Atheist Pastor Fighting the Attempt to Remove Her from the Ministry

An atheist United Church of Canada pastor is fighting the denomination’s effort to fire her. Gretta Vosper of West Hill United Church of Toronto, who was ordained in 1993 and has been at West Hill since 1997, says, “I don’t believe in ... the god called God. Using the word gets in the way of sharing what I want to share” (“Atheist Minister,” The Globe and Mail, Aug. 5, 2015). We have no idea what she wants to “share,” but she claims that the Bible and Jesus are “mythology,” so her highest authority is her own opinion. The Globe and Mail says Vosper has been teaching atheism and mythology at West Hill since 2001, but when she did away with the Lord’s Prayer in 2008, 100 of her 150 members left. The denomination did nothing until she wrote a letter this year to the Toronto Conference executive secretary stating that belief in God can motivate things such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre, making no distinction between faith in the God of the Bible and faith in Allah. As a result, the denomination is reviewing whether Vosper is being “faithful to her ordination vows” which include a belief in “God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” An ecclesiastical court is to hear her case in the fall. This is a denomination that allows “pastors” to deny the historicity of the Pentateuch, the miraculous nature of Bible prophecy, the virgin birth, deity, substitutionary atonement, and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and any number of other cardinal doctrines, but perhaps Vosper has gone a bit too far even for the United Church of Canada. We will see.

(Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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