“An ordained United Church of Canada
minister who believes in neither God nor Bible said Wednesday she is
prepared to fight an unprecedented attempt to boot her from the
pulpit for her beliefs.
“In an interview at her West Hill
church, Rev. Gretta Vosper said congregants support her view that how
you live is more important than what you believe in.”
Unprecedented in the UCC. Believe it or
not, ordained ministers have been removed for their beliefs in the
past. And it still happens occasionally in other denominations today.
It’s true! Certain Muslim sects remove more than the preacher from
the pulpit; but that is an anomaly.
“What's important, she says, is that
her views hearken to Christianity's beginnings, before the focus
shifted from how one lived to doctrinal belief in God, Jesus and the
Bible.”
Sure, why not? Were any of us there? We
don’t know. Or as, Rev. Gretta Vosper said, "It's mythology.
We build a faith tradition upon it which shifted to find belief more
important than how we lived."
I’m just wondering, who exactly, Rev.
Vosper thinks promulgated the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule, and why
they should be any sort of guide to ‘how one lived’ if they are
the imagined preaching of a mythical person. I think she may have
slept through some of her theology – and logic classes back at
seminary.
Here is a bit of information that
answers a question raised in my mind up in the opening paragraph:
“Vosper made her views clear as far
back as a Sunday sermon in 2001 but her congregation stood behind her
until a decision to do away with the Lord's Prayer in 2008 prompted
about 100 of the 150 members to leave. The rest backed her.”
2/3rds clearly didn’t ‘back her’.
50 people isn’t a lot of backing.
But wait for the big finish:
"If the cost of that is that we
are no longer welcome within that denomination, it will be because
that denomination has defined us out of it, not because we have
defined ourselves out of it."
