Hi, my name is Stephanie and today we're going to be going over a news piece
about a minister that is openly atheist and is still leading a Christian
denomination church. I can tell you right now that this video may be a little bit
of a salty or ranty video because there's just so much wrong with this, I
don't even know where to start. Basically, there's this denomination in Canada
called the United Church of Canada, which is supposed to be some very liberal
denomination of Christianity. Let me make it clear here and now that I am NOT a
big fan of denominationalism and this is a fantastic example of where it can go
horribly wrong. The absurdity begins on their "what we
believe" page, which shows an immediate contradiction. It says, quote, "the Bible
is the shared standard of our faith, but members are not required to adhere to
any particular creed or formulation of doctrine. The Bible is their shared
standard of faith, but you don't actually follow any of it. Seems legit. It goes on
to basically say that they are very inclusive, kind of leads to the "believe
anything you want" kind of idea. Now enter Reverend Gretta Vosper. She's been
ordained by this denomination since 1993 and has been a minister for the West
Hills United Church in Toronto since 1997. Apparently, she didn't even believe
that the Bible was the authoritative word since even before her ordination. So
she decides that she still wants to be a minister for some reason. It's kind of
beyond me why, other than, like, maybe, a paycheck or something. I don't know.
But regardless, she continues on every Sunday reciting these hymns and these
prayers that she doesn't believe in one bit, until 2001, where she decided she had
enough of her own hypocrisy and came out to her congregation as an atheist. Their
reaction? They were totally fine with it. Keep the Atheist, rewrite the hymns. Get
rid of Jesus, instead talk about love, compassion, and beauty. And with no God,
there's no reason to have prayer time, so prayer time became community sharing
time. And apparently, she was their minister for another 14 years before
anyone had a real problem with it. That came when
she wrote in response to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris,
basically insinuating that believing in a God could be dangerous. This was
because the perpetrators were reportedly Muslim and were shouting that they had
avenged Mohammed through their acts. Now, that is what got people upset. Not an
atheist running a Christian Church. Not removing Jesus out of literally
everything in their church. Again, I'm not even sure we can really call it a church
at this point, but the idea that people can be radicalized. Either way, some
people decided to finally say something and she's free to keep ministering there.
Let me read you some quotes from what I'm referencing. "The Right Reverend
Richard Bott, elected in July to lead the denomination, said in a public
message that he's happy about the resolution and referenced the church's core
values of faith in God and inclusiveness, the Star reported. 'The dance between
these core values, how they interact with and inform each other, is one that
we continue to explore as followers of Jesus and children of the Creator,' Bott
added. 'As a Christian church, we continue to expect that ministers in the United
Church of Canada will offer their leadership in accordance with our shared
and agreed upon the statements of faith.' Randy Bowes, chairman of West Hill's
Board, told the Star he's also pleased and that Vosper represents what the
church is all about. 'West Hill's non-exclusive language provides a church
experience that draws participants across a wide spectrum of belief and
unbelief,' Bowes added to the paper." If your core statements, your core beliefs,
are set on believing and following after Jesus, there is no way that someone who
is openly atheist, who wants to lead her congregation in atheism, is agreeing with
those statements of faith. But, you see, fundamentally, they are on a disagreeing
premise because they're saying, "we can accept everything, but also Jesus, but
also not Jesus. It's all good." That doesn't make any sense. You don't have to
do anything to agree with their standards of faith, because you
don't even have to believe in God. You don't have to believe in Jesus; you don't
have to believe in anything. You can just be there and ... you make
it. Good job. You've made it. You have met the standards. This is nonsense! Now, in an
interview with CBC, Vosper says that there's an estimated 50% of people going
through the theological college required to be ordinated in their denomination
that don't believe in a theistic God. They don't believe in theism at all. Not,
not just Jesus. They don't believe, not just in the God of the Bible, they don't
believe in God at all. -And we have to recognize that we're the only way that
goodness is gonna get into this world and we define what's good. What's good
in one community won't be good in another. We define it, so we're the
creators of good. -Later in her CBC interview, she informs us that we are now
adults and we get to decide that we are the only way that good comes into the
world. We get to define what good is. In fact, we are the creators of good. At this
point, can we, can we all agree that the only way this is a church, is if they're
worshiping themselves as God. Because there's only- there's no other
way. There's just no other way that this is a church. Ironically, she goes on to
say that we can't promise good, even though she just said that we are the
creators of good. This lady is full of really random
contradictions. She said she believes in her church. She's been raised in this
denomination all her life and that's apparently why she became a minister.
What I want to know, is why does this denomination even exist? Let's be honest
here. If your denomination says that the Bible is the standard of your faith, but
you don't actually have to follow any of it, let alone, apparently, believe it, and
you have an atheist for your minister, pastor, or whatever you want to call them,
and everyone's fine with it, and no one has a problem removing Jesus
specifically out of everything to do with your church,
and God whatsoever, how are you even a church? They don't even believe in God.
Go be a community center or some random organization that includes the weird
rituals that your denomination goes through or something, but don't call
yourself a church. To me, this is the ugly side of denominations. I understand that
not all denominations are like this, but with over 40 known denominations under
Christianity, there's bound to be some people, some groups that are like this.
And I find it absolutely disgusting that people would use God's name, they would
use the idea of Christianity and then indoctrinate people with this complete
and utter nonsense. The only way that I can fathom that they
decided to become a church based on this junk, was for money.
Maybe they looked at the church model and they thought, "wow, this is a great way
to indoctrinate people into what we want to believe and get money for it." People
at the top who get voted in are probably, like, rolling in money and enjoying their
lives. I don't know. But to me, that's the only way that it
makes sense for them to make this denomination, because honestly, it's not
even Christianity. At all. Not a semblance of it. You cannot call a church that's
fine with everybody there ... being taught that God doesn't exist and say
that it's a Christian church. It's just not. So, I've been pretty vocal about my
thoughts on this throughout this video but basically ... out of the whole
situation, I think honestly the denomination is more at fault than
Vosper is. I think that Vosper shouldn't be ... behind the pulpit of a
so-called Christian church, but in reality, she's not. She's standing there
talking to a bunch of people who are, you know, all beliefs are okay, atheism. They
apparently don't believe in God if all of them were fine with God being removed.
So really, she's just standing in front of a group of people who are also
atheists. So, I mean, she's not really teaching anything Christian in a
Christian church. Should she even be behind a pulpit? No, but she looks to
be the product of the denomination, so I would say those people are more at fault
for teaching her that. Matthew 23:15 out of the KJV says, "Woe unto you scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For ... you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and
when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."
That's exactly what's happening here. I feel awful for those very confused
people sitting under this nonsense, garbage teaching, probably being farmed
out for their money. I hope that they make a good impact on their community.
Maybe they can do good and connect that way. That's great.
I hope they can be that way, maybe as a community center, but I hope that the
teaching of anything goes, you can both be a Christian and an atheist at the
same time, that kind of junk needs to stop there. I better stop here before I
continue ranting. So thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video,
go ahead and give it a thumbs up, and let me know your thoughts in the comments
below on this whole situation. Just let me know what you think in the comments
below. Let's have a conversation. If you want to see more from me, please
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having a wonderful week, and be looking forward to my next video. Bye!
you
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