I have so needed to do this and for so long! Finally, I managed to finish the job today and now have a single page with links to media sources listed on it! Yay! Say hello to my new Media Page! (You’ll need to click that link to get to it!)
There are a number of links on the page which take you to various media sources. I’ve only included items posted or recorded since March of 2015. These include the two media items which may have instigated the United Church review of my effectiveness and much that has happened since. I’ll add to the list and update it as items become available. (Hot tip: Look for an interview with Wendy Mesley on The National on Good Friday.)
I am grateful to everyone who has engaged in this conversation whether you agree with what I’m doing or not. The conversation is critical to our future and I mean humanity, not the church. I’m convinced of that. [Tweet “I can’t see the conversation about a sustainable future going well in a world divided by religion.”]
We must find a way to engage in the pursuit of a sustainable future. I can’t see that conversation going well as long as we live in a world divided by religion. Those of us who lead within religious institutions and who have been educated by those institutions about the human construction of both religion and the sources that inspire it are responsible for bringing that conversation to the fore. [Tweet “Those who argue with us challenge us to consider the cost of the loss of religious belief.”] Those who argue with us are important; they challenge us to consider the cost of the loss of religious belief, and that cost is great. Together, however, we must find ways to shoulder those costs on behalf of the future generations who are counting on us to preserve for them a world in which they, too, might flourish.
“The conversation is critical to our future and I mean humanity, not the church.” — Gretta, you are very right!
If we had resolved this conversation in the past century, instead of lazily and fearfully postponing it, we would be leading the world into a much brighter future today, instead of getting locked into Christian – Islamic spitting matches, and witnessing the re-emergence of open racism in the United States and Europe. It is not too late, but delay and indecision have a steep cost, and it is vital that we do the spiritual heavy lifting that you advocate.
Hello Ms. Vosper: I just saw your interview with Wendy Mesley.
Here’s my feedback, after I’ve read your remarks on your webpage: You see divisive religion impeding our growth for a “sustainable future”. You want to create space for simple human goodness creating a future unhandicapped by religious structures. [Many other social structures could hamper such outcomes, as we well know.]
By your affirmative stance about “your truth”, you yourself create distance and division. In addition, I come from a society where religion is not a divisive issue. Simply put, no one cares that someone is of a different faith. And in fact, religious holidays for different faiths are public holidays for everyone. There have been times when people lived together in various parts of the Middle East, unhampered by religious dogma. So your reactions just might be an outcome of a limited geographical space that you inhabit and the culture therein.
I understand your belief of the “good seed” within that can help us create good as our definition of good evolves. But you shouldn’t be so definitive of your belief that a God presence doesn’t exist beyond the walls of your own being. Humans have lived for millenia and have had experiences that verify all sorts of godly experiences. I have experienced both sides of the equation.
Sometimes, leading by listening and accepting “the other” in your midst, points to the larger truth which our varied experiences confirm for us from different angles…like a prism reflects different colors.
I do believe there’s space for you as well as others in your own church. Both groups need to accommodate each other most respectfully and inclusively..so that indeed your views within your faith don’t create exactly what you’re trying to work against..division in our world.
Sincerely,
J.Seth
Thank you for having the courage to own and share your beliefs. I have always considered myself a very kind and inclusive member of society. I am also an atheist. Please continue to share your views on the warmth and goodness that is created by humanity. When all of the credit goes to ‘God’ it can diminish an individual’s responsibility to behave in a socially healthy manner.
I watched your interview last night Gretta. This atheist just might go back to church if she lived near your two churches. 🙂
Hello I too enjoyed the interview on the CBC, I think we need conversation and dialogues to move us as a society & humans beings forward in our evolution.
To disband or alienate Gretta would be a disservice to how we can be …& grow.
We must develop our moral intuitions, with in us & our world, to all work together in inclusion. To talk think share…Patricia
Gretta, you have voiced concerns that I have dad for a long time.Some components of religious belief need to be continued within our, actually, all societies, namely a moral code, similar to the “Ten Commandments”. We do not require traditional religions to justify this code, as logic will defend it without mystic overtones.
The leadership, that you have exhibited, within the formal religious establishment is long overdue, and I congratulate you for your foresight and courage. The big test, will the establishment consider the greater needs and good of society to develop the new structure, literature, organization, dialogue and finacial support to create a greater good for all of our, and other, societies?
Hello Ms. Vosper
I must admit my confusion from attempting to understand your belief / philosophy / point of view. Having read my copy of your “With or Without god” and seen your interview with Wendy Mesley on CBC, I feel that you may have mis-labelled youself by identifying as an athiest. You are a minister of a Christian church. Are you saying that you don’t “believe in” (whatever that means) one or more speific deities or are you saying that in your view there is no such thing as a deity. If the former, then we probably have something in common (I am a Christain with doubts). If the latter, I cannot understand why you don’t join the Kiwanis and try to improve them. What is the point of trying to eliminate the Christ of god from a Christian community? Please note that I have avoided using the word “religion” … that is a different matter.
Congratulations to Ms. Vosper, or just Gretta! Cheer up!
It is truly amazing how mankind has progressed in a material and technological sense, especially since the Renaissance period. Yet, in most other aspects we remain mired in the dirt, figuratively speaking. As a good friend of mine, a Catholic priest now deceased, once told me,” I have heard mostly banalities in the confessional, such as lying, stealing cheating, etc., but seldom, if ever, the admission of crass ignorance and jealousy, the two worse sins of all in my estimation.”
It certainly is refreshing to have someone like Gretta lift the veil of our collective ignorance – for the majority – and introduce us to the group discussion that we may all profit from. Gretta, your are the Ptolemy of our times – the earth is not flat nor the center of the universe! Hurrah for the transcendentalism of our age.
Pardon me for trying to wax eloquent. Orville