In welcoming comments, The Rev. Canon Gina Gilland Campbell of the National Cathedral noted she has learned the patterns and practices of prayer from Muslims, Native Americans, Sikhs and others. Stating that “Openness to those whose prayer differs from our own is one thing” but that preparedness to exercise hospitality is another, Campbell announced that “deep relationships come out of shared prayer.”
No statement was offered noting the use of the Cathedral sanctuary for non-Christian worship, despite the space being consecrated to the worship of Christ. The sanctuary of the National Cathedral has also been used for Tibetan sand painting by monks and for a Native American smudging ceremony, in which a gift of smoking tobacco leaves was offered to welcome spirits from the four cardinal directions.
In his sermon, Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool of South Africa noted appreciation to the church for making the facility available, but explained the group chose not to have prayers in the “main church” (the nave) “lest subsequent generations of Muslims see that as a license to appropriate the church for Islam”
I must suppose no one is commenting on this because of the well-known departure from orthodox Christian faith of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. But the Cathedral Dean Hall wondered ““how many people are chagrinned [sic] at the public face of extremist Christianity…I have much more in common with progressive Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists than I do with certain people in my own tradition, with fundamentalist Christians,†he said. How unfortunate that many of the Muslim groups represented in this event do NOT represent progressive Muslims, but rather the Muslim Brotherhood, despite their commendable public calls on Friday for freedom of worship for Middle Eastern Christians.
The fact is that the Muslim call to prayer, and the ritual prayers repeated Friday by Muslims in a putatively Christian church building, are explicitly anti-Christian. Muhammad is God’s messenger, not Jesus and not the Hebrew prophets, they say.
Hi Katharine, yes, I noticed how little comment this drew. I follow Faith McDonnell on Twitter and retweeted some of her and IRD’s tweets about this, but there were few others engaging with those tweets. I guess it’s because it’s pretty much a non-surprise coming from the National Cathedral. Those of us in the Anglican blogosphere yawn over this to a large extent. “Of COURSE the NatCat would host such an event. Next…” I think we’ve pretty much lost the power to be shocked, or find anything new to say. Many of us of course have left TEC and thus physically “moved on…” (When I think back to the 100s of comments various posts of much less serious events and issues used to receive… remember the wacky Bible paraphrase Rowan Williams endorsed and T19 exploded with outrage? Those days are long gone…)
But, unless there’s been a flurry of comment AFTER the event (I’ve been mostly offline for the past 24-36 hours), I was a bit surprised that there was not more coverage of the event in the wider, non-Anglican evangelical blogosphere / media. Perhaps they’re as jaded as we Anglicans about this? But it did worry me that I saw one or two evangelical groups tweeting POSITIVELY about the service as an example of promoting freedom of religion, i.e. buying into the PR stuff CAIR et al were saying about this being a demonstration of their belief in religious liberty. Severe naiveté if anyone believes that.
The UAE has designated CAIR as a terrorist-supporting group. Granted, it’s Middle East politics, but clearly CAIR says one thing at events like this (claiming to advocate religious freedom for Christians in Muslim countries) and does another at any time the gullible press and these gullible liberal Christians aren’t paying attention.
There ARE a few smallish organizations of actual liberal Muslims in this country, people who are trying to square their Muslim identities with American culture and political freedom. Those are the Muslims with whom our government and our religious leaders might consider establishing cordial relations, not CAIR, MAS, ISNA, and other Brotherhood-related fronts.
And even with the liberal Muslims, it’s a different religion, and while mutual respect and tolerance are to be hoped for, worship together is not viable. We worship the Triune God; they do not.