Gretta Vosper is a minister and atheist. She is a Best-Selling author of two books and founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.
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The end of one thing; the beginning of the next
Read, understood, signed.
My team! With Julian Falconer, Randy Bowes, Mike Maher, Scott Kearns, and Holly Churchill The ordeal West Hill and I have been experiencing for three and a half years as my ministry and credentials have been at stake, is over. This coming Sunday, I return to my congregation without a cloud hanging over our heads and secure in the knowledge that the community we have built at West Hill United Church can continue, without conditions. The following joint statement was released today at 1:00 pm EST:
Joint Statement Toronto Conference, Rev. Gretta Vosper and West Hill United Church have settled all outstanding issues between them. Rev. Gretta Vosper will remain in ordained ministry at West Hill United Church. We acknowledge the faithful work of all of those who have been involved in this process. I cannot say how central your support, love, expressions of empathy, and constancy has meant to me over these three and a half years (plus one day!). It has strewn this difficult path with wisdom, late night and early morning insights, chocolate and other en-coeur-agements, letters of support, of outrage and sorrow, perspective, cups of tea, space for the expressions of anger or heartbreak, shoulders braced against the wall. You persevered and this story has been told. In the telling, in the hearing, we have been affirmed. Might I even say “celebrated”? And I am so grateful for your presence by my side. Akosua Matthews My amazing legal team, Julian Falconer and Akosua Matthews, mapped out the path and held me to it even when I was wavering or wanting to head off in another direction. They have been steadfast and supportive throughout, Julian even sitting beside me to help me grasp details I couldn’t get my head around. I am so glad that I had the audacity to dial Julian’s number three and a half years ago. I have no doubt that that phone call made all the difference. (Unfortunately, Akosua was ill this past week and unable to be with us. Holly Churchill took her place at the table and helped us manage the many challenges we faced. I am grateful.) I am grateful for Randy Bowes, the chair of West Hill, who, too, has been by my side throughout these challenging years. His leadership has been stellar and his presence constant. West Hill was so confident in his ability to steer their ship that he required no other hands on the wheel; and he made it across this great gulf on their behalf. I have been honoured by his presence. West Hill’s community, those who have been on the journey since day one, and everyone up to those who showed up for the first time last Sunday, have been unflagging in their courage, joy, and support. We have been through much together and will now continue our work with the integrity and respect that have been our first principles throughout. I am honoured to serve them. Scott has been at my side throughout. Well, not always. Sometimes he has stood in front of me to protect me when I could not protect myself. Sometimes he has been behind me, allowing me to engage on my own terms and held fast to his belief in my ability to do so. But the best times have been those when our married gifts have brought forth beauty and understanding and so much more than either of us might have assumed ourselves capable of alone. I am honoured to share my heart with him. The building of relationship continues but the task is ever new. So let’s together look toward the future from this day and see it bright with promise, full of opportunity, and eased through the dialogue that comes from right relationship, the courage of conviction, and the desire to protect those whose beliefs threaten their well-being, their livelihood, their very lives. We take that work up with this affirmation, and are grateful. I am honoured that you are at my side.
Sawbonna, Gretta. I celebrate this decision and your authenticity and courage.
Margot Van Sluytman/Raven Speaks.
Great, Great, Great. Congrats. I’m so happy…
Courageously and lovingly achieved. An historic moment in the chronicles of religion.
So glad to hear the news, for you, for your family, Westhill and our church. Love & Blessings, Gretta!
Thank you, June!
Gretta, I am so pleased for you. You defied all odds and my expectations as to the likely outcome. With your team, you won an important victory for yourself and for all those who want to remain in the ministry but also to follow where their minds lead them. To do that I had to leave the active ministry of the Presbyterian Chuch, but that was 40 years ago. Maybe times they are a changing, at least I hope so.
Gretta, dear:
Hallelujah! This news restores my trust in the church I served for so many years. I truly celebrate with you and the West Hill congregation. Thank you for keeping me on the list of supporters.
Love, Peace and Joy,
Patricia Hutchison
I don’t understand. I am trying to make sense of all of this. I am outside of this, but connected because of my own faith and my belonging in the United Church. Is there any way you can help those of us who don’t understand–even vaguely–to do so?
Of course, Marjorie. I would be happy to have a brief conversation with you if you like. You can share your phone number with me through the contact page.
What an embarrassment….a total abandonment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The United Church of Canada is no longer a church but a social club.
1 Timothy 4:3-4. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (that from the Bible for all you United Church people.)
Your “denomination” will continue to lose influence and people because God WON’T bless something like this.
Jeff,
You are so mistaken. Just what is happening at West Hill United is exactly what restored my coming back to the Christian faith and church. I truly thank god/God for the work of this church and for Gretta Vosper. Believe me, if I lived anywhere within the commuting distance I’d sure ask to join this congregation.
How did it bring you back to God? I think you have a very different understanding of Christianity than I do. Scripture clearly teaches that we are to avoid false teachers….not sit under their ministry. The very thought of sitting under the teaching of someone who doesn’t believe in God, is the very definition of what a false teacher is. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are told to avoid these teachers…..unless your version of Christianity is all about being a good person……keeping the checklist of good and bad and hoping that at the end of life, you outdo the bad with the good and “get” into heaven.
Jeff
I am an Atheist.
It makes no sense to me why an Atheist would work for (and get paid by) a religious organization. You may be an Atheist, but the organization you work for is founded on and promotes the teachings of a book full of insanity and perversity, a book that has caused much evil around the world and still causes division and hate, apart from teaching that women are inferior to men. You may not believe that, but that is what the Bible teaches.
A freethinker does not work for any church.
Paul. What has caused evil is not Christianity. Evil is caused by sin. I fact, if you actually looked at scripture, you would see that the Bible considers women and men, slave and free equal. What causes hate is sin and people like you that have such a closed mind.
My good man Paul, I have respect for your concern. I humbly urge you to carefully study Gretta’s book “with or without God”. I am convinced that we can built trust and spread love and peace without this god called God, without dogma that tends to spread hatred across the world, that promotes violence and bloodshed. This world will be a better place for all when love and mutual respect lead…… This is part of what Gretta stands for. Good luck Paul.
Nothing can cause more division than religion. The history of Christianity is a history of bloodshed and oppression.
So, again: there is no point in being an Atheist and at the same time work for a Christian church. In fact, it is a contradiction. An Atheist is a freethinker, and a freethinker does not work for any church.
To work for a Christian church and preach only about the nice teachings of Jesus (who by the way may have never existed) is cherry picking. The same Jesus that said “love thy neighbor” said that those who do not follow him will be tortured in a lake of fire. And do not forget that Christianity teaches that Jesus and Yahweh (the god of the Old Testament) are the same god.
So Paul, I do not catch your drift. Only this weekend did I discover the name of Gretta from Canada!! How refreshing it has been to find a thinking person in this realm of religion or spirituality.
I am a 79 year old retired teacher who spent my first 50 years of life not giving much thought to my Catholic upbringing. It is time for change, time for people to question what has been, be it god or God or what ever you want to label it.
Atheism is as much a religion as Christianity, etc.
Is there anything to agree on?
to jeff,
I admire the courage of your convictions; not your courage, however. A closed mind is always in need of crutches and you certainly have picked your crutches ; the bible, no less. A free thinking mind doesn’t require crutches; those are reserved for impaired minds. Open minded people should and must hold the gods accountable for their misdeeds that they inflicted on their creators. Rev. Vosper is merely continuing a trend. If you’re happy and content with your convictions, please continue to follow them.
@Richard Velner
Atheism cannot be a religion because Atheism does not teach anything. Atheism has no content. Atheism is disbelief in deities — and nothing else. Disbelief does not indoctrinate you, does not ask anything from you, does not command you to do anything.
PS: When they get old, many people start to fear death and Hell. This fear makes them go back to religion. But there is no need to believe in invisible beings and follow any religion, Richard, not even when you get old.
the purpose of my contribution today is to conduct a personal experiment of forgetting everything i’ve learned about the practice of capitalization (technology and the advent of spell checking keeps me watchful).
the conversation about god and capitalization is an interesting outcome of my experiment to not have me worried if it is a conversation about big g or little g. which it is. we humans are creatures of habit and education (good or bad). i (spell-check did it again!) found an interesting mind-set change to use little g instead of big g. if god is supposed to be who he is, what difference does it make how I spell it? atheists have come a long way if we could eliminate capitalization and spell-checking.
To: Gretta Vosper
As a Catholic I was trained very well. For the first 50 years of my life I attended Sunday Mass, no questions asked. In the last 30 years I have gone to Mass maybe 2 or 3 times.
This change of habit is now bothering me because the inevitable must and will happen:
1. I must write an obituary for myself.
2. Pay for and make arrangements so my kids won’t be hassled.
How do I make this happen? I now feel I have Gretta’s words to make decisions. How will the Catholic Church be involved? I do have considerable equity in Church stuff and my kids (4) and grandkids (14) will expect me to do something.
I am now grateful for Gretta’s words to make things easier for me.
Sawbonna, Gretta. I celebrate this decision and your authenticity and courage.
Margot Van Sluytman/Raven Speaks.
Great, Great, Great. Congrats. I’m so happy…
Courageously and lovingly achieved. An historic moment in the chronicles of religion.
So glad to hear the news, for you, for your family, Westhill and our church. Love & Blessings, Gretta!
Thank you, June!
Gretta, I am so pleased for you. You defied all odds and my expectations as to the likely outcome. With your team, you won an important victory for yourself and for all those who want to remain in the ministry but also to follow where their minds lead them. To do that I had to leave the active ministry of the Presbyterian Chuch, but that was 40 years ago. Maybe times they are a changing, at least I hope so.
Gretta, dear:
Hallelujah! This news restores my trust in the church I served for so many years. I truly celebrate with you and the West Hill congregation. Thank you for keeping me on the list of supporters.
Love, Peace and Joy,
Patricia Hutchison
I don’t understand. I am trying to make sense of all of this. I am outside of this, but connected because of my own faith and my belonging in the United Church. Is there any way you can help those of us who don’t understand–even vaguely–to do so?
Of course, Marjorie. I would be happy to have a brief conversation with you if you like. You can share your phone number with me through the contact page.
What an embarrassment….a total abandonment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The United Church of Canada is no longer a church but a social club.
1 Timothy 4:3-4. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (that from the Bible for all you United Church people.)
Your “denomination” will continue to lose influence and people because God WON’T bless something like this.
Jeff,
You are so mistaken. Just what is happening at West Hill United is exactly what restored my coming back to the Christian faith and church. I truly thank god/God for the work of this church and for Gretta Vosper. Believe me, if I lived anywhere within the commuting distance I’d sure ask to join this congregation.
How did it bring you back to God? I think you have a very different understanding of Christianity than I do. Scripture clearly teaches that we are to avoid false teachers….not sit under their ministry. The very thought of sitting under the teaching of someone who doesn’t believe in God, is the very definition of what a false teacher is. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are told to avoid these teachers…..unless your version of Christianity is all about being a good person……keeping the checklist of good and bad and hoping that at the end of life, you outdo the bad with the good and “get” into heaven.
Jeff
I am an Atheist.
It makes no sense to me why an Atheist would work for (and get paid by) a religious organization. You may be an Atheist, but the organization you work for is founded on and promotes the teachings of a book full of insanity and perversity, a book that has caused much evil around the world and still causes division and hate, apart from teaching that women are inferior to men. You may not believe that, but that is what the Bible teaches.
A freethinker does not work for any church.
Paul. What has caused evil is not Christianity. Evil is caused by sin. I fact, if you actually looked at scripture, you would see that the Bible considers women and men, slave and free equal. What causes hate is sin and people like you that have such a closed mind.
My good man Paul, I have respect for your concern. I humbly urge you to carefully study Gretta’s book “with or without God”. I am convinced that we can built trust and spread love and peace without this god called God, without dogma that tends to spread hatred across the world, that promotes violence and bloodshed. This world will be a better place for all when love and mutual respect lead…… This is part of what Gretta stands for. Good luck Paul.
Nothing can cause more division than religion. The history of Christianity is a history of bloodshed and oppression.
So, again: there is no point in being an Atheist and at the same time work for a Christian church. In fact, it is a contradiction. An Atheist is a freethinker, and a freethinker does not work for any church.
To work for a Christian church and preach only about the nice teachings of Jesus (who by the way may have never existed) is cherry picking. The same Jesus that said “love thy neighbor” said that those who do not follow him will be tortured in a lake of fire. And do not forget that Christianity teaches that Jesus and Yahweh (the god of the Old Testament) are the same god.
So Paul, I do not catch your drift. Only this weekend did I discover the name of Gretta from Canada!! How refreshing it has been to find a thinking person in this realm of religion or spirituality.
I am a 79 year old retired teacher who spent my first 50 years of life not giving much thought to my Catholic upbringing. It is time for change, time for people to question what has been, be it god or God or what ever you want to label it.
Atheism is as much a religion as Christianity, etc.
Is there anything to agree on?
to jeff,
I admire the courage of your convictions; not your courage, however. A closed mind is always in need of crutches and you certainly have picked your crutches ; the bible, no less. A free thinking mind doesn’t require crutches; those are reserved for impaired minds. Open minded people should and must hold the gods accountable for their misdeeds that they inflicted on their creators. Rev. Vosper is merely continuing a trend. If you’re happy and content with your convictions, please continue to follow them.
@Richard Velner
Atheism cannot be a religion because Atheism does not teach anything. Atheism has no content. Atheism is disbelief in deities — and nothing else. Disbelief does not indoctrinate you, does not ask anything from you, does not command you to do anything.
PS: When they get old, many people start to fear death and Hell. This fear makes them go back to religion. But there is no need to believe in invisible beings and follow any religion, Richard, not even when you get old.
the purpose of my contribution today is to conduct a personal experiment of forgetting everything i’ve learned about the practice of capitalization (technology and the advent of spell checking keeps me watchful).
the conversation about god and capitalization is an interesting outcome of my experiment to not have me worried if it is a conversation about big g or little g. which it is. we humans are creatures of habit and education (good or bad). i (spell-check did it again!) found an interesting mind-set change to use little g instead of big g. if god is supposed to be who he is, what difference does it make how I spell it? atheists have come a long way if we could eliminate capitalization and spell-checking.
To: Gretta Vosper
As a Catholic I was trained very well. For the first 50 years of my life I attended Sunday Mass, no questions asked. In the last 30 years I have gone to Mass maybe 2 or 3 times.
This change of habit is now bothering me because the inevitable must and will happen:
1. I must write an obituary for myself.
2. Pay for and make arrangements so my kids won’t be hassled.
How do I make this happen? I now feel I have Gretta’s words to make decisions. How will the Catholic Church be involved? I do have considerable equity in Church stuff and my kids (4) and grandkids (14) will expect me to do something.
I am now grateful for Gretta’s words to make things easier for me.