Toronto Pastor Decides She's an Atheist, But Won't Leave Her Church!

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: PJ MEDIA

URL: https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/10/02/pastor-decides-shes-an-atheist-but-wont-leave-her-church/?singlepage=true

By Tom Knighton


The Left tries to tell us that inclusiveness is a virtue in every circumstance and no matter what. After all, no one should be excluded from anything for any reason, right?

Well, what about when a pastor decides she's an atheist but doesn't want to leave her church?

   

The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a dynamic, activist minister with a loyal following at her Protestant congregation in suburban Toronto. She is also an outspoken atheist.

    “We don’t talk about God,” Vosper said in an interview, describing services at her West Hill United Church, adding that it’s time the church gave up on “the idolatry of a theistic god.”

    Vosper’s decision to reject God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and to turn her church into a haven for nonbelievers “looking for a community that will help them create meaningful lives without God” has become too much even for the liberal-minded United Church of Canada.

Seriously. I had to check three times to make sure this wasn't The Onion.

Unsurprisingly, many Christians are baffled as to why a woman would be the pastor of a church that professes to be Christian--as the United Church of Canada does--when she doesn't believe in God, Christ, or any of the things that make Christians Christian.

Vosper had this to offer:

   

If in the end, if the church declares her unsuitable to continue as a minister, Vosper indicated that she’ll leave the United Church — and she thinks many of her congregants will come along.

    “I am not interested in remaining in a church that won’t accept me,” she said.

Um...again, why would an atheist want to continue on as a minister at a Christian church? One has to teach things like the Bible as a minster, after all.

Unfortunately, this is the bitter harvest of "inclusiveness at all costs."

Yes, people shouldn't be excluded arbitrarily, but that doesn't mean everyone should get to take part in anything they want.  I'm 43 years old, out of shape, and with no discernible talent for football, so I don't get to play in the NFL. My son has asthma, which means he probably won't get to be in the military. Such is life.

The United Church of Canada isn't a tiny denomination either. It's the largest Protestant denomination in Canada, after all. Currently, they're looking at taking away Vosper's right to continue as pastor of one of their churches.

I don't feel bad that I won't be playing on Sunday afternoon, and my son may hate that he can't serve, but we understand why this is so.

Vosper should have known her days as a pastor were numbered when she declared herself an atheist, and she should understand why.  The idea that anyone should be allowed to do anything has now reached ludicrous proportions.

[Free Vulcan]

adding that it’s time the church gave up on “the idolatry of a theistic god.”

I think it's pretty obvious she doesn't want to believe in God because it gets in the way of the ambitions of her own god-complex.

[Oceander]

Funny thing about atheism:  it is, at bottom, just as much a religion as any other belief system that makes epistemological statements about God.  So she isn't giving up any sort of idolatry, she's just trading one religion for another.

[kidd]

Funny thing about atheism:  it is, at bottom, just as much a religion as any other belief system that makes epistemological statements about God.  So she isn't giving up any sort of idolatry, she's just trading one religion for another.

You are quite right. It is a belief in nature.
When challenged (how did the big bang start) they reply that science will eventually find an explanation...this is their faith
Try arguing against global warming...the environment is their church (and it shall not be blemished).

However, atheism is (incorrectly) presented as a neutral religious position.
In schools. In public policy.

[GtHawk]

What are the odds that perhaps she found some sisterly love right around the same time she rejected her Lord?

[Oceander]

You are quite right. It is a belief in nature.
When challenged (how did the big bang start) they reply that science will eventually find an explanation...this is their faith
Try arguing against global warming...the environment is their church (and it shall not be blemished).

However, atheism is (incorrectly) presented as a neutral religious position.
In schools. In public policy.

I have no problem with the statement that we don't know how the Big Bang came about, but that we have faith that science will eventually find an answer - that is merely part of the process of figuring out how God created the Universe - but with the blanket statement by atheists that God does not exist at all.  Whether one believes in God or not, the bottom line is that there is no solid objective proof, in the positivist scientific sense of the term, that either God exists, or that God does not exist.  And, I think, that is perhaps the way God prefers it, because that makes belief a matter of reflection and Grace, not a matter of brute force compliance with reality, the way that gravity enforces brute force compliance with its dictates.  Belief in gravity is not the same thing as belief in God.