Thursday, August 6, 2015

Man and Woman between God and the Devil / 3 / United Church


A United Church minister, Gretta Vosper, will be under investigation for fitness to be a minister because of her views which contradict her ordination vows.  This is quite a thing for the United Church, which prides itself on its inclusiveness.  Somewhere that all does not work and falls apart.

She is really an example of the kind of Gnostic, Platonic thinking, I mentioned in the last post.  It is no longer Christian, but anti-Christian, and attempts to infiltrate at any point, "mythologizing" what clearly wants to be taken as history.  It amounts to a complete denial of Christ, focusing on your own deeds, as if they were something to write home about. 
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“I don’t believe in … the god called God,” she said. “Using the word gets in the way of sharing what I want to share.”
Vosper, 57, who was ordained in 1993 and joined her east-end church in 1997, said the idea of an interventionist, supernatural being on which so much church doctrine is based belongs to an outdated world view.
What’s important, she says, is that her views hearken to Christianity’s beginnings, before the focus shifted from how one lived to doctrinal belief in God, Jesus and the Bible.
“Is the Bible really the word of God? Was Jesus a person?” she said.
“It’s mythology. We build a faith tradition upon it which shifted to find belief more important than how we lived.”
Things came to a head this year after she wrote an open letter to the church’s spiritual leader pointing out belief in God can motivate people to do bad things — a reference to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.
“That didn’t go over well,” Vosper said. “(But) if we are going to continue to use language that suggests we get our moral authority from a supernatural source, any group that says that can trump any humanistic endeavour.”
(from the National Post article)

Image result for fallen angels

"Such monstrous infamies were actually considered religion and righteousness among the heathen;  for there really is nothing so ridiculous, so foolish, so obscene, so foreign to all decency, that men who lack the Word of God cannot be talked into it (bereden) as religious worship at its best."  (Luther)

3 comments:

Hildegard said...

Hi Brigitte, You're a hard one to keep up with! :-) Just wanted to say hello, and let you know that I continue reading your blog posts. You have such a diversity of deep topics! I enjoy being prompted by your reflections to learn and think about many things, and appreciate that you are writing from the basis of our common faith. Please don't mind that it would take me forever to articulate suitable responses; just know that I appreciate your writing. Blessings!

Brigitte said...

Thanks, Hildegard. It can be nerve-racking, at times. Thanks for support. But this is the stuff I think about and read about and get into discussions over... Maybe I should clean my house better, instead... :)

Hildegard said...

Haha, shouldn't we all (be cleaning our houses instead)!!. I have good intentions all the time, but easily get side-tracked. :-) Ok, I'll go take another shot at it.