Category Archives: United Church

Men are leaving mainline denominations

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From here:

Rev. Nancy Talbot feels like one of the more blessed female clergy.

When the North Vancouver minister looks out on the pews on any given Sunday, she feels fortunate her small congregation is slowly growing and that at least men make up roughly three in 10 of those at worship.

The gender imbalance could be far worse. The minister at Mount Seymour United Church is painfully aware men have been quietly, but in huge numbers, streaming away from many of North America’s Christian churches.

“I don’t think many of us have answers to why it’s happening,” says Talbot, who has led Mount Seymour United for eight years while raising two boys in a same-sex relationship with her partner, Brenda.

Rev. Talbot remarks in the last paragraph that she has no idea why men are not coming to church. Nancy and Brenda have made it clear that men are redundant in their personal lives. Why would it be otherwise in the church?

At least homosexual men should feel at home in the United Church:

And, given the United Church began ordaining homosexuals in 1992, some of the denomination’s gay clergy expect that roughly half of the small cohort of remaining male ministers will be homosexual.

Liberals love form without substance

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During the heyday of the Charismatic renewal in the Anglican Church, staunch liberals turned their collective noses up at the idea of the Holy Spirit being alive, well and active in the church. Now, scarcely a paragraph emerges from a liberal mainline denomination without some reference to being guided by the “Spirit”. This is a convenient means of sanctifying any hare-brained scheme that pops into the homoerotically overheated minds of the clergy, and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the third person of the Trinity.

In the same way, most Christian terminology has been drained of useful content: “Gospel”, “mission”, “disciple” are all bandied about indiscriminately – to the frustration of those who still think they have objective meaning.

The liberals have stolen our words.

That is not enough, it seems. There was a time when no self-respecting liberal would be caught dead with his arms in the air during worship. Now they have stolen our gestures, too.

Here are Rev. Gary Paterson the new moderator of the United Church of Canada – who happens to be gay, a poet and a clergyman, in that order –  and former moderator, Mardi Tindal, putting on a display that appears to be a carefully posed invitation for us to admire their uninhibited enthusiasm for – uninhibited enthusiasm.

I find the image eerily disturbing:

 

United Church of Canada passes boycott of Israeli goods

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The United Church of Canada has distinguished itself: it is now Canada’s official anti-Semitic denomination.

Why anti-Semitic? Because the United Church is ignoring Egypt’s persecution of Christian Copts, China’s repression of its minorities and its forced abortions, Pakistan’s persecution of anyone identifying themselves as Christian, the Islamist massacre of Christians in Sudan, the mayhem in Syria and, instead, has singled out the one moderately tolerant democracy in a sea of disintegrating, tyrannical banana republics run by demented Arab goons.

What else could it possibly be other than antiSemitism?

From here:

Canada’s largest Protestant church has approved a controversial boycott of products made or linked to Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory.

The United Church of Canada’s decision is intended to signal to the Israeli government that it considers Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal, and to contribute to a long-term Middle East peace.

Some also hoped it would send a signal to the Harper government, a staunch ally of Israel that has come out strong against such boycotts in the past while refusing to condemn the settlements.

United Church of Canada elects homosexual moderator

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From here:

A Vancouver-based minister who describes himself as a passionate preacher and poet, the Rev. Dr. Gary Paterson was elected Moderator of The United Church of Canada by the 41st General Council on August 16, 2012.

Paterson becomes the first openly gay leader of a major Christian denomination. At a news conference following his election, he rejoiced that his sexual orientation has been a non-issue.

Of course his “sexual orientation” (was there ever a more meaningless euphemism) is a “non-issue”: the United Church of Canada is a non-issue. No-one particularly cares what it thinks and no-one particularly cares who moderates its vacuous blatherings.

Congratulations, Rev. Dr. Gary Paterson; I trust you plan on going down with the ship.
h/t A Reasonable Faith

The United Church of Canada transmitting "healing love to Creation"

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If present trends continue, the United Church of Canada will only have around 250,000 members in 13 years’ time. But who cares about people when there’s Creation to worry about?

“Creation” is the predominant obsession of the United Church: it wants a carbon tax, no Northern Gateway oil pipeline, no oilsands; in fact, no fossil fuels at all. An irony that is lost on it is that it is about to become a fossil itself.

Not unlike prissy puritans of yore, the United Church of Canada seems to enjoy defining itself by what it wants to suppress; although it would love to impose its carbon puritanism on absolutely everyone, it unlikely to succeed since very few listen to or care about the tarradiddles that ooze like noxious secretions from the deliberations of its governing body.

And if that isn’t enough to warrant consigning the United Church to the ecclesial junk-yard, it presses home its case by having a venomous hatred of Israel.

From here:

As the United Church of Canada struggles to fill many of its pews, the denomination will delve into contentious political issues at its 41st General Council in Ottawa this week.

“An appropriate price put on carbon, such as a carbon tax, would penalize the use of fossil fuels and could generate revenue for sustainable energy,” a group of high-ranking church officials from Toronto argues in its submission to delegates.

The 130 proposals up for debate also include a ban on oilsands expansion, opposing the Northern Gateway oil pipeline proposal and a partial boycott of Israeli products.

Other proposals call for improvement of the world’s oceans through the transmission of “healing love to Creation” and for the inclusion of the gay rights activists’ “rainbow symbol” in church offices and websites.

However, the United Church of Canada also has to deal with a dramatic decline in membership: membership has dipped from more than a million in the mid-1960s to less than 500,000 now.

Retired United Church minister David Ewart estimates that by 2025 membership will drop to around 250,000.

United Church of Canada: now is the time to say goodbye

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The United Church of Canada has replaced heaven later with utopia now, salvation of your soul with sustainable solar and the resurrection with renewable resources. Consequently, it is on the way out, expiring, soon to be no more; it is rotting from the head down, decaying in its own corrupt putrescence, a stench in the nostrils of God – the sooner it is dead and buried the better.

Just like the Anglican Church of Canada.

Read it all here:

Two weeks from now, the United Church of Canada will assemble in Ottawa for its 41st General Council, where it will debate church policy and elect a new moderator. The top item on its agenda is a resolution calling for a boycott of products from Israeli settlements. Fortunately, nobody cares what the United Church thinks about Israeli settlements, or anything else for that matter, because the United Church doesn’t matter any more.

For many years, the United Church was a pillar of Canadian society. Its leaders were respected public figures. It was – and remains – the biggest Protestant denomination in a country that, outside Quebec, has been largely shaped by centuries of Protestant tradition.

But today, the church is literally dying. The average age of its members is 65. They believe in many things, but they do not necessarily believe in God. Some congregations proudly describe themselves as “post-theistic,” which is a good thing because, as one church elder said, it shows the church is not “stuck in the past.” Besides, who needs God when you’ve got Israel to kick around?

 

United Church attendees are enthusiastic supporters of euthanasia and abortion

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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.

The United Church of Canada really does hate Israel

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What other conclusion can one draw from the cockamamie responses in this interview:

Q&A: Why United Church activists are targeting Israel:

Q Your task force has 15 members and you say that the boycott expresses the will of the 60 congregations in your church region. How do you know it reflects the views of those 7,000 members in those congregations?

A A corporation doesn’t have all its policies approved by all their shareholders, do they? We did not go to every single individual and every single congregation, but we’re a body of the United Church that has the authority to make these decisions and we did that.

Q Has the national church ­endorsed what you’re doing?

A The national church has not endorsed this campaign, but it hasn’t unendorsed it either.

Q What other countries are you targetting for boycotts?

A We’re active in a whole bunch of issues.

Q But what other boycotts have you called for?

A Oh, boycotts. Well, not necessarily boycotts at this point. But this is a long entrenched problem and boycotts have been called for against Israel by civil society in many other countries.

Q But I am wondering what other boycotts your group has called for or been involved with.

A We have participated in other boycott campaigns. In South Africa we participated during the era of apartheid.

Q That was a while ago. What oppressive regimes have you called for boycotts against since then? There are many oppressive regimes in Africa and the Middle East. Or what about communist China?

A No, we have not.

Q So why a boycott of Israel?

A Number one, because Israel purports to be a democracy. Number two, they are in violation of international law and even the UN has tried to call Israel to account. So what is left for people who want to see international law enforced? Libya just happened and the U.S. jumped to take on the presumed responsibility to protect civilians; they jumped in with all kinds of force. But they won’t do that against Israel ever because Israel purports to be a democracy.

Q You say five of the companies extract minerals from occupied land or exploit labour or is a supporter of the IDF. Does Indigo make books in Israel?

A Chapters Indigo owners [Heather] Reisman and [Gerald] Schwartz founded the HESEG foundation, which provides scholarships and other support to “lone soldiers” who have been in the Israeli military. [Lone soldiers are Jews who leave their home countries to join the Israeli army. They have no family in Israel, but often want to stay once their military service is done.]

Q Why would you boycott the company then? This is not the company doing this, but a couple as private citizens.

A I don’t know what to say to you. It’s not a purely private interest. They use the profits from their ownership from this huge company. They are supporting the occupation. This was the only way we could bring the light of day to how the profits of this company support this foundation.

Q Are you concerned that people think you’re fixated on Israel?

A This is not our only effort. We do anti-poverty work, we’ve lobbied about aboriginal rights and environmental issues.

Q But to be clear, you don’t target other countries.

A No.

 

A Post Copenhagen Jeremiad

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The Moderator of the United Church of Canada has written this lament on the dismal failure of the climate conference. It cheered me up immensely:

An open letter to all Canadians from the Moderator of The United Church of Canada.

This letter was born in Copenhagen where, heartbroken, I watched the international climate talks fall apart.

Heartbroken because it was clear to me, as it was to many of you, that the talks in Copenhagen needed to succeed, that it is no longer safe for us to go on as we have before.

I believe this is a unique time in humanity’s fretful reign on Earth, a rare moment that will have historic significance.

And yet the Copenhagen talks failed. We have no plan to reduce deadly emissions of carbon dioxide. Emissions that are a symptom of our broken relationship with the web of life.

I don’t remember ever having a relationship with the web of life let alone breaking it; still, if I do discover it, I’ll be sure to emit copiously all over it to ensure that we become disentangled at its earliest convenience.

Rev. Gretta Vosper and the evolution of the Babel Fish

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Gretta Vosper likes discussing The Evolution of Religion and is the minister of West Hill United Church, a church which is so inclusive and diverse that it is desperately seeking someone who would not be welcome, so that it can find a way to entice them in; I am writing this from a hiding place in my basement, trying to look inconspicuous.

The inclusiveness of West Hill United doesn’t just extend to sexual diversity, it extends to every kind of diversity one can imagine.

“As soon as we recognize a group there that is not identified as being welcome, we will change that,” she said.

Inclusive though it might be, the West Hill United Church doesn’t actually have much room to include God; in fact, just in case he shows up by mistake, to encourage his rapid departure no-one talks about him:

In order to not have any confusion about what “God” means when said at a service, it was decided not to use the word at all, because each individual sitting in the pews could have a different belief about who or what God is to them.

Ms. Vosper doesn’t have much time for “truth” preferring, instead to be “open”; after all, what is truth?

The concept of truth is an elusive one.  As we open ourselves to exploring it, we always find that, just when we think we know it, something else needs to be explored.  But one of the “truths” about the truth is that we need to be completely open to whatever it may be.

She doesn’t believe in God, but may believe in god, depending what you mean by “god”, which is a bit confusing – depending on what you mean by “is”.

Ms Vosper is the author of “With or Without God”, a title she came up with after attending a U2 concert. The book’s sub-heading proclaims that the way we live is more important that what we believe – which appears to be a statement of belief that, if true, could be disproved by living as if it were not true.

Ms. Vosper’s theology is difficult to pin down, but this sums it up adequately: