Reverend worships both Christian and Muslim faiths—causes a stir
Friday afternoons find the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, 57, reciting Muslim prayers at the Al-Islam Center in Seattle; on Sundays, three kilometres away, she worships at St. Clement’s of Rome Episcopal Church. “My experience and my call is to continue to follow Jesus,” said Redding, an Episcopal priest for the past 25 years, “even as I practice Islam.” Redding says she is both Christian and Muslim, fully following both faiths, but that’s not something the Episcopal Church believes is possible and the 57-year-old Redding has been told to either to renounce Islam or leave the priesthood. And the Church is none too happy with the so-called “Buddhist bishop,” Kevin Thew Forrester, 51, the newly elected Bishop of Northern Michigan, who has practiced Zen meditation for a decade and received lay ordination from a Buddhist community.