Posted on 03/28/2008 5:36:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
One Toronto church decided that they had enough of divisiveness this Lenten season, and decided to take a stand. No more would incendiary rhetoric be used to inflame the passions of the congregation. No more would the United Church endorse an outdated theology, at least not the West Hill Protestant United Christian Church. Their pastor struck these dreaded words from their Easter hymnal …. Jesus Christ?
That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto’s West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country.
But at West Hill on the faith’s holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words “Jesus Christ” will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with “Glorious hope.”
Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity’s central tenet about the return to life on Easter morning of the crucified divine son of God.
Generally speaking, no divine anybody makes an appearance in West Hill’s Sunday service liturgy.
It’s Easter without God and Jesus Christ! What a breakthrough! Now all we need is a Toronto Argonauts game on the telly, and the West Hill congregation won’t have any reason to attend at all.
The pastor, Rev. Gretta Vosper, has had it with “Big God-ism” and wants to turn the West Hill United Church into a New Age encounter group. Vosper says that the world has outgrown Jesus Christ and the church is finished unless it gives up God, Jesus, and pretty much the entire Bible, except possibly for the Sermon on the Mount. Her new book, With or Without God, makes plain her hostility to the tenets of Christianity over the last two millenia and the need to replace God with Human.
The Anchoress is appalled:
Do you know why these “progressive” Christians want to “progress” right through the tenets of Christianity into the grim world of neither-faith-nor-reason but self-actualizing instinct and “hopeful” feelings? Why they want Jesus with no Christ, God with a small g and all that? Can you take a guess?
If you said “it is the logical culmination of baby-boomer narcissism and that generations’ tireless effort to deconstruct the universe and put itself at the center of all things” then ding, ding, ding! You win the daily double!
It recalls to mind a conversation I had with a friend of mine who was an observant Reform Jew about the group Jews for Jesus. He told me with a laugh that Jews have a name for them — Christians. We Christians have a name for ministers who proclaim the end of God and Jesus in their Christian churches — atheists.
Rev. Gretta Vosper ... I... er ... ummm ... Never mind.
10 to 1 she’s a dyke.
Female pastors are one of the first signs that the church is moving away from Christ.
Breaks my heart. My sister is a “pastor”.
Scripture doesn’t seem to matter. Just as
God spoke in Genesis, women desire to dominate
men in everything. What we get are arrogant,
mean, self centered, self righteous females
who behave exactly the way they criticize men
for behaving.
Sorry. I’m a woman who thinks it’s sexy for a
man to be confident and self assured (not cocky).
On a woman it just looks arrogant.
No doubt someone will be along shortly to flame you over that but you won’t be alone cause I have a problem with women pastors, too.
I knew a legal immigrant family from the Ukraine and the father was a very proud, dignified man. Not cocky or proud in a vain way, like you said, but self-confident and self-assured. What a refreshing change to meet a man who wasn’t a wuss or wasn’t full of himself.
I find myself enjoying cable shows like “Deadliest
Catch”. Hubby doesn’t like then all that much and
wonders why I do. Then I realized I like the show
because they are MEN who behave like MEN like my
hubby is a MAN. Though the language is pretty rough,
I am confident that I won’t be broadsided by stealth
“gay” scenes. You won’t catch any of those guys eating
estrogen rich tofu or sending their sons to dance classes.
No weigh. It’s refreshing to see a guy take it like
a MAN when he screws up and gets ripped a new
one by his peers.
"Blasphemous heretics" is more to the point.
If any come among you, and bear not this doctrine...
I wish we would allow more Ukranian/Polish/Russian immigrants in....they have lots of kids and that is what we need....
This family had lots and then produced a few American citizens after they got here. If they grow up like their parents the country is way better off. The more the merrier, I say.
The parents became citizens themselves and are proud of it.
There are a lot of people out there worshipping “Hope” and the other god “Change” these days!
I've belonged to this denomination for 20 years and love it!
Presbyterian USA does, however....
PCA Presbyterian broke off from USA over 30 years ago.
Amen!
I have gotten hooked on “The Biggest Loser- Couples” and the people on it are really dedicated to changing their lives. One young man came on with his mother but his mother didn’t last too many shows before she was out and he started hanging out with MEN. I have watched him go from a fat 21 year old kid to a young MAN. It did him world of good to be around them.
Yep. Kind of reminds me of the pigs in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”.
Looks like they've been infiltrated and have started that direction.
Here's the first public step:
OVERTURE 9 from Philadelphia Presbytery
“Erect Study Committee on Deaconesses”
I know that at least 4 presbyteries allow women Deacons.
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