You take on a heavy responsibility

Munroe is a friend who visits West Hill regularly. Over the past couple of years, he’s been working on a play created almost entirely from the words of the great orator, Robert Ingersoll. It is an honour for him to have written this wonderful letter. I’ve written to CBC Archives to see if we might be able to get a copy of Reddick. Munroe blogs at Return to Paradox.

To:     Rev Jordan Cantwell (Moderator UCC)
Ms Nora Sanders (Gen.  Secretary UCC)
Mr.  David Allen (Exec.Sect‛y Toronto Conference)

Re: The UCC review of Rev.Gretta Vosper‛s “effectiveness”

I am writing this as a layman with no claim to theological training but who as a freelance author and filmwriter has been privileged to apply significant parts of my career to fulfilling assignments for the UCC.  I am also a lifelong member of the UCC as well as a son of the manse and a grandson of the parsonage.  Although technically I belong to a UCC congregation in another city it is to Gretta‛s West Hill church that I go whenever the opportunity presents itself.  The simple explanation for this is that at the age of 88, and having travelled much of the globe visiting UCC co-operative mission fields from Africa to the Caribbean to Canada and numerous parts of Asia, I find that Gretta and her congregation are striving to keep the UCC relevant in an oh so rapidly changing world.

The idea that the UCC bureaucracy should be planning on a legalistic review of Gretta‛s beliefs and ministry is, quite frankly, extremely disturbing.  Science, and particularly physics, has moved us into a realm of knowledge where for many of us the concept of an interventionist God is untenable and to proclaim a belief in such a God would be intellectually dishonest.  The UCC has, in the past, considered such matters to be wide open for discussion rather than subject to legalistic review.

Let me illustrate with a personal perspective from the past..

Away back in 1970 I wrote a 90 minute play for CBC TV called Reddick, in which a young inner city clergyman (played by the late Don Harron) was put on trial by his church basement youth group.  The charge was that Rev. Reddick preached what he didn‛t believe – in other words, he was accused of intellectual dishonesty. In the course of the “trial” he finally denied a literal belief in virtually the whole of the Apostle‛s Creed.  But the real message of that production lay elsewhere.

Churches learned of the upcoming TV production and some of their communication people asked for and were permitted to see the script (no editorial input whatsoever).  The upshot was that the UCC, the Anglican Church, and the Catholic Church all promoted CBC TV‛s Reddick.  Study guides were voluntarily created, TVs were put into church basements, and lay people were encouraged to watch and discuss. Afterwards, an overview was written by the UCC‛s Rev. Robert “Bob” Reid.

Now, alas, in the case of the Rev. Gretta, the UCC instead of entering into open and stimulating discussion of the inherent dilemmas of contemporary belief has descended into a legalistic review of dogma.  This is not the UCC that I have known.

It may be relevant to point out that I wrote Reddick because I had recently researched and written (for Berkeley Studio of the UCC) a film called Inner City, concerning the woes of old inner city congregations in changing times.  While doing research for that film I became aware of the angst that afflicted many UCC ministers when faced with the conflict between archaic Biblical verbiage and concepts and their own evolving beliefs.  It was that awareness that propelled me into writing Reddick.  In those days the questioning of dogma must have been of widespread interest because not only did the CBC produce the script but their production was picked up by both PBS and the BBC.  The following year CBC not only repeated the original but followed with a 90 minute sequel.

What is truly remarkable about Gretta is that she has gone beyond discussion and actually tried to adapt her ministry and its message to make it honest and thereby relevant in this truly awesome world that we are only beginning to understand.  I think of Gretta and her West Hill family as UCC explorers scouting into uncharted spaces, remaining loyal to the ideals of the mother institution while navigating with the astrolabe of freethought and scholarship.  The “effectiveness” of their voyage may indeed be assessed by some future generation but a rush to judgement now may impede and even destroy.

You take on a heavy responsibility.

With respect,
Munroe Scott

Author:       McCLure: The China Years (Canec/Penguin)
McClure: Years of Challenge (Canec/ Penguin)
African Manhunt: (United Church of Canada/United Church of Christ, USA)
Filmwriter:  I‛ll Sing, not Cry: (Berkeley Studio – Blue Ribbon at New York Film Festival)
Inner City: (Berkeley Studio – Blue ribbon at the New York Film Festival)
On the Rim of Tomorrow: (Berkeley Studio)
Faith in Revolution: (Berkeley Studio – for the Nat‛l Council of Churches, NY.)
Playwright:   McClure: (Theatre Aquarius, published Simon & Pierre)
Reddick, Pts 1&2: (CBC TV)