This isn’t too surprising: on the rare occasion when I have had to sit through a United Church of Canada sermon, by the end of it I was longing for someone to put me out of my misery, too.
From here:
A majority of The United Church Observer magazine readers, most of them church goers, are more liberal in their views than the general Canadian population when it comes to ethical issues such as abortion, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, a survey has shown.
A significant majority (82%) of readers who participated in the poll said they support euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide when life support is disconnected at the request of a terminally ill patient. Only 48% of the general population gave their approval.
[…]
83% of readers and 69% of non-readers believe the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be left to the woman; 9 % of readers and 19% of non-readers said there should be laws prohibiting/restricting abortion regardless of a woman’s wishes.
It was through an Observer article in the mid-sixties that I originally left the United Church – the discussion over, “God is Dead,” even though I didn’t really care at the time. Even an unbeliever, such as I then was, could spot hypocrisy when he saw it.
Life given to us is a gift from God and we are to be stewards of this gift.
And we are surprised by this? The United “church” of Canada stopped being a Church a long time ago. And now we are seeing the fruits of what has become a bad tree. Just like the Anglican “church” of Canada, the UcoC is dying. For example:
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/2012/07/06/congregation-taking-offers-for-knox-united
They sould all watch this powerful movie: http://www.180movie.com
Several years ago I attended an “Emerging Spirit” conference on behalf of my local United/Anglican shared ministry church. One of the workshops I attended was about the church promoting themselves in the local community. There were probably about 50 people in this workshop which was being presented by two young “female pastors”. An older gentleman asked the question, “Was Jesus God?”. These two “pastors” looked at each other in awkward silence and one of them responded with “Well, it’s complicated”. I wanted to jump on a chair and scream YES! I went away very confused.
There had been no bible study in the church for 9 years. No one was interested. I was attending bible study at an Evangelical church down the road once per week, so I was at least learning something.
The gospel was NEVER preached at this United/Anglican Church. In fact, one of the temporary pastors attempted to hold a bible study in her home and I attended for a couple of weeks, but she held to non-orthodox theology such as there were many paths to God, evolution and old-earth beliefs, that Allah was the same God that Christians believed in, homosexuality was okay…it just went on and on.
I left my Anglican/United Church in December 2007 as the congregation had dwindled to average attendance of 3-5 persons per week. No one was interested in doing anything and the doors closed the following year. I moved on to the Evangelical church and have never regretted it. (The only other options were a Roman-Catholic Church or a Four-Square crazy charismania church as it is a small community)
Looking back, my experience at the UC/Anglican was more like a social club, not a church. Very sad to see what is happening to the Anglican Church of Canada. It is like a church who has lost its first love.
It is no surprise to me that the UCC is okay with abortion and euthanasia. If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.
The http://www.180movie.com is really good. I can see how this could cause someone to do a 180 on their pro-choice view. Very well done.
Wow, what an incredibly bitchy blog post. What a great contribution to a serious debate that affects millions.
If you can’t make your point without ad hominem attacks, that says much about the value of your opinion.
And it seems most of the country supports a person’s right to die when they choose to, with appropriate safeguards. If you can’t listen to a United Church perspective, you could always try listening to your fellow Canadians. Perhaps it’s predictable that I as a United Church member long ago stopped believing that being Christian gives me any moral or ethical superiority at all…. meaning that yes, I value the opinions of my fellow citizens.
You might well value the opinions of fellow citizens but to be a true Christian one must accept the full authority of Scripture and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Tragically the ACoC and the United Church have changed from the worship of the God of Scripture to the god of “political correctness” – a deceptive term in itself.
The country might support many things but that does not mean such acceptance is either proper or correct.