I wasn't sure where poor Bill Melnyk ended up though I was fairly sure he was no longer an active Episcopal priest and suspected he'd reverted to paganism. Yes, that was apostasy. Seems more real, though, rightly or wrongly, when somebody converts to a large, recognised, centuries-old religion and not something as modern and made-up as neo-paganism.
Incidentally his wife, Glyn, who likewise was caught writing pagan things online (her posts on a message board and things she co-wrote with him), is still the rector of St Francis, Malvern. I think she recanted like him but unlike him she stuck with that, at least publicly, and of course didn't leave the ministry.
I wondered when I read the news of Dr Redding how well a woman preaching the gospel of gay weddings (I don't know if Dr R does that BTW) would go over in Riyadh or Kabul.
But it's a good point - she seems to have undergone the conversion ceremony to Islam but in many ways is still more an apostate Christian playing at Islam than a sincere convert. Put another way she's both a bad Christian and a bad Muslim.
Fr Hart's case, in which he said he could still celebrate the Eucharist, makes more sense in his new faith, which is by nature syncretistic. His doing so after conversion would be blasphemous according to Christianity but perfectly sensible to a Hindu. (He also put his money where his mouth is and moved to India to become a real Hindu.)
Considering how Christianity and Islam are mutuallly exclusive - I understand there's some nasty stuff against the Trinity in the Koran - again I get the impression this is a thoroughly Western, First World dilettante playing games with religion.
