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.
One thing that seems to have got lost in all the hot air is that oil is not used solely for fuel. Without petrochemicals, there would be no artificial fibres, no electronics, no plastics, cloth insulation (so far more electrical fires)… Need I go on?
We would continue to need oil in significant quantities even if everyone stopped using it as a fuel overnight.
Why is it that the more a “church” drifts away from God and His Holy Word the faster it declines and dies?
Seems that the United Church of Canada has become a left wing lobby that pretends to be a religion. I for one still believe that people go to Church to have a relationship with God. If a person no longer finds that at the United Church than that person is likely to either go somewhere else, or just simply stop going.
“God forbid I should glory in except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ..” The apostle Paul knew what was important and essential, what the focus of a Christian needed to be. He knew that if the Christian’s focus was on something other than God on the Cross, that preaching produces nothing, but when we focus upon, and preach the Cross, the energy of God is released.
This is the energy we need concern ourselves with as Christians, this is the power source our Lord wants us to be preserving, protecting ,and using.
“But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.”
Let Mr. Suzuki and other worldy self-interest groups pursue the false effectiveness of carbon taxes, (wealth re-distribution), and let God’s children focus on God’s church, the body of Christ, upon His cross and Him crucified, the very basis of our entry into the Kingdom of God.
Let the church be in the transformation business, not the oily and slippery monkey business.
Amen and Amen!!
I don’t see what the big deal is. This is their business meeting where they are discussing issues. Just because not every issue/motion revolves around Jesus Christ and God and repentance doesn’t mean they are irrelevant.
Right?
Hello Jack,
The big deal is that they are spending a disproportionate amount of time on these issues that are not religious. What’s more, they then go on to dress their conclusions as being religious and expect the Faithful to follow their agenda. All the while either forgetting or ignoring the true Faith.
– But this is indicative of an attitude and a sense of priorities, which is to be found in any church (should that be “church”?) which is “liberal” (ie so-called-liberal) or, rather, revisionist. They put anything this-worldly before “Jesus Christ and God” and – sure enough – they decline.
@ John: Oh, OK. I think I understand what you mean by that and what they are doing.
On the matter of oil, it has often occurred to me that if Canada and the US fully exploited their resources, Saudi Arabia would soon become strategically irrelevant, and no longer wealthy. That would be a good thing for the West in many ways, and also might benefit the Middle East (or some countries in that region). The rock-hard opposition to exploitation (by environmentalists) thus aids international jihadism and promotion of Islam in the West (think how many organisations/initiatives are financed by Saudi). Now I’m not saying people are opposing oil exploitation in order to facilitate this, but this is the effect, whatever the intentions.