The Rev. Vosper Again

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BetteTheRed said:
Do you not agree that the language inside our Sunday services is a barrier to those who don't understand Christian metaphors and Christian liturgical conventions?
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SO, as @Lastpointe has pointed out, is the answer to toss it all out or to provide assistance and education? OR possibly a bit of both?
 
And your idea of a "bit of both" and that of a different minister/church board could be very different, agreed?
 
Lastpointe said:
Perhaps it is for those new to the church. But it is part of the learning curve is it not?

I sat in our service once behind a young couple i did not know. It is our tradition to sing the Lords Prayer. I realised they did not know the words and quickly found it in the hymnbook and passed it over. A quick suggestion to the minister that we print the words or the hymn number solved that issue

And i think lots of things can work that way.

People new to the church , who didnt attend as children , may not know the routines. That doesnt mean the language and routines need to change. It means they need to be shown
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Maybe they did know the words but refused to sing them. When I use to attend church I wouldn't repeat or sing most hymns that I didn't agree with. The lord's prayer was one of them. Some might wonder why did I go to church in the first place.
 
And I starting singing or saying "Our Father" with "Our Creator" or "Mother God". Always. I've got two millenia of patriarchy to out-sing with my little voice.
 
BetteTheRed said:
And I starting singing or saying "Our Father" with "Our Creator" or "Mother God". Always. I've got two millenia of patriarchy to out-sing with my little voice.
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How do you substitute anything else in that prayer, such as who art in heaven, hallow be thy name etc?
 
I can internally metaphorize the rest. We don't say the Lord's Prayer every week, and when we do, we often use a different translation/transliteration. (I have two favourites; one a translation from the original Aramaic, the other a transliteration by Jim Cotter that's in Voices United. We should start a thread on favourite Prayer of Jesus translations...)
 
GordW said:
SO, as @Lastpointe has pointed out, is the answer to toss it all out or to provide assistance and education? OR possibly a bit of both?
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Sometimes I think folks don't realize the extent of what Gretta has tossed out.

My Observer just arrived today, and as usual, there are numerous letters about the Vosper controversy.

Here is one:

"There are two ways of seeing the Christian faith: literal and metaphorical. With the shift to a more metaphorical paradigm comes the understanding that the sacred test of any faith is not the inspired word of God for all time, but a record of what those people believed. If the United Church can no longer accept and respect both paradigms, it will lose far more people than just Vosper."

I suggest that Vosper is not advocating for either of the paradigms this letter writer describes. She has introduced a third paradigm if you will, that of distilling the faith tradition down to its core values.

She has tossed out the rest . . . God, Jesus, the Bible. All of it.

It is fine for people to support Vosper if they really understand what she is saying. But I am getting tired of those who claim to support her without fully grasping her point of view.

She recently stated on CBC radio that "introducing secular community in church might have been too big a step."

In the past I have been reluctant to call her worldview a secular one but that seems to be what she is saying now.
 
I'm not sure that she has tossed it all out. If I'm to assume that she has, I'd rather do it on the basis of her words and not yours.
 
chansen said:
I'm not sure that she has tossed it all out. If I'm to assume that she has, I'd rather do it on the basis of her words and not yours.
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If you can find any of her words which suggest she has not tossed out so much of the Christian tradition, I would be very interested to read them.
 
Just the fact that she still holds a service of some sort on Sunday mornings, has communal meals, sings songs, welcomes babies into the family, all 'feel' like they're coming from a Christian tradition.

If she were praying 5 times a day facing in a certain direction, or refusing to do any work from Sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday, meeting in a pub on a Saturday night over a few brews, I might suspect she was following another tradition.
 
Agreeing with @BetteTheRed. Gretta has been influenced in many ways by the Christian tradition. Bette has outlined some of the practical ways and there are many points of intersection when it comes to the values Gretta promotes.

I have been referring to Vosper as a post-Christian for some time now because I think it is an accurate and fair description of her worldview.

Gretta herself has started to use the word "secular" in relation to the work she is doing.
 
chansen said:
Ordaining gays did the same. Everything is a decision to be weighed.
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Agreeing with @chansen that there are some similarities between the Vosper controversy and 1988.

However it plays out we are at risk of losing members from one faction or another in the denomination.
 
Everyone is welcome to attend

If you wish to join you make a statement of faith in front of the congregation

But you dont have to join. We have many attendees who are adherents. They belong to groups and committees. As far as i can see, the only thing they cant do is vote in a congregational meeting. Seeing as that only happens annually and when we vote for a new minister it isnt a big deal

To lead you must be a minister, although small churches do share ministers and lay leaders so i am not totally sure how it is worded. To be a minister you must attain the requird degree from an accepted school and be ordained

Why is this a big deal to you

To be an electrician you must take the required courses and get the required apprentiship. You must follow the rules laid out by your licensing board. Same to be a doctor, plumber, teacher, engineer. Why do you struggle that this is not the same

There is a level of required education. There is a contractual agreement with required job performances

It isnt very hard to understand.
 
It's not as cut-and-dried as you make it out to be, Lastpointe. The minister in question has a required level of education, is an absolutely natural product of the United Church education process, from Junior Church to our theological schools. She has a good working relationship with, and was called by, a legitimate United Church of Canada congregation.

We must stop simplifying this. I'm beginning to like paradox's description of post-Christian communities, although to my mind, some of the "values" commitments to healthy communal land and water supplies, community living for the maximum number of citizens with appropriate supports, various social justice initiatives to address social justice and cultural appropriation issues, sound hauntingly like the Christian community described in Acts.
 
Evidently it was quite cut and dried for 19 of the members of the Conference Interview Committee. Not so much for the other 4 members of the committee, of course.

Everyone who is weighing in on this needs to keep in mind that Vosper did not begin identifying as an atheist until 2013. She was called to West Hill in the late nineties and (according to her account) started to make her views known in 2001. The theological shift at WHUC took place over time.

I assume Gretta did not misrepresent herself when she was interviewed and that her views underwent some revision in those early years.

And yes, she has a good relationship with the congregation she has now. But please don't overlook the fact that she lost two-thirds of the congregation which had called her 1997.
 
Because of its size and location our church attracts visitors and newcomers.
When our minister announces the hymns she will say 'In Voices United, that's that big red book in the rack in front of you (or More Voices, that's the spiral-bound book). Or she will say, 'Please join me in the responsive reading, printed in your bulletin on page 2. I'll read the regular print, you read the bold.' Then she pauses long enough for people to locate the hymn or reading.
People in the pews are usually alert to anyone needing help - sharing bulletins or hymn books, pointing out where we are.

The fact that many people don't put an offering on the plate may make it easier for people who don't have, or forgot, their offering. (Most of the people on PAR don't bother with the little cards).
 
Bette, i am not Trying to simlifiy Gretas position, just trying to figure out why chansen seems to have difficulty following the discussion. Perhaps he is personnnaly looking for a congregation that would support him. I would suggest most UCCs would, strong faith is not a requirement to attend. Faith is a requirement to lead.

Yes gretta at one time had those beliefs. That they have changed is fine. Just not fine to continue as a Minister in the UCC if she is no longer willing to give sacraments, as apparently she said she is not. I dont know why this is an issue

I dont begrudge her changing beliefs. Just a recognition that if you are no longer filling the requrements of the job you need to move on
 
This might not be relevant to the thread but I find it of interest to note. In the small city I live in there was an Anglican church that had a falling out over ordaining gay ministers or it could have been over marrying same sex couples. I am not a member of this church so I can't say for certain if this was the case. Although I did have a reliable source. Anyway about half that congregation left along with the minister to form their own church while keeping the Anglican name in their new church building. The ones that left were the ones that did not want to have a gay minister or marry same sex couples.
 
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