The United Church of Canada has replaced heaven later with utopia now, salvation of your soul with sustainable solar and the resurrection with renewable resources. Consequently, it is on the way out, expiring, soon to be no more; it is rotting from the head down, decaying in its own corrupt putrescence, a stench in the nostrils of God – the sooner it is dead and buried the better.
Just like the Anglican Church of Canada.
Read it all here:
Two weeks from now, the United Church of Canada will assemble in Ottawa for its 41st General Council, where it will debate church policy and elect a new moderator. The top item on its agenda is a resolution calling for a boycott of products from Israeli settlements. Fortunately, nobody cares what the United Church thinks about Israeli settlements, or anything else for that matter, because the United Church doesn’t matter any more.
For many years, the United Church was a pillar of Canadian society. Its leaders were respected public figures. It was – and remains – the biggest Protestant denomination in a country that, outside Quebec, has been largely shaped by centuries of Protestant tradition.
But today, the church is literally dying. The average age of its members is 65. They believe in many things, but they do not necessarily believe in God. Some congregations proudly describe themselves as “post-theistic,” which is a good thing because, as one church elder said, it shows the church is not “stuck in the past.” Besides, who needs God when you’ve got Israel to kick around?
Carbon neutralizers saving souls through eco-theology in the post-theistic melting pot of United Universalism.
Motto:
“There are many energy saving, carbon neutralizing windows to God. (Except those made in Israel).
Good-bye and goodnight. Will the last neutralizer turn off the solar panels as you leave the building.
Denominations are always fighting against each other. The elements of post theism are understandably unsettling to orthodox believers. But, you need to recognize that the bible isn’t literal. Who knows where the line is? Pope John Paul II also took the stand that Hell and Heaven were symbolic. The Author displays great gall in presuming to know what churches are angering God.
Ppl aren’t as simple and gullible as they were in the past. No church will survive the next generation being literal. So, I expect the current old generation to leave the United Church. However, in the future the United Church will grow as more orthodox churches decline. It fits in with the modern world. Some churches still consider any hymn less than 100 yrs old too secular.
One can already foresee major changes in denominations like the catholic church. They will have to allow priests / nuns to marry and ordain women. With numbers falling, the world changing churches must adapt. The United Church is just thinking ahead – its a very shrewd move.
I doubt very much that Pope John Paul II said that. Can you supply a reference, please?
I think he’s referring to http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_28071999_en.html
John Paul makes no reference to heaven, and it’s all pretty standard fare. Billy Graham has been saying similar things for years.
I left the United Church in the mid sixties because I saw the hypocrisy between what they had taught me in the past and where they were headed. I wasn’t even a believer at the time. I just realized they had nothing to offer and I could sleep in on Sunday mornings.
Just when is this shrewd move of theirs supposed to pay off?
I could not disagree more. The Bible IS literal. Of course this would only be true if you were reading a real Holy Bible, on that was translated from the Textus Receptus and not the error ridden critical text that was produced by the non-christians Wilcot and Hort. Also, you must avoid at all cost those books pretending to be bibles but are in fact nothing more than a politically correct attempt to edit God into something we find easier to accept.
I find it very interesting that as a Church (any Church) drifts away from the Word of God it declines and eventually dies. The further away from the Word of God it goes that faster it’s demise. But they all say the same thing. “We are being relavent. Just wait and see. Our pews will someday again be full. We just need to finish cleaning out those old fuddy duddies who won’t change.” But this never happens. The pews have fewer and fewer people. Congregations close and merge. The wayward Church eventually shinks until it is noticed only by its absence (such as its buildings that used to be places of worship but are not theaters, condos, or just left to rot).
You claim that the Roman Catholic Church is in decline. I dissagree. When I drive to Brampton to visit my parents I see several new Roman Catholic Church buildings being constructed, and these are by no means small. They are large buildings that can seat several hundreds at a time, have a Saturday evening, two or three Sunday morning, and some of them also a Sunday evening service. This would result in Congregations of about a thousand. These being constructed on some of the most expensive real estate in the country, built with extra adnornments for the Glory of God, and whenever I look into it are always paid for in full by the time the construction is completed. But what do I know? The Roman Catholic Church is dying.
The exact nature – and “literalness/symbolicness” of Heaven & Hell is a very complex matter, and I wouldn’t trust anything adequately to expound on them in under a dozen pages.
” … more orthodox churches decline.” – er, no, it’s the orthodox (what seems, here, to be called “literal”) churches that are growing, and “Liberal”/revisionist/post-Christian churches that are declining (fast, apparently).
“It fits in with the modern world.” – no, the World (“modern” or otherwise) is what Christians were told time and time and time again NOT to “fit in” with; those that do (“the Church Compliant”, as I call them) will be the decliners.
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Yes, the UCC is positioning itself to be the stealth church of the future -invisible and inconsequential.
The “Uni” rule applies here. If a church has a “Uni” or “U” in it, it usually means they are not orthodox. They deny the essentials of the faith.
As a former minister who left over 30 years ago, I’ve watched, with interest, the death of the United Church. With a doctorate in English Reformation Studies and another doctorate in Theology, I’ve approached ‘developments’ in the UCC from a historical and theological perspective. The United Church today is a corpse. The only life on a corpse are the bugs that feed off the remains. For example, they currently face the problem of what to do with a minister who came out as a atheist. It only took about 15 years before they STARTED to take the problem seriously. Of course, some of their members don’t see a problem. Some orthodox or evangelical ministers in the past were ‘fired’; that is, placed on the Discontinued Services List without hesitation. The United Church won’t explode. There’s no energy from within to support an explosion. it will continue to decay and crumble until it becomes a footnote in Canadian history. Tragic, but a lesson to be heeded.
The fact that you say to have to doctorates does not makes your observations objective…it’s your opinion and perceptions, doctorates and all
…and after which grade did YOU drop out of high school????? BTW, use a spell checker. It should be ‘two’, not ‘to’. MY perceptions and observations were based on established research methodologies and hours of study. What were the basis for yours????? Perhaps it was just gas from last night’s hamburger.
So I guess that with all your education and training your brain cannot detect a typo and a spelling mistake….Did you get your PhD at the University of Bujumbura ?..or probably at Life University ? LMAO !
You’re late to this discussion Terry, but your comments are welcome. Not all of the UCC congregations are part of the corpse, as I am sure you know. Some, not enough but some, congregations have continued to be basically Bible-based and Christ-centred. I suspect they will survive when the UCC itself does not.