Tag Archives: United Church of Canada

United Church boycott helps to lay off hundreds of Palestinian workers

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In 2013 the United Church of Canada voted to boycott the Israeli company, SodaStream, because it had a factory in the West Bank and the United Church, demonstrating all the political astuteness usually ascribed to mainline churches, has decided that such Israeli settlements are the “principal obstacle to peace in the region.”

From here:

Canada’s largest Protestant church targeted three Israeli companies with operations in Jewish settlements for economic sanctions and boycott.

Last week, the United Church of Canada’s governing General Council approved the start of a boycott campaign, encouraging “economic action” against Keter Plastic, SodaStream and Ahava.

As a result of the boycott, the SodaStream factory has been closed and 500 Palestinians have been laid off.

Another triumph for ecclesiastical social justice.

From here:

The chief executive of SodaStream International Ltd. says he has been forced to lay off hundreds of Palestinian workers after a factory was targeted by an international boycott movement and moved from the West Bank into Israel.

CEO Daniel Birnbaum said the last 74 Palestinian workers left Monday after being denied permits to work inside Israel at the new factory.

The global boycott movement seeks to ostracize Israel by lobbying corporations, artists and academic institutions to sever ties with the Jewish state.

In all, about 500 Palestinians lost their jobs after the factory moved last year following a high-profile boycott campaign against SodaStream.

United Church of Christ and Canada to pool their ineffectiveness

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Apparently, there will be a great deal of living into things; always a bad sign.

From here:

The United Church of Christ and The United Church of Canada have both formalized a full communion agreement in a worship service at St. Andrew’s United Church, Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Through the agreement, the U.S. and Canadian-based churches, both members of the World Council of Churches, agreed to “commit to living into a common vision of ministry and mission together.”

On Oct. 17 they “committed to exploring the possibilities of this full communion relationship, and to finding ways of living into deeper, fuller expressions of witness that will strengthen the Church as we learn and grow together.”

The important similarities between the two denominations are that they have both displaced the Gospel with obsessive social action, same sex-marriage, gender confusion and an openness so vast that all meaning has dissipated. A marriage of convenience, made in hell:

There are similarities between the two churches in their commitment to social justice and commitment to inclusion of diversity in sexual and gender identities, in disabilities, in theological openness and expression.

I disbelieve; help thou mine belief.

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The disbelief in which United Church minister, Rev. Gretta Vosper, revels puts to shame the sincerely cherished uncertainties harboured by most the devoutly doubting Anglican cleric. Sad to say, her pious dubieties have become too much for even the United Church of Canada: they may defrock her. Never fear Rev. Gretta; frocked or not, you could almost certainly find employment plying your insights of incertitude on one of the many Anglican facilitated conversation circuits.

grettaFrom here:

TORONTO — An ordained United Church of Canada minister who believes in neither God nor the Bible said Wednesday she is prepared to fight an unprecedented attempt to boot her from the pulpit for her beliefs.

In an interview at her church in the Toronto suburb of West Hill, Rev. Gretta Vosper said congregants support her view that how you live is more important than what you believe in.

“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.”

United Church of Canada: Rev. Gretta Vosper, atheist

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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 here:

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’t stay in that closet.
I came out as an atheist in 2001.

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

“human heart” is used metaphorically – let’s be clear; the experiences we are speaking about, no matter what we call it, are much more likely neurological

All this has been too much for even the United Church of Canada; it has decided to review the Rev Vosper’s “effectiveness” – presumably, other than how effectively she is driving people out of the United Church:

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

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.

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

…. there was no conflict in preaching while being unable to believe in God. “Within 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’s terminology, but never with the suggestion that God actually exists.

Who needs Dawkins and Hitchens when the church has its very own Vosper and Paterson?

Canadian United Church clergy join a union

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Apparently, they want better protection “from workplace violence and harassment”; things like little old ladies hitting them with their handbags.

From here:

A group of United Church ministers in Ontario has joined Canada’s largest private-sector union.

Clergy have launched Unifaith, a community chapter of Unifor, which has more than 300,000 members.

“A large number of colleagues are aware of issues of workplace bullying, isolation and desolation for those serving in their vocation. This has been an ongoing concern for us for many years now,” said Rev. Jim Evans, Unifaith’s interim president. “We’ve looked at various ways to address what could happen in terms of advocacy and professional development for those who are indeed in desperate circumstances.”

Just as my hopes were raised by the risible prospect of placard wielding clergy manning – sorry, womanning – picket lines to keep worshippers out of churches they have long since abandoned, they were dashed by this:

Evans said there is no chance of a strike at any time.

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.