Watching the coverage of this situation with interest.
Here is a new opinion piece, written by a well-known supporter of Vosper.
The United Church welcomes all — even atheist ministers
I will be very interested to see the next print edition of the Observer.
I'm probably going to ramble a bit, so forgive me in advance,
This is an interesting article. Levan's take on the "us" vs "them" nature of the church is correct, but it's interesting how people see Greta having changed the bar so that the "them" are those who are on what's now considered to be the more liberal/progressive side. For many years it was those of a more conservative theological bent who felt largely excluded and marginalized and unwelcome in the United Church. Who sometimes felt harassed by the judicatory. I seem to recall a number of years ago that a former Executive Secretary of Saskatchewan Conference said something along the lines of conservatives not being welcome in the United Church - that they should perhaps move to other denominations. And while he was the most open about it, the attitude permeated the denomination at one time. I know there was a time when I - simply because of a high christology - was looked on with great suspicion, at Emmanuel College as a student and in the early years of my ministry. I was always pretty much onside with the United Church's social justice emphasis and inclusive emphasis (even while sometimes criticizing the rather loose way we defined those terms) and yet I remember when I had my final interview with the Toronto Conference Interview Board for them to assess my readiness for ministry and to recommend me for ordination the interview seemed to go well, and when it was over (after the chair had told me they were recommending me without conditions) one of the members took me aside and sternly said "if you don't change your thinking you won't last 6 months in United Church ministry." Well, that was almost 25 years ago, and while I'm not the same person I was my emphasis on Christ as the centre of the church (which was what bothered him) hasn't changed. If I could remember his name I'd look him up and say "do you remember when you said ..." Well, I actually wouldn't, but it's a tempting thought. But I spent a long time in what I called the "in between camp" of the church - liberal enough that conservatives were suspicious of me and conservative enough that liberals were suspicious of me - to know that we were never, ever as welcoming as we claimed to be. This will bug someone like chansen to no end, but it's really only in the last few years (since Cruxifusion arose) that I have really found myself feeling as if I truly "fit" in this denomination - getting to know others who were also Christ-centred but not at odds with the church's social policies. I always felt that God had called me in to the United Church, and I never felt God calling me out of the United Church. But I did sometimes ask "why did you put me here?"
Back to the article. Toward the end Levan says: "Many church-goers have told me that Greta’s position makes space for their doubts and questions." I think it's extremely important for us to send the message that doubts and questions are all right. But I still believe that the leadership of the church has to offer more than doubts and questions. The church (in my view) can't actually stand for doubts and questions; we should be trying to help people hold on to faith in spite of doubts and questions. And I guess that's my biggest struggle with Greta - I see her feeding (and voicing, in Levan's words) doubts and questions rather than helping people move beyond them as best they can. There will always be doubts and questions. We do not know everything about God, about Jesus, about the faith. Our doctrinal statements are attempts to grapple with our questions, but as I have often said about doctrine, they're beginning points rather than end points. But moving from "essential agreement" with the doctrine to essentially throwing the doctrine away is, for me, moving in the wrong direction.
I mentioned that I had to go to a neighbouring congregation for a meeting after church yesterday because I'm supervising them while their minister is on sabbattical. After the meeting a man came up to me and asked something along the lines of "why don't you have to be a Christian to be a minister anymore?" I'm not surprised that I had a couple of questions raised with me yesterday about Greta. I'm equally unsurprised that they weren't from members of my own congregation. Those who are actually under my pastoral care are far more concerned with what I preach and believe than with what Greta preaches and believes and they know from hearing me most weeks what I preach and believe, so it's not an issue for them. In response to the question I could only reiterate that - again - we don't know what the settlement was all about, and that from a polity perspective one problem Toronto Conference probably would have had at some point in this process is that while our polity requires a person to be in "essential agreement" with our doctrine to be ordained, there's nothing in it that explicitly states that an ordained minister has to remain in "essential agreement" with our doctrine to remain in ministry. I suggested that when the whole thing was put together it was probably just assumed that ministers would either remain in "essential agreement" or they'd leave the ministry. But Greta represents an anomaly; an exception. Perhaps not entirely unique, but still I tend to agree with the Bott survey that suggested the vast majority of ministers disagree with her. And I don't think this challenge is unique to the United Church. I suspect that there are strongly evangelical and even charismatic churches who have clergy who struggle with faith. The difference is that they don't feel able to voice their doubts and so they continue to put on the show. And, again, I suspect that they're a small minority of pastors in those denominations. Do I celebrate that the settlement seems to suggest that it's acceptable for clergy to publicly doubt and question the faith they're supposed to be proclaiming? No. But I'll concede that at least it's honest.
I don't really expect much to change in the United Church because of this settlement. I suspect most of us will just go on with our ministries, proclaiming our faith in Christ (not necessarily agreeing on all the details but still proclaiming our faith in Christ.)
