communist government, Grzebski sustained head injuries as he was attaching two train carriages together. He fell into a coma. Doctors also found cancer in his brain and said he would not live.
Balaam's Ass 