ALL SAINTS CHURCH

This past week one of my colleagues sent an email with a link to an interesting and somewhat provocative article about an Episcopal priest who used to be classmate of mine.  The article was about the Reverend Ann Redding, who had become a Muslim.  The article went on to speak about Ann’s personal journey and how she felt drawn to Muslim spirituality and practice.  In addition, the article listed interviews with various scholars and religious leaders about whether this “combination” of faiths could be valid or consistent with the basic teachings of each faith.  One of the interesting things has been the series of emails from out colleagues on the list serve about the rightness or wrongness of this choice.

Some people were happy that there was this bridge person who could act as a symbol or sign of unity that could help draw the two communities together.  However, most responses were more critical.  They acknowledged the right of every person to their own spiritual journey.  However, they expressed that as a priest in the Episcopal Church, that her public role and ordination vows were not consistent with a faith that denies the unique divinity and salvivic ministry of Jesus.

I am sure this debate will go on for some time to come.  It can’t help but to be controversial and upsetting to many in both faith communities.    Perhaps it is hard to separate one’s feelings about this particular combination of faiths.  For instance, would it have been easier, if someone said that he or she was a Christian who practiced Zen meditation or Yoga?

Many of us choose some syncretic or inclusive practices in our lives.  We gain insight and depth by interfaith studies and borrowing practices.  Gandhi and others have suggested that once we get to the core of any of the major faith we see the unity of all faiths. Of course St. Paul argued in Galatians that to practice or observe Jewish Law in addition to following Christ undermined the suffiency and efficacy of Christ’s sacrificial love.

So as if our church did not have enough controversy, this comes along, perhaps as a delicious distraction.  The one thing that occurs to me from one of my professors at Hebrew Union is that religion seems to operate simultaneously on three levels.  There is the personal level, which by nature can be very idiosyncratic.  There is common practice, which most people take as normative, whether or not they have any official status.  Finally there is what the various faiths have written as law or canon, even if it is little understood or practiced. 

It seems to me that Ann is practicing her own personal journey.  But in so doing she is contravening the norms and rules of the second two categories.  For this she will no doubt suffer some external rejection and censure.  And for the former she will also, no doubt experience deep inward joy.