Can you be both a Muslim and a Christian?

No, of course not.

But a Seattle Episcopal priest, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, is now claiming to be both.

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost demolishes this sort of nonsense by reminding us:

While she rejects such orthodox Christian beliefs as the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, she believes that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected. This belief is, as she readily admits, in conflict with the teachings of the Quran. When it is pointed out that she has violated the law of non-contradiction, Redding responds, "That's something I'll find a challenge the rest of my life."

Of course there is no "challenge" in reconciling the two views since they are completely incompatible. The matter is not one of challenge but of impossibility. The law of non-contradiction is non-negotiable. Just because one wants to feel that the two religions are ultimately compatible does not make them so.

It would be easy to dismiss Redding's unsophisticated beliefs as the confusions of a rather dim dhimmi. But this Episcopalian Muslim is representative of the muddled understanding of pluralism that pervades American culture....

Truth is incompatible with non-truth, which is why we must reject all self-contradictory claims made by others and root them out of our own belief systems. In rejecting contradictory thinking we accept an uncomfortable truth: true tolerance sometimes requires being intolerant of willful stupidity.

This is exactly so. When will people drop the pretense of calling themselves Christians when they refuse to acknowledge the core doctrines of the faith - and most especially who Jesus is?