Anglican Priest with identity crisis goes Muslim, but says she remains a Christian
Pastor Dale Morgan
Anglican Priest with identity crisis, goes Muslim, but says she remains
a Christian*
Episcopalian prays at mosque Fridays, joins in church service Sunday
mornings
Posted: June 18, 2007
SEATTLE – A veteran Anglican/Episcopal priest says she became a Muslim
just over a year ago and now worships at a mosque Fridays – but that
hasn't stopped her from donning her white collar Sunday mornings.
"I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I'm both an American of
African descent and a woman. I'm 100 percent both," Rev. Ann Holmes
Redding told the Seattle Times.
Redding, a priest for more than 20 years, until recently was director of
faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, the paper
reported. Now, she's telling the world about her adherence to Islam,
provoking bewilderment from Christians and Muslims.
Kurt Fredrickson, director of the doctor of ministry program at Fuller
Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., told the Times there are
"tenets of the faiths that are very, very different."
"The most basic would be: What do you do with Jesus?"
Fredrickson explained that while Christians consider Jesus Christ to be
God, Muslims regard him as only a prophet.
Redding, 55, doesn't think it's necessary to resolve all of the
contradictions, arguing even people within Christianity can't agree on
all the details.
"So why would I spend time to try to reconcile all of Christian belief
with all of Islam?" she asked. "At the most basic level, I understand
the two religions to be compatible. That's all I need."
The Seattle paper said Redding plans to begin teaching the New Testament
this fall as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University, a
Catholic school.
She told the Times she felt a call to Islam that she could not explain.
"It wasn't about intellect," Redding said. "All I know is the calling of
my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am
supposed to be.
"I could not not be a Muslim."
Redding's embrace of Islam has been affirmed by her bishop, Rt. Rev.
Vincent Warner, who thinks the interfaith possibilities are exciting.
She has been accepted by the mosque she regularly attends, the Al-Islam
Center of Seattle. But Hisham Farajallah, president of the Islamic
Center of Washington, is among the Muslim leaders who don't understand
how she can remain an Episcopalian.
Being both Muslim and Christian — "I don't know how that works," he told
the Times.
Redding says she wants to tell her story to help ease religious tensions
and hopes some day to create an institute to study Judaism, Christianity
and Islam.
"I think this thing that's happened to me can be a sign of hope," she said.
A graduate of Brown University, she earned master's degrees from two
seminaries and received her Ph.D. in New Testament from Union
Theological Seminary in New York City.
She was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1984 but has always challenged
her church, calling Christianity the "world religion of privilege."
She has never believed in the Christian doctrine of original sin, and
for years she struggled with the nature of Jesus' divinity, the Times
said, concluding Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the
children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine
— because God dwells in all humans.
At St. Mark's, which proved to be a good fit for her, she was in charge
of programs to deepen faith until she was laid off with two others in
March, for budgetary reasons. The church insists the dismissal had
nothing to do with her embrace of Islam.
Her Muslim journey actually began at St. Mark's when in fall 2005 an
Islamic leader gave a talk then prayed. Redding was moved as the imam
seemed to surrender his whole body to God.
The next spring, another Muslim leader taught a chanted prayer in an
interfaith class, which she began saying daily.
Her mother died at that time, the Seattle paper said, and "I was in a
situation that I could not handle by any other means, other than a total
surrender to God."
She can't explain why that led her to become a Muslim, but says "when
God gives you an invitation, you don't turn it down."
She read up on Islam and made her profession of faith – the shahada – in
March 2006, testifying there is only one god, Allah, and that Mohammad
is his messenger.
The Muslim requirement of praying five times daily has given her the
deep connection to God she yearned for, she says.
When she prays on other occasions, her prayers are neither uniquely
Islamic nor Christian but private talks with Allah or God, names she
uses interchangeably.
"It's the same person, praying to the same God," she contends.