Pluralism run amuck

The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding is an Episcopal priest who announced last year that she feels called to be both a practicing Christian and a practicing Muslim and, in fact, has understood herself as an adherent of both faiths for now over two years. I first saw mention of this story a few months ago when it started making national headlines. Despite the seeming inconsistencies between identifying as both Christian and Muslim, Rev. Redding asserts, "At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That's all I need." Though she received a Ph.D in New Testament from Union Theological Seminary in New York and was ordained a priest in 1984, Redding insists that her draw toward Islam is "the calling of my heart" and that it is entirely compatible with being a Christian.

Unfortunately for Redding, the Episcopal Church does not agree. It appears that Bishop Geralyn Wolf, presiding bishop of the diocese of Rhode Island (in which Redding was ordained) will most likely defrock her from the priesthood in the coming months. Redding is currently suspended from all pastoral duties while she determines whether she wants to continue claiming a Muslim identity.

Redding herself is unrepentant. According to this news story from the Seattle Times, Redding said, "'I'm saddened and disappointed that this could not be an opportunity' for the church to broaden its perspective and talk about what it means to adhere to more than one faith." She feels that the calling she has received to practice both faiths is a gift to adherents of both.

This case raises questions that should be equally troubling to both Christians and Muslims. After all, what does it mean to be a confessional Christian or a confessional Muslim at all? The sacred texts and belief systems of the two religions are clearly mutually exclusive. I cannot speak with any authority at all on the positive theological affirmations of Islam, but I can say with certainty that the Christian belief in a triune God and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ as the fully human and fully divine Savior of the world are non-negotiable tenets of what it means to be a Christian. Insofar as Muslims are not willing to claim those beliefs (and they are not), they are can simply not be Christians.

I was born and raised a Protestant Liberal in a denomination that, over time and probably from a lack of a strong theological tradition, largely adopted a Protestant Liberal identity. Over time, I have come to reject that dominant stream of contemporary Methodism for exactly the kind of problems we see in the case of Redding. This is pluralism run amuck. It does violence to the integrity of both the Christian and Muslim faiths by respecting the distinctive claims of neither. And worse, it posits a third alternative (call it secular humanism, cultural relativism, or whatever) that seeks to trump all other religious identities with implicit claims of a kind of sophisticated superiority that regards religious exclusivism as simply not "progressive" enough.

But what, then, does it claim as the theological authority that allows it to make such a bold claim? Help me out, if you can. I admit I am mystified.

"I forgive, I forgive"

There is a great irony contained in the more violent Muslim responses to Pope Benedict XVI's speech a few days ago, in which he quoted a medieval Byzantine emperor's comment about Islam spreading its faith through the sword. The bombing of Christian churches in the West Bank and Gaza strip, the call for the pope's assassination by radical Muslim leaders, and the execution of an Italian nun in the Somali capital of Mogadishu would seem to confirm the emperor's observation.

The fact that the pope's remarks were not intended to criticize Islam per se, but were rather part of a larger academic speech on faith and reason delivered to an audience at the University of Regensburg in Germany, does not seem to matter. Such nuances are lost on a wing of Islam that seeks to impose its will, not by the sword, but by the death squad and the suicide bomb. Regardless of the way Christians and the Christian faith might be villified with impunity in the Muslim world, even obscure academic references that may appear critical of Islam apparently deserve to be met with violence and intimidation. And therein lies the irony in the whole story.

Charles Krauthammer's most recent column in the Washington Post is insightful. I don't typically share Krauthammer's politics, but I think he's right on when he says, "'How dare you say Islam is a violent religion? I'll kill you for it,' is not exactly the best way to go about refuting the charge."

But here's the most compelling part of the whole saga to me. It's about that Italian nun who was executed as payback for the pope's comments in Mogadishu. Apparently, after she had been shot and as she lay dying on the street, she repeated over and over, "I forgive, I forgive." Her last thoughts and last words were of grace and forgiveness. One cannot help but see her imitation of Christ, who said from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer decided to leave the safety of refuge in the United States to return to Nazi Germany in 1939, he made a decision that helped to seal his fate on the gallows of the Flossenburg Concentration Camp. Reinhold Niebuhr would later say that his action belonged to the "finest logic of Christian martyrdom." We might say the same for Sister Leonella, who must have known that carrying out her ministry in a city controlled by radical Islamists might eventually make her a target for violence.

Christians are not sinless, and as soon as we start to play the 'moral superiority' card, we immediately slip into that most pernicious of sins - pride. But contained within the larger story of our own violence and rebellion against the will of God is a narrative that embodies the truth of Jesus' message. It is a narrative of love, of forgiveness, of redemption, and of hope. That narrative has been lived out by the early apostles, the early martyrs, the medieval mendicants, latter-day saints like Bonhoeffer, and now by Sister Leonella on a dusty street in Mogadishu.

I hope I would have the same faith that she did if I were put in her situation. I don't know that I would. But I draw strength from the witness she has given the world.