Atheist minister fighting United Church’s effort to fire her - The Globe and Mail

Originally shared by Teresa MacBain, she adds The Step Beyond Fear for perspective:

One of my dear friends from The Clergy Project, Gretta Vosper, did exactly that. She is a pastor who finally submitted to what she knew was real and admitted it to her congregation. However, something amazing happened – instead of kicking her to the curb for her blasphemy, her congregation admitted that they were in the same place as she was. An entirely new journey began for them, one that is serving as a model for other secular congregations around the world today. Gretta and her congregation are living proof that you *can* continue to follow the parts of religious traditions that have value without the need for supernatural beliefs. They took that step beyond the fear, and found the ability to continue in community and fellowship. It can be done, and it’s fantastic when it works.

An ordained United Church of Canada minister who believes in neither God nor Bible said Wednesday she is prepared to fight an unprecedented attempt to boot her from the pulpit for her beliefs.

In an interview at her West Hill church, Rev. Gretta Vosper said congregants support her view that how you live is more important than what you believe in.

“I don’t believe in...the god called God,” Vosper said. “Using the word gets in the way of sharing what I want to share.”

Vosper, 57, who was ordained in 1993 and joined her east-end church in 1997, said the idea of an interventionist, supernatural being on which so much church doctrine is based belongs to an outdated world view.

What’s important, she says, is that her views hearken to Christianity’s beginnings, before the focus shifted from how one lived to doctrinal belief in God, Jesus and the Bible.

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Things came to a head this year after she wrote an open letter to the church’s spiritual leader pointing out that belief in God can motivate bad things — a reference to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.

“That didn’t go over well,” Vosper said. “(But) if we are going to continue to use language that suggests we get our moral authority from a supernatural source, any group that says that can trump any humanistic endeavour.”

Rev. David Allen, executive secretary of the Toronto Conference, said he took various concerns about Vosper to the church’s executive, which decided it wanted to investigate her fitness to be a minister.

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Randy Bowes, board chairman at West Hill who led the search committee that hired Vosper, said he’s had no complaints from congregants.

People want to engage in critical thinking as they explore new ways of expressing their faith and values, Bowes said, and that conversation is “alive and rich” within the community.

Atheist minister fighting United Church’s effort to fire her - The Globe and Mail