The Episcopal Church says that one of its priests can’t be a floor wax and a dessert topping:

The Episcopal Church has defrocked Ann Holmes Redding, the Seattle Episcopal priest who announced in 2007 that she is both Christian and Muslim. Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, who has disciplinary authority over Redding, informed the priest of her decision in a letter today, said Ruth Meteer, communications director with the Diocese of Rhode Island.

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.

Is there a church that accepts contradictory absolutist belief systems, rival higher powers, competing and mutually exclusive revelations? I mean, besides those anything-goes Unitarians?

49 replies on “One Imaginary Friend at a Time”

  1. Really? She’s surprised that there are limits on how accepting her church is? When she says she is also a muslim?

    I wonder what the weather is like on her planet.

  4. Hey you got Islam in my Episcopal!
    You got Episcopal on my Islam!

    Two silly belief systems that don’t taste great either together or apart.

  8. Good Morning Dan,
    I’m not at all surprised by the decision. They, the Episcopal Church gave her a year to dwell on it. This morning’s Seattle Times reported she anticipated it.

    To answer your question. My understanding is there is a faith, the Baha’i which recognizes ALL religions as true. They only have 6 temples on earth (for the six populated continents. I’ve visited two of them. One in Winnetka, IL and the other, the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, India. I’ve also seen their headquarters in Jerusalem. I believe the others are in Entebbe, Uganda, Frankfurt, Germany, Canberra, Australia and Brasilia, Brazil but I’m not sure).

  10. Given you can’t reconcile any faith with observed reality, it should make perfect sense you can reconcile two faiths together. The teachings of faiths have built-in loopholes for this kind of stuff.

  11. she may THINK she’s a christian and a muslim, but i KNOW she’s a fucking idiot.

    christianity means you think that jesus is the son of god and the messiah. no need for any additional revelations after that – especially revelations from a bloodthirsty child-molester.

  13. Sometimes she feels like an Iman, sometimes she don’t.

    uhmm…. wouldn’t surprise me if the priest/Iman or whatever the heck she sees herself as has also other confusing views outside clerical realm.

    The more like her they purge the better off they’ll be, because it’s confused individuals like her the ones that have prompted the divisions they have seen.

  15. @13: Yes, Loveschild, we must stamp out confusion, ambiguity and non-comformity immediately. If we let this go on, pretty soon they’ll be condoning gay-ness.

    You bigoted slob.

  19. 16
    your mom misled you,
    you can believe in both-
    she was just too cheap to slip a quarter under your pillow.

  24. But, Islam and Judeo-Christianity both worship the SAME imaginary sky-grandpa, so it’s really sort of funny that one denomination would take such issue with a member of their clergy professing adherence to two religions at once.

  26. “Is there a church that accepts contradictory absolutist belief systems, rival higher powers, competing and mutually exclusive revelations?”

    I don’t think they are as incompatible as is suggested here. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all recognize common origins and are colllectively known as “revealed faiths” or “people of the book,” who all embrace certain scriptures as revealed by the God of Abraham. It’s only later that they differ. Christians believe Christ is the son of God; Jews and Muslims see him as another prophet. Christians believe the New Testament extends the teachings in the Old Testament, while Muslims believe the Qur’an is God’s (or Allah’s) final synthesized teachings to mankind.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_t…

    While I personally think of it as mythology, it’s not inconceivable for someone to find compatible roots in all of these faiths.

    That said, the church — any church — can choose to “frock” or “defrock” whomever they damn well please. Whatever you wanna do behind closed doors (as long as it’s not hurting anyone), I don’t care. But when religious people try to impose their beliefs on secular society and nonbelievers, then I have a problem

  27. I’ve been told by moderate Muslims, that actually the definition of what a Muslim is can be interpreted as quite loose. They do not accept Jesus as “the son of God” in a literal sense, so if you really believe in the whole pigeon as God impregnating a virgin thingy, yes, you are strait out an infidel. But if you can accept that Jesus was essentially a very important prophet with super accelerated prophet powers, and you can believe in a single God (no trinities allowed), and can accept Mohamed as also being a prophet, your in like Flynn!! Voila! You are a Muslim! Mohamed and early Islam was pretty liberal in who they accepted as “Muslim enough” to allow peaceful co-existence with as falling under this definition. For example Zoroastrianism, as well as some brands of Christianity at the time, or so I remember reading. For all that it matters, one could easily claim to be a Buddhist as well, since it claims not to be a religion at all. Now if only there were a way to fit Hinduism in there….

  28. hooray for april fools day.

    Going along with it: Islam would suggest she is obligated to behead herself, but Christianity would prohibit such behavior. Given that she’s still breathing, she seems to have chosen one over the other.

  29. Oh, I should add that I thought the headline for this blog post (“One Imaginary Friend At A Time”) was pretty awesome. I’m not good at coming up with witty headlines; I admore those who can.

  30. 23 Akbar, I was thanking you and apologizing for the misspelling.

    Plus, I have never posted here any comment that can be even remotely misconstrued as disrespectful of Islam. I have a couple of Muslim friends and I think they’re some of the most ethical and reputable people I’ve ever met. So unless you’ve misunderstood me, I don’t get where your comment is coming from.

  31. They aren’t rival higher powers (Allah is arabic for God, as in the same one found in ye olde bible, and Jesus IS a prophet in Islam), nor are either inherently competing absolutist belief systems nor do they have mutually exclusive revelations.

    There is a difference between culture and religion. And as 9 says, fundamentalism isn’t the ruler for judging everything.

    FYI lovechild, it is an Imam. with an “m” at the end. and do you smoke crack or what? you post the most ridiculous shit on this thing.

  32. @31 I am not sure most Muslims and especially most Christians actually see their gods as the same. They attribute different stories and traits to them. I mean superman from the movies and superman from the comics are only ostensibly the same character. When talking fiction its hard to compare across different works by different authors.

    As for beheading. Christians in the West used to be just as bad and in many parts of the world still are. Thankfully secular society doesn’t let them get away with that kind of bullshit anymore.

  33. It’s expected, but disappointing. Christians, Jews, and Muslims in America could benefit greatly from talking with each other more often; they’d realize how much the details of culture and tradition obscure the truth that all three faiths are fairly compatible.

  34. @31 I’m lost Jesus IS NOT just a prophet but a messiah in Christianity and that’s pretty much the foundation of the religion unless I totally missed something. If that first statement is true, they are in fact competing absolutist beliefs because Islam doesn’t recognize Jesus’ divinity. And I missed the part where Jesus specified you need to follow the Islamic rule book as well as the bible, even though I’m pretty sure much of the Muslim world takes those rules pretty seriously. These points are non-reconcilable unless you feel like making up new more friendly interpretations and then the question becomes, what the fuck is the point? If you’re making it up anyway why not imagine something way more applicable to today then something written a long-long time ago in an age when stoning for religious slights was acceptable. Reformist Christians make me want to gag. There is nothing fuzzy, friendly or tolerant about believing in a spiritual system that tosses non-believers into the fires of eternal torture as punishment for disbelief. Claiming that the Christian god is benevolent while believing the whole eternal torture thing is insane.

    @20 tolerance is one thing, I do not wish harm on idiots for worshiping fiction, that’s there own problem, but respecting that belief? Where do we draw the line then? Are all religions to be respected? Even if they cause demonstrable harm? What about if they foster fucked up dictatorships and intolerant, violent assholes, do we still respect it then? And if so is there anything you don’t respect?

  36. The church teaches that Jesus was the Son of God. The Nicene Creed, which is recited every Sunday during the Episcopal service, states “We believe in One Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.” That is one of the fundamental teachings of any Christian church. It is my understanding that Islam teaches that Christ was a great prophet, but was not the son of God.

    I think a church gets the right to say that to be a leader in the organization you have to believe the basic tenets of their faith. They are not all exclusive however. The diocese of Northern Michigan elected a bishop who is also a practicing Zen Buddhist on February 12.

  38. 34, what is a messiah? What is divinity? You write as though these things were understood the same by everybody. As far where to draw the line in tolerating others beliefs, there should be none. No line at all. People’s beliefs don’t count for anything, only their material decisions. People say all sorts of silly bullshit about what they believe, and how it empowers them to carry out what they desire to do. These are mere excuses when carrying out harm unto others. Most people don’t actually stick to their beliefs in their actions, and most any belief system can be used as a justification for almost anything.

  39. @38 I asked do all beliefs warrant respect, not where to draw the line as far as tolerating beliefs. However, I agree with you as far as tolerance is concerned, believe whatever the fuck you like. Just as I am free not to respect that belief due specifically to the fact it does make horrible actions seem justified. And I think @36 defined what messiah means to the Episcopal Church. It’s pretty specific stuff and not mentioned anywhere in Islam. As a result it’s a deal killer as far as non-exclusivity is concerned. Islam would need to recognize Jesus as THE ONLY son of God (not even the universal, we’re all children of God bullshit works here) to pass the test and it doesn’t, so the two religions are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

  40. @36
    The Nicene Creed is a piece of non-Biblical hogwash dreamed up by a pack of corrupt apostates to keep peace in the Empire. You won’t find any of that hocus pocus in the Bible.

  41. Loveschild…I never once accused you of being disrespectful of Islam. You are the one who were quick to defend yourself.

    I was merely pointing to the large amounts of ignorant and hateful vile you spew on every other comment you post.

  44. It was interesting to read all the comments saying how this person is an idiot, or that their god is the correct one yadda yadda yadda. The fact remains that she is entitled believe whatever she chooses to and to follow her own convictions. Her now former employer, the church she worked for, had their own set of rules, whether unreasonable or not, and they both acted on their beliefs. Good luck to both of them (even if I do applaud her more for following her conscience).

  45. For the record: Many (though not all) Neopagan religions (and where they’ve decided to set them up, churches) allow for kinds of personal eclecticism. There are even Christopagans and Judeopagans. (I hope I got the second term right.)

    Now, on the other hand, there are plenty of people ready to tell them that they aren’t real pagans. But a good chunk of the neopagan community recognizes them.

  46. lol Akbar, I’ve always noticed people get super afraid of ‘offending’ Islam as if muslims who read savage blog are uptight with no sense of humor or that people who have arabic names are muslims with no sense of humor… WTF its Savageblog – if any group walks away unmade fun of it wouldn’t be savage blog!

    Anyway, Shi’a Islam believes that the prophet Jesus was miraculously saved from crucifiction and is hiding with the 12th Imam (unless my Iranian friend was screwing with me), Sunnis believe he was shahid (martyred) and was just another in the long line of prophets. Either one negates the whole christ died for my sins thing…and thus the basis of christianity.

  47. I went to St. Mark’s when Redding was a priest there. She had a very unusual and open-minded take on Christianity, which I found refreshing and moving. The kind of theology she taught in my confirmation class was a bridge for agnostics who appreciate reverence, ritual, and the Christian tradition as a vocabulary for metaphysics (like me) to participate in a religious community. I’m sad that the Episcopal church could only tolerate her take on the traditions of Abraham so far…

  48. <>

    I think the Baha’i faith comes close. Unlike us Unitarians, they have to actually believe in God; but they see all religions as glimpses into the true nature of God. At least as I understand it….

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