Okay kiddies, pay attention, there might be a test later! Here’s today’s burning question:

Can someone be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time?

Short Answer: NO!

So why am I asking such a silly question anyway? Because the Episcopal church strikes again – that’s why! The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, claims to be both a Christian and a Muslim – at the same time!

I first read this at Hot Air, and then checked out the story in The Seattle Times itself. And for a few moments I thought my head was going to explode!

How is this possible? Well it’s the perfect illustration of what I talked about in my sermon yesterday – the perils of not knowing counterfeit spirituality when you see it!

Here’s how she “explains” her belief you can be both a Christian and a Muslim, even though both Christian and Muslim scholars completely disagree.

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.”

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.”

The problem is that this woman is a heretic – plain and simple! And before you bombard me about being judgmental, here’s how she describes her Christian faith!

For Christians, belief in Jesus’ divinity, and that he died on the cross and was resurrected, lie at the heart of the faith, as does the belief that there is one God who consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Redding’s views, even before she embraced Islam, were more interpretive than literal.

She believes the Trinity is an idea about God and cannot be taken literally.

She does not believe Jesus and God are the same, but rather that God is more than Jesus.

She believes 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.

What makes Jesus unique, she believes, is that out of all humans, he most embodied being filled with God and identifying completely with God’s will.

That is heresy, plain and simple! She’s not a Christian and a Muslim at the same time, because she’s not a Christian!

Bryan over at Hot Air sums things up pretty nicely – kinda wish I had said it first!

Next on the Episcopalian agenda: Finding a priest who’s Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, Zoroastrian, Hindu and a practicioner of transcendental meditation while claiming to channel Vanuatu, a sixth-century alien who lived on Saturn (but was actually an illegal immigrant from the planet Xanadu). Won’t that be exciting too!

In closing, consider the words of the Apostle Paul about all this.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! Galatians 1:6-9 (NIV)

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 (NIV)

 

With words so plain, I just don’t get how anyone could miss it! Do you?