The Rev. Vosper Again

[Ritafee]

You think this is about money?!?!?

You think I am wrong?!?!?

 

[paradox3]

It's not about money at all, IMHO.

Surprises me quite a bit that anyone would think so.

 

[paradox3]

I am sure the UCC as a religious political organization is functioning as well as any other 'social club' in the land. Gretta Vosper has decided that there is no need for a Christ in her progressive 'Christ-ian' a-theology and wants to get paid by the UCC till death do them part - and this becomes grounds for a lawsuit - at the expense of her 'flock n friends'. She is sounding more and more like a narcissist to me ... follow me my 'flock' ... have faith ... I know a better way ... the law of man is what we need to empower us with the freedom 'to do good works' ... in the name of Gretta Vosper ... so let it be said ... so let it be won!

I have never read or heard of her saying such things. What you're describing sounds like a cult, in the same way that Christianity is a cult.

Agreed that Gretta does not promote the centrality of Jesus in her version of "progressive Christianity".

Beyond this, I would say that Monk is putting words into her mouth.

 

[Luce NDs]

It is not all about the monis ... but major in the league ... with a few small thin thoughts ... as thoughts tend to go against free desires ... if you wile away in lesure without raising some cares!

 

[Ritafee]

Where the Rev. Vosper review will likely still be pending.

I could be wrong but is it not pending because Gretta Vosper's Lawyer asked for it to be postponed -
*(See Bold for a Reason)

Gretta Vosper said:

• My lawyers, Julian Falconer and Akosua Matthews, the Chair of West Hill’s Board, Randy Bowes, and about fifty supporters from West Hill and the wider church accompanied me to a meeting of Toronto Conference’s sub-Executive Committee. West Hill and I had been invited to make presentations to the Committee in response to the recommendations made by the Interview Committee of Toronto Conference when it had acted as the Ministry Personnel Review Committee in the review of my effectiveness as a minister in The United Church of Canada. As everyone knows, that Committee found me to be unsuitable for ministry in the United Church and recommended a formal hearing be undertaken to place my name on the Discontinued Service List.

Gretta's Lawyer Julian Falconer said:

• Putting Gretta on trial isn’t a way to have a principled debate. It’s a way to ensure my kid goes to a college in the US, I suppose. It’s the worst thing you can do to yourselves. I am the carpenter who’s telling you, don’t hire the carpenter. I’m the plumber who’s telling you, don’t hire the plumber. Don’t reduce this to a piece of litigation. I have been in enough formal hearings. Some of the worst and most atrocious allegations. Some of the pettiest allegations. I have seen over the years a number of different matters tried by way of formal hearing. What is interesting about this one is it is one of the few times I will honestly tell you a hearing is a huge mistake. Dividing your church as you can see it doing it right now, isn’t healthy. A hearing that decided that Gretta should no longer be a minister will not end the matter. It will actually start a much bigger fissure in your church, in your community. For what end? She is obviously a healthy part of your process. She contributes. She makes you healthy by recognizing the importance of debate and dialogue. She makes the point that you have created safety for ministers and congregations alike. You have created that safe space. Don’t be afraid to embrace it now.

• I’m not saying reject the Interview Committee outright if you feel that would go too far. Put it on hold. There’s no rush. Put it over for a year. Structure a debate. You have heard, you have heard from the dissenting members, you have heard from extremely credible individuals such as Rev. Wall, but there are many more. It is within your power to adjourn this for one year, that is entertaining the recommendation for a hearing while you structure the debate that needs to take place.

September 2017 Transcript My Response To Being Found To Be Unsuitable - Gretta Vosper

 

[chansen]

Falconer can ask for anything. I can ask my daughter for a cookie. That does not mean I am getting a cookie. No "hold" was ever announced by anyone in charge of this process.

Falconer was quoted in September 2017. As of November 2017, it was announce that the hearing could not go ahead for scheduling reasons, not because there was a hold on them. Since then, crickets.

 

[Ritafee]

Falconer can ask for anything. I can ask my daughter for a cookie. That does not mean I am getting a cookie. No "hold" was ever announced by anyone in charge of this process.

Falconer was quoted in September 2017. As of November 2017, it was announce that the hearing could not go ahead for scheduling reasons, not because there was a hold on them. Since then, crickets.

Let's see there are significant legal fees that Gretta and friends have fundraisers for ... Falconer her lawyer is likely a big part of that expense ... Falconer - wants the hearing to be postponed - that is his legal strategy as of September in Gretta's defense - In November there is an announcement that the hearing cannot go ahead for 'scheduling reasons' - but Gretta's legal defense - has no bearing on that 'schedule' ?

 

[chansen]

You're not listening. Rev. Vosper was holding two weeks in her November 2017 calendar open for the review to happen. I assume her counsel was as well. Rev. Vosper got the message from the United Church that they could not assemble a panel for those two weeks. They were hoping to set new dates in the winter.

The delay is not on Rev. Vosper, and there is no information to indicate that Julian Falconer was uncooperative with the schedule, either.

This is costing both sides money. It is acrimonious. It is going to put the division within the church on display. And for what? To get rid of one woman and the people who follow her, who seem like nice people, who simply don't believe in the literal version of an unbelievable deity and don't pay proper homage to Him, His son, or the Spirit that the United Church keeps losing track of.

 

[Luce NDs]

As long as the costs bring the hubris down ... for accept it ... in regards to what's out there ... what do we really know about what we say we believe absolutely?

Causes considerable abstract! The of cour that is just words ... and the tyrants don't really like stacks of words on unknowns ... even if it elaborates on the observations ...

 

[Delightful Life]

I don't not like her because of her anti-theism ... I am not liking her because she is a hypocrite. Her 'legal' battle is what I am opposed to. She is entitled to her opinion ... she can rewrite any book that she likes ... what I don't get is why she insists on being paid by an institution that she disagrees with - to advance her opinions over theirs.

I grok
U don't have w like everyone
Life would b sooooo boring if we all agreed :3
UCoC has more power than Gretta imho
Gretta is the underdog imho
There are soooo many different opinions in the UCoC...
Glad 2 have u as a friend :3

 

[Ritafee]

This is costing both sides money. It is acrimonious.

I agree ... Gretta should be the bigger person ... just walk away ... to the OASIS ... and anywhere that Gretta goes her flock can surely go as well.

 

[Luce NDs]

But aren't we to be totally accepting in a world occupied by an ultimate god that is beyond our grasp of tolerance of strange things?

Thus tolerance is denied in hostile form ... that's US ... wee dis the thing ... smoke it and away it goes ... fair spreads of a'fire!

Bonfires of vanities are quite a thing out there ... ultimately them!

 

[BetteTheRed]

I think that the UCCan should put up with its own creation. Gretta Vosper is a direct descendant of the widening theology of our church. She grew up with the new curriculum, she was ordained by a modified process/wording due to a questioning period in the 1980s, she has watched Emerging Christianity in the works, and was a primary mover of that opening through the Progressive Christian movement in Canada. We own her AND much of her theology.

 

[revsdd]

You think I am wrong?!?!?

Greta is not a revenue stream at all for the United Church of Canada. Where you get that idea is beyond me.

I'm sure she makes money from sales of her books - money that goes, properly, to her. Beyond that I guess there's the weekly offering from her 80 congregants at West Hill (that's all there is by their own reporting in the latest statistical report) - money that goes mostly to West Hill, aside from any givings to the M&S Fund. But a revenue stream for the United Church of Canada? Uh. No.

The 80 congregants by the way makes West Hill a smallish-mid sized UCCan congregation. They are doing better than a lot of United Churches in Scarborough - although demographically my sense is that Scarborough, because of immigration, is becoming increasingly non-Christian, and what Christians there are among the immigrant population tend to be more on the fundamentalist side. In that sense it's a bit ahead of Ajax (just to the east) where I serve. We also have a large non-Christian immigrant population, a couple of large fundamentalist/charismatic churches and there are small (often ethnically based and again fundamentalist/charismatic) storefront churches galore. So there were too many United Churches in Scarborough to begin with. If anything I'm surprised that West Hill is so small, just because it kind of has a monopoly on the "spiritually minded atheist" crowd - but they don't seem to be flocking there in huge numbers. I'd expect because of that that West Hill will continue to slowly grow for the next few years, but that viewpoint will never become the norm or even close to it.

I continue to point out that as far as I've experienced beyond Toronto (and WC2, where @chansen is kind of fixated on her and the review and so brings it up now and then) Greta isn't really that well known in the United Church. As I've said I've served congregations relatively close to Toronto for the last 13 years (in Niagara and now in Durham - my current congregation is a 15 minute drive from West Hill) and I think I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people over those years who've expressed interest in her or even just mentioned her to me.

Mostly she's a curiosity. The atheist (who has a very nuanced definition of her atheism) in a pulpit. She gets media attention - although that's largely died down recently. And no one particularly cared about her until she started to become sort of "the face" of the denomination because of the media attention she started to get.

I'm not sure where the hypocrisy is in any of this. Had Greta wanted to be hypocritical she'd have kept her views to herself in order to safeguard her position and cause no controversy. That would have been the easiest way. But she went very public - surely knowing that it would cause controversy. Mostly I'd say she isn't hypocritical - just surprisingly ignorant of United Church polity. Although I strongly disagree with her I can at least respect her for not being hypocritical. She let it all hang out, so to speak. I think she's sincere, and honestly believes that what she's doing is the direction the church needs to go in. I think she perceives herself as a leader of a sort of 21st century reformation of the church. Not to draw too much of a parallel, but I think she also sees herself as a bit like Martin Luther, in the sense that Luther never left the Catholic Church - he was excommunicated. I don't think Greta will leave the United Church. She'll wait for the review process to decide (or not decide - whatever.)

Will it ever happen? Who knows. As I've said, most people on both sides of the question (and I know people on both sides) are just mainly bored with this whole thing.

 

[Luce NDs]

Disinterested bore is best for a place to bury dogs ... naivete is best ... or so some would say to encourage the common to stay in the shadows! Allows rising avarice ...

Seen in this light life is really the crappiest shoot ... and one might as well take one of those old psychologists on death wishes ... yet in Hebrew word ... דית ... this speaks of something beyond us (wize dumb) significant communication between subjective reason-objective reason ... no reasons expected when operating on emotions alone as a spiritual variation of the Hebrew essence as sol a'm'n ... ominous ... yet still only seized words ... lien there ... these may be worked ...

 

[chansen]

I agree ... Gretta should be the bigger person ... just walk away ... to the OASIS ... and anywhere that Gretta goes her flock can surely go as well.

Her argument is that the direction the United Church took lead her and many other people to the conclusions they have arrived at. Looking at the wider church, there are others, even here, who agree. Now there are movements afoot to bring the church back in line, theologically, and Gretta seems to be the de facto leader of those who want to see where post-theism goes. And so the acrimony. Some think she should walk away, while she and others say this is their home, too.

And in the middle are a bunch of people who have no interest in sitting on that panel and making a decision.

 

[Ritafee]

Greta is not a revenue stream at all for the United Church of Canada. Where you get that idea is beyond me.

I'm sure she makes money from sales of her books - money that goes, properly, to her. Beyond that I guess there's the weekly offering from her 80 congregants at West Hill (that's all there is by their own reporting in the latest statistical report) - money that goes mostly to West Hill, aside from any givings to the M&S Fund. But a revenue stream for the United Church of Canada? Uh. No.

The 80 congregants by the way makes West Hill a smallish-mid sized UCCan congregation. They are doing better than a lot of United Churches in Scarborough - although demographically my sense is that Scarborough, because of immigration, is becoming increasingly non-Christian, and what Christians there are among the immigrant population tend to be more on the fundamentalist side. In that sense it's a bit ahead of Ajax (just to the east) where I serve. We also have a large non-Christian immigrant population, a couple of large fundamentalist/charismatic churches and there are small (often ethnically based and again fundamentalist/charismatic) storefront churches galore. So there were too many United Churches in Scarborough to begin with. If anything I'm surprised that West Hill is so small, just because it kind of has a monopoly on the "spiritually minded atheist" crowd - but they don't seem to be flocking there in huge numbers. I'd expect because of that that West Hill will continue to slowly grow for the next few years, but that viewpoint will never become the norm or even close to it.

I continue to point out that as far as I've experienced beyond Toronto (and WC2, where @chansen is kind of fixated on her and the review and so brings it up now and then) Greta isn't really that well known in the United Church. As I've said I've served congregations relatively close to Toronto for the last 13 years (in Niagara and now in Durham - my current congregation is a 15 minute drive from West Hill) and I think I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people over those years who've expressed interest in her or even just mentioned her to me.

Mostly she's a curiosity. The atheist (who has a very nuanced definition of her atheism) in a pulpit. She gets media attention - although that's largely died down recently. And no one particularly cared about her until she started to become sort of "the face" of the denomination because of the media attention she started to get.

I'm not sure where the hypocrisy is in any of this. Had Greta wanted to be hypocritical she'd have kept her views to herself in order to safeguard her position and cause no controversy. That would have been the easiest way. But she went very public - surely knowing that it would cause controversy. Mostly I'd say she isn't hypocritical - just surprisingly ignorant of United Church polity. Although I strongly disagree with her I can at least respect her for not being hypocritical. She let it all hang out, so to speak. I think she's sincere, and honestly believes that what she's doing is the direction the church needs to go in. I think she perceives herself as a leader of a sort of 21st century reformation of the church. Not to draw too much of a parallel, but I think she also sees herself as a bit like Martin Luther, in the sense that Luther never left the Catholic Church - he was excommunicated. I don't think Greta will leave the United Church. She'll wait for the review process to decide (or not decide - whatever.)

Will it ever happen? Who knows. As I've said, most people on both sides of the question (and I know people on both sides) are just mainly bored with this whole thing.

To my way of thinking any one that uses the law and lawyers to defend a 'personal' ideology when many others languish in prisons for lack of legal defense does not demonstrate a character of love and goodwill towards human kind ... therefore hypocritical.

Perhaps I have no idea of how this process works - was it unavoidable for Gretta to hire legal counsel - could she not have represented herself? The UCC is always talking about money - maintaining 'churches' - staff - buying and selling of properties - charitable tax breaks - soliciting in the name of 'With or Without God' and so on. It appears that most 'voluntary' donations go towards covering church incorporation expenses with not much left for 'good will' towards 'good works' ... West Hill United Church - Financial FAQS (current or not) tells a picture of a 'business as usual'.

Gretta to my mind is a hypocrite - not because she calls herself an atheist - but because she calls herself a 'leader'. If she has a care for justice - she could better raise funds to defend people that are truly being persecuted for their ideologies - she is not one of them. Getting fired from the UCC is not any different in my eyes than getting fired from any other political institution.

My curiosity around this particular political theater is more about why Chansen remains so invested in wanting to assign relevance where there is none. It is nothing new that the secular population wishes to 'legalize' the erasure of 'God' from church and state.

 

[chansen]

My curiosity around this particular political theater is more about why Chansen remains so invested in wanting to assign relevance where there is none. It is nothing new that the secular population wishes to 'legalize' the erasure of 'God' from church and state.

I have no idea why I'm interested. Why do some people collect rocks? I can't explain why, but this stuff fascinates me.

Most atheists who have discussed this online, that I'm aware of, think Rev. Vosper should walk away. I am not lockstep with most atheists here, and I have no desire to just follow other atheists. I want to see the continuation of the United Church of Canada. I am not a fan of all of the ministers I have come across on WC and WC2, and what I think of their social media staff has been well covered. But they fill a middle ground for faith in Canada that is shrinking as people become polarized between extreme faith in really stupid things, and complete rejection of faith. I don't want to see the UCCan become just another church, indistinguishable from, say, Anglicans or Presbyterians to the untrained eye. There has to be something between the rare universalists and the myriad of other churches. And despite their flaws, that's the niche the United Church fills. They are perfectly situated to capture those who can't believe in hate-filled religious rhetoric, but they have no idea how, and no interest in pissing off other churches.

All of this interests me, including brainstorming ways to help them, despite themselves and some of the idiots who work for them.

 

[revsdd]

To my way of thinking any one that uses the law and lawyers to defend a 'personal' ideology when many others languish in prisons for lack of legal defense does not demonstrate a character of love and goodwill towards human kind ... therefore hypocritical.

Perhaps I have no idea of how this process works - was it unavoidable for Gretta to hire legal counsel - could she not have represented herself? The UCC is always talking about money - maintaining 'churches' - staff - buying and selling of properties - charitable tax breaks - soliciting in the name of 'With or Without God' and so on. It appears that most 'voluntary' donations go towards covering church incorporation expenses with not much left for 'good will' towards 'good works' ... West Hill United Church - Financial FAQS (current or not) tells a picture of a 'business as usual'.

Gretta to my mind is a hypocrite - not because she calls herself an atheist - but because she calls herself a 'leader'. If she has a care for justice - she could better raise funds to defend people that are truly being persecuted for their ideologies - she is not one of them. Getting fired from the UCC is not any different in my eyes than getting fired from any other political institution.

My curiosity around this particular political theater is more about why Chansen remains so invested in wanting to assign relevance where there is none. It is nothing new that the secular population wishes to 'legalize' the erasure of 'God' from church and state.

I truly appreciate your very thoughtful reply and clarifying some of what you meant. Thank you.

 

[Ritafee]

I don't want to see the UCCan become just another church, indistinguishable from, say, Anglicans or Presbyterians to the untrained eye. There has to be something between the rare universalists and the myriad of other churches.

The best way the UCCan could become distinguishable would be to separate from the state.