There’s this Episcopalian priest who celebrates mass every Sunday, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
And then there’s this Muslim who five times a day lies on the floor facing Mecca and prays to Allah, other than whom there’s no God and Mohammed is his messenger.
The priest is a collar-wearing woman, but that’s perfectly fine. The Church thinks so, and if you don’t, well, you don’t belong in civilised society. Whether you belong in prison is a different matter, to be decided soon.
The Muslim is a woman too, which means she covers her face and takes abuse from her male co-religionists. We don’t know whether, when walking past a building site, she hears whistles and shouts of ‘get your face out for the lads’, but it’s likely.
Both the priest and the Muslim are black or rather, since they live in the USA, Afro-Americans, but this is neither here nor there.
The erudite priest teaches the New Testament as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University, and why not? Biblical studies is a valid academic discipline and, for an ordained person, also a form of proselytism.
The Muslim only converted to Islam 15 months ago, so she’s still in the learning, not teaching, mode.
So far so good. But I can sense you getting impatient. Get on with it, I hear you say. What’s the punch line?
Well, here it is. The priest and the Muslim are one and the same. Ann Holmes Redding, of Seattle, Washington, 51, recovering alcoholic, single as she ever was.
This is the joke, and it’s on all of us.
“At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible,” explains… Father Ann? Mother Ann? Well, Ann in any case. “I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I’m both an American of African descent and a woman. I’m 100 percent both.”
Unimpeachable logic, that. If Jesus is fully divine and fully human, why can’t Ann be fully Christian and fully Muslim? The ability to reason in such a rigorous way is amply covered in psychiatric literature, though the more scriptural sources have so far been less forthcoming.
“It wasn’t about intellect,” added Ann. Really? Could have fooled me.
Ann’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, has no problem with this timesharing arrangement. It’s replete with interfaith possibilities, which the good prelate finds exciting. Nor does he see anything wrong with Ann’s daring take on Christianity.
The Gospel according to Ann may not be the one you know, but who’s to say it’s any less valid? In our egalitarian times? You have your theology, I have mine, they have theirs, and because we originate from the ape we can all love one another, amen.
To Ann, Christianity is the “world religion of privilege.” Of course it is. Didn’t Jesus tell us to get rich quickly, buy some political clout and marry into aristocracy? Well, perhaps he didn’t. But that’s what he obviously meant.
Ann has never believed in original sin. The Trinity is an idea about God and cannot be taken literally. Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and Jesus is divine just as all humans are divine.
Ergo – and I’m beginning to get the hang of Ann’s relentless logic – we are each of us God. So I want to know which of you Gods created the Seattle diocese? Own up, you bastards.
So there we have it, the perfect Anglican priest for our times. There may be a deanery vacancy at Durham Cathedral, if Ann would consider relocating.
However, she might first have to change her stand on race if she’s to qualify. You see, Ann has a problem with having too many white people in the Episcopal Church. Walking into her Islam prayer group, on the other hand, is “to be reminded that there are more people of colour in the world than white people, that in itself is a relief.”
This may be construed as racialism in some quarters, but as long as it’s just black racialism those quarters had better shut up. The same goes for St Paul with his ‘neither a Jew nor a Greek’.
“Islam doesn’t say if you’re a Christian, you’re not a Muslim,” says Ayesha Something or Other in Ann’s support. True. Neither does it specifically disavow gymnasts, scientists and lathe operators. They can all combine Islam with whatever else they are.
The Koran does say, “Fight against such as those to whom the Scriptures were given [that is, Jews and Christians]… until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued.” But whoever feels this presents an irreconcilable problem, let him cast the first stone – preferably at adulterers.
It’s just that Ann could step aside and let her Muslim half fight it out with her Christian half. The way the cookie crumbles these days, her Muslim half will probably blow up her Christian side and – in the recent tradition of suicide bombing – itself as well.
It will then go to heaven, leaving us relieved and ever so slightly bemused on earth.