{"id":23059,"date":"2015-05-31T21:40:03","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T01:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=23059"},"modified":"2015-05-31T23:53:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T03:53:03","slug":"united-church-of-canada-rev-gretta-vosper-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/united-church-of-canada-rev-gretta-vosper-atheist\/","title":{"rendered":"United Church of Canada: Rev. Gretta Vosper, atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Anglican Church of Canada is behind the times in competitive coming out<\/em>. ACoC clergy are still contenting themselves with coming out as gay: very yesterday. The United Church has a clergywoman who has come out as an atheist.<\/p>\n

\"\"From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

My congregation belongs to The United Church of Canada, probably the most progressive Christian denomination in the world. It ordained women over seventy years ago and has been ordaining openly LGBTQ leaders for decades. But theologically it remains in the closet about the human construction of religion and all its trapping. I couldn\u2019t stay in that closet.
\nI came out as an atheist in 2001.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an atheist, Vosper thinks any experience of God, \u201ccommitment, love, engagement, kindness, concern, empathy, humility, wonder\u201d <\/em>must be attributed to materially enflamed neurons rather than a numinously excited spirit. This, of course, means that her neurons making the following statement<\/a> are no more valid than mine making the opposite statement. All thought is reduced to nonsense.<\/p>\n

\u201chuman heart\u201d is used metaphorically \u2013 let\u2019s be clear; the experiences we are speaking about, no matter what we call it, are much more likely neurological<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All this has been too much for even the United Church of Canada; it has decided to review<\/a> the Rev Vosper\u2019s \u201ceffectiveness\u201d \u2013 presumably, other than how effectively she is driving people out of the United Church:<\/p>\n

A regional body of the United Church of Canada will interview a clergywoman who is an outspoken atheist to see about her “effectiveness.”<\/p>\n

In June, the Toronto Conference of the UCC will enact a formal process known as a review regarding the Rev. Gretta Vosper, an author and founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity who is also a professed atheist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Internationally, the Rev. Vosper is not alone in her uncloseted clerical atheism: according to this report<\/a>, 2% of Church of England clergy – that\u2019s around 560 clergy – are atheists. For example, Rev David Paterson said, during an unguarded spasm of random neurological misfiring:<\/p>\n

…. there was no conflict in preaching while being unable to believe in God. \u201cWithin my congregation I would take the line that how you feel about God is not in the least dependent on whether you think God exists or not. I preach using God\u2019s terminology, but never with the suggestion that God actually exists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who needs Dawkins and Hitchens when the church has its very own Vosper and Paterson?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Anglican Church of Canada is behind the times in competitive coming out. ACoC clergy are still contenting themselves with coming out as gay: very yesterday. The United Church has a clergywoman who has come out as an atheist. From … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":17,"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[2008,1588],"class_list":["post-23059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-church","tag-rev-gretta-vosper","tag-united-church-of-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}