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Episcopalians Celebrate Gender-Inclusive, Quran Christmas
The Insitute for Religion & Democrary ^ | 1 January A.D. 2021 | Jeffrey Walton

Posted on 01/03/2021 2:25:10 PM PST by lightman

Among the holiest days in the Christian calendar, Christmas celebrates the nativity of Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God. But that didn’t stop one of the most prominent revisionist parishes in the Episcopal Church from re-styling it with Islamic reading and a liturgy that aimed as much as possible to employ gender-inclusive language.

All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California routinely modifies language from both the Book of Common Prayer and the biblical text in order to better accommodate revisionist ideology. The liturgical innovations point to a trajectory rocketing past redefinition of sexual ethics and on to the proclamation of a “coexist” bumper sticker god.

Gender-Inclusive Holiday

This year, All Saints’ online-only Christmas service included a reading of Psalm 103:1–17 in which “The Lord” is substituted with a female “Fount of Wisdom” in which “WISDOM’S womb is full of love and faithfulness.”

“SHE WHO IS WISDOM executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed,” parish Junior Warden Monique Thomas read in the service. “But the faithful love of SHE WHO IS WISDOM endures forever on those who revere her.”

Readings recasting “Father” as “Sophia” (Holy Wisdom) are sometimes employed by feminist theologians seeking to portray the Lord as a female goddess. In the Christmas service, All Saints’ biblical readings are from The Women’s Lectionary, credited to the Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, a womanist (black feminist) scholar and Episcopal Priest from the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

Even Gloria in Excelsis Deo, sung by the church’s Canterbury choir, was translated in the service leaflet from the Latin Patris (Father) into the gender-neutral “Creator,” insinuating that the Son and Holy Spirit were created, a substitution that accommodates the heresy of Arianism. In contrast, the church has historically understood a Trinitarian creation of the world described in John 1:3: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Also in Colossians 1:16: “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

Quran Christmas

An excerpt from the Quran (Surah 3:45–48), read in Arabic by an Associate Professor of Muslim and Interreligious Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary, was featured in the liturgical readings after verses from the prophet Isaiah and Psalms, and before the nativity story in Luke’s gospel.

Najeeba Syeed, director of the Center for Global Peacebuilding, chanted in Arabic:

“When the angels said, ‘O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Allah, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary –distinguished in this world and the hereafter and among those brought near to Allah. Jesus will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and will be of the righteous.’ Mary said, ‘My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?’ The angel said, ‘Such is Allah; Allah creates what Allah wills. When Allah decrees a matter, Allah only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is. And Allah will teach him writing and wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel.’”

The reading concluded with the statement “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people,” placing it in the same context as Hebrew and Christian scriptures that are both understood by Christians to be the inspired word of God.

“Thanks be to God,” the congregation replied.

Syeed previously participated in a 2017 Christmas service at All Saints, part of which was used for the 2020 broadcast. The California parish is not the first Episcopal/Anglican church to offer Christmas service Muslim prayers or readings from the Quran within a worship service. In 2017, BBC News reported that St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland came under criticism for a Quran reading from the lectern in an Epiphany service. That chapter included Islamic teaching that Jesus is not the son of God and shouldn’t be worshipped.

Former Bishop of Rochester the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali was among the critics, telling BBC News that: “Christians should know what their fellow citizens believe and this can include reading the Koran for themselves, whether in the original or in translation. This is not, however, the same thing as having it read in Church in the context of public worship.”

In 2020, on the same night as the All Saints’ service, Episcopal Grace Cathedral in San Francisco (known for the 2018 Beyoncé Mass and an interfaith service the same year featuring participants on stilts dressed as trees) featured as part of its televised worship service a Muslim prayer offered by a member of the San Francisco Interfaith Council.

It is understandable that in an interfaith context representatives of religious traditions would offer prayers or readings that Christians could respectfully observe. But Christmas is, as Grace Cathedral Dean Malcolm Clemens Young noted in the broadcast, “one of the holiest days of the year” for Christians. A decision to elevate the holy text or prayers of another religion on Christmas, especially a tradition that specifically contradicts Christian teaching on the divinity of Christ, alongside Christian scriptures and prayers is puzzling.


TOPICS: Current Events; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Culture; Worship
KEYWORDS: antichrist; christmas; episcopal; falseprophet; feminazism; islam; islamicimperialism; koran; syncretism
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Hala Hijazi of the San Francisco Interfaith Council and Human Rights Commission offers a prayer at the 2020 Christmas Eve service of Episcopal Grace Cathedral

1 posted on 01/03/2021 2:25:10 PM PST by lightman
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To: aberaussie; Aeronaut; aliquando; AlternateViewpoint; AnalogReigns; Archie Bunker on steroids; ...
In August of 2001 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) estabalished a "Full Communion Partnership" with The Episcopal Church through the adoption of "Called to Common Mission".

Therefore:



Lutheran (EL C S*A) Ping!

* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.

Christ is Born, Glorify Him!

2 posted on 01/03/2021 2:26:57 PM PST by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
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To: lightman

They are not Episcopalians. They are in open revolt of God’s Law, probably close to Unitarians or Spagettitarians


3 posted on 01/03/2021 2:29:29 PM PST by HangnJudge
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To: lightman

Un-fricking-believable.


4 posted on 01/03/2021 2:31:02 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: HangnJudge

I think it was predicted in the bible that churches would forsake the word and tickle the ears of the pseudo believers.


5 posted on 01/03/2021 2:32:12 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (Corrupt Slow Joe Biden is the Bolshevik sock puppet.)
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To: lightman

I’m undecided if the Episcopals are “slowly slipping into” or “running full speed ahead” into paganism.


6 posted on 01/03/2021 2:32:25 PM PST by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: HangnJudge

Actually, this point the move in common with The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

https://www.spaghettimonster.org/


7 posted on 01/03/2021 2:33:12 PM PST by Fai Mao (There is no justice until PIAPPS is hanging from a gallows.)
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To: lightman

>>This year, All Saints’ online-only Christmas service included a reading of Psalm 103:1–17 in which “The Lord” is substituted with a female “Fount of Wisdom” in which “WISDOM’S womb is full of love and faithfulness.”
>>“SHE WHO IS WISDOM executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed,” parish Junior Warden Monique Thomas read in the service. “But the faithful love of SHE WHO IS WISDOM endures forever on those who revere her.”
>>Readings recasting “Father” as “Sophia” (Holy Wisdom) are sometimes employed by feminist theologians seeking to portray the Lord as a female goddess. In the Christmas service, All Saints’ biblical readings are from The Women’s Lectionary, credited to the Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, a womanist (black feminist) scholar and Episcopal Priest from the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

“Take away HIS power!” - NOW founder Kate Millett


8 posted on 01/03/2021 2:33:20 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Who built the cages, Joe?)
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To: lightman

So the homofascist political organization Human Rights Commission is aligned with a church? Where is the ACLU? Shouldn’t they be opposing this?

And her bonafides are sketchy, shouldn’t they be led by a transexual?


9 posted on 01/03/2021 2:34:44 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Who built the cages, Joe?)
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To: lightman

It looks like Arianism has been revived and in its latest rendition it is a mixture of bits of Christianity and Islam (so-called Chrislam). They think they are being new and inventive when they are just re-hashing old heresies.


10 posted on 01/03/2021 2:34:53 PM PST by Wilhelm Tell (True or False? This is not a tag line.)
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To: lightman

I attended an ELCA church in the 1990s ;the pastor was head of the local Right to Life and the service was traditional Christian with minor differences from traditional RCC.

But I can’t be part of a church that rejects clear biblical teaching and these days a bible following church is hard to find.


11 posted on 01/03/2021 2:41:35 PM PST by hoosierham (Freedom isn't free)
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To: lightman
Didn't Mohammed call the Crucifixion and Resurrection illusions?

12 posted on 01/03/2021 2:43:22 PM PST by Impala64ssa (Virtue signalling is no virtue)
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"Hello? Lights please."


13 posted on 01/03/2021 2:43:52 PM PST by StAnDeliver (Eric Coomer of Dominion Voting Systems Is The Blue Dress)
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To: Fai Mao

May we all be touched by his noodly appendage


14 posted on 01/03/2021 2:45:30 PM PST by Impala64ssa (Virtue signalling is no virtue)
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To: lightman

I didn’t leave organized religion - it left me...


15 posted on 01/03/2021 2:46:01 PM PST by rockrr ( Everything is different now...)
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To: lightman

I remember the days when Episcopals almost were Christians.


16 posted on 01/03/2021 3:18:18 PM PST by Da Coyote
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To: GreyFriar

Crap like this is why I left the Episcopalian church over 30 years ago. Like many denominations the Episcopalian church was targeted for subversion by Leftists. It has not successfully defend itself or its congregation.


17 posted on 01/03/2021 3:25:12 PM PST by Justa (If where you came from is so great then why aren't Floridians moving there?)
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To: lightman

One government, one religion, one currency.....


18 posted on 01/03/2021 3:36:04 PM PST by Aut Pax Aut Bellum (Lock and Load.)
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To: lightman

Soon it will be homage to Baal, Astarte, Beelzebub and Tammuz.


19 posted on 01/03/2021 3:50:12 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Democrats have declared us to be THE OBSOLETE MAN in the Twilight Zone.)
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To: lightman

It’s of course impossible to have a “Gender-Inclusive, Quran Christmas”!!

Think about all the contradictions in that phrase!!!!


20 posted on 01/03/2021 4:30:05 PM PST by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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