Friday March 11, 2011 - St. Louis - Steve Lawler, an episcopal priest, prays one the five daily prayers required in the Muslim faith at his office in St. Louis Friday. Lawler has taken up the life of a Mulsim during the 40 days of Lent in an act of interfaith understanding. Christian Gooden cgooden@post-dispatch.com
The Rev. Steve Lawler should have just given up chocolate or television for Lent.
Instead, Lawler, of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Ferguson, decided to adopt the rituals of Islam for 40 days to gain a deeper understanding of the faith.
On Friday, he faced being defrocked if he continued in those endeavors.
"He can't be both a Christian and a Muslim," said Bishop George Wayne Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri. "If he chooses to practice as Muslim, then he would, by default, give up his Christian identity and priesthood in the church."
Lawler, a part-time rector at the church, didn't foresee such problems when he came up with the idea. He merely wanted to learn more about Islam, he said, especially in light of the ongoing congressional hearings on the radicalization of the faith.
On Wednesday, the first day of Lent, he began performing salah five times a day, by facing east, toward Mecca, and praying to Allah. He also started studying the Quran and following Islamic dietary restrictions by abstaining from alcohol, pork and fish.
During Holy Week, he planned to fast from dawn to sunset as Muslims do during Ramadan.
But in Smith's eyes, the exercise amounts to "playing" at someone else's religion and could be viewed as disrespectful.
Plus, he said, "One of the ways (Lawler) remains responsible as a Christian leader is to exercise Christianity and to do it with clarity and not with ways that are confusing."
When asked whether he would take punitive actions against Lawler if he continued with the rituals, Smith responded that yes, he would. He would be forced to depose him.
Lawler said he only planned to take his idea so far. For example, he did not intend to declare his belief in the oneness of God and to accept Muhammad as God's prophet. It's the first of the Five Pillars of Islam, which are obligatory for Muslims.
On Thursday, Lawler, who also is adjunct professor of leadership and organizational development at Washington University, issued a press release promoting his unique way of spending Lent.
Speaking to a reporter that afternoon, he had no problem reconciling his Episcopalian views with those of Islam and explained that he hoped to test a concept that has been attributed to Mahatma Gandhi and is discussed in John Dunne's book, "The Way of All the Earth." According to the book, it involves passing over "into another religion, which is followed by an equal and opposite process of coming back with new insight to one's own culture or religion."
"I could have sat down and read scholarly literature on Islam, but that's still stepping back from it rather than encountering it," he said, over a cup of tea in the office of St. Stephen's Church. "You can think about doing something, but once you do it, you really reflect on it."
Lawler has been at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church for eight years, during which he helped create a community program that includes various dance and music lessons, theology discussions, neighborhood improvement projects and a farmers market.
He calls the program "The Vine" because it keeps growing and evolving in surprising new directions. And that's how he viewed his approach to Islam.
He also talked about how he was born and raised Roman Catholic but left it during his early 20s because he didn't care for its conservative viewpoints.
"The Episcopal church is a fairly open church," he said. "If I was the pastor at a very conservative church, I could come in one day and have the locks changed (for doing the Islamic rituals)."
By Friday afternoon, Lawler learned that the Episcopal church is more rigid than he had thought. After hearing the objections of the bishop, Lawler reversed course, giving up the Islamic rituals.
"I wish he'd contacted me before making his decision about this," Smith said. "I would have told him not to do it."
"I believe what he's trying to accomplish or says he's trying to accomplish, which is to deepen his understanding of Islam, is admirable," he continued. "But you dishonor another faith by pretending to take it on. You build bridges by building relationships with neighbors who are Muslim."
Mohammed Ibrahim, chairman of the board of directors of the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, isn't offended at all by Lawler practicing Islamic rituals.
"I think it's a good idea to understand better what Islam is," he said. "We do welcome it. People can come and watch us pray at the mosques and participate in prayer if they want to."
Christians might be surprised at some of the similarities between their religion and Islam, Ibrahim added.
"Like the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ," he said. "In the Quran, there's one full chapter on the Virgin Mary."
Lawler said he was not disappointed with the Episcopal church's reaction.
"It's a conversation, so I don't feel excluded or ordered about, and I understand Bishop Smith's concerns about what this would mean," he said. "I knew I was stepping into this as a discovery. It's turning out to be different than I thought, but also richer than I thought."
He does, however, plan to go ahead with a series of informal public discussions at St. Stephen's that will include a Muslim, an atheist, a spiritual-but-not-religious person and someone who "lives a full, moral life but has no spiritual or religious foundation at all."
The free series begins March 22 and is called "Giving Up Church for Lent."
http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/fait ... 52a13.html
