‘Inclusive’ Canadian Church Debates Suitability of Openly Atheist Pastor

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‘Inclusive’ Canadian Church Debates Suitability of Openly Atheist Pastor
The crux of the matter seems to be that for a church that has progressively embraced every aspect of secular culture, it has become hard to say “no” to anything. With a wink to the Bible, the United Church has accepted abortion and same-sex marriage and divorce and female ordination and openly gay ministers. But atheism seems a bridge too far.
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In other words, for the United Church, it’s all right to “mold” your idea of God so that he (or she) can approve of homosexual sex and trangenderism and killing babies in the womb, but please don’t deny the divinity outright.
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*I direct this primarily to our more liberal Christian friends here. *

“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Magisterium tells me so” is the tune I sing regarding moral issues.
I understand that you don’t sing the same tune - that would contradict sola scriptura - but I do wonder how you go from Scripture to this woman, or Bishop Spong.

Why is atheism wrong and not the rest of the zeitgeist?
 
Liberalism is the downfall of many a church, and has wreaked havoc on the Catholic Church in particular.
 
Why not? At the time when I left the United Church of Canada 16 years ago to become Catholic, we had an atheist functioning as Moderator of the General Council.

The UCC has been off its moorings for some time, now.
 
Liberal christian churches wonder why the attendance numbers keep dropping. Why should non-believers dart the doors to these churches when the leaders of these churches themselves are telling you that God is not real, Jesus never rose, etc, etc.

I mean it’s not hard to figure out and it’s sad.
 
DaddyGirl said:
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These issues are not necessarily “secular”.
Several theist religions have divorce or have had females performing rites.

My question is…why the heck would an atheist want to continue a vocation that promotes a god?
I’ve read a lot about this church and pastor…and keep meaning to go attend a service when I’m in toronto to see what’s what.
Will report back to everyone if I get a chance to do so.

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Exactly this; why would an atheist remain a pastor? It just doesn’t make much sense.
 
Cheiron said:
Exactly this; why would an atheist remain a pastor? It just doesn’t make much sense.
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That’s a failure of imagination! There are many reasons that come to mind.

Some are purely cynical: this is her job, it’s what she trained to do, she may even done education in the field that would be useless to her elsewhere. Check out, for example, the Clergy Project and Caught in the Pulpit to learn something about clergy who have lost their belief, but still need to keep their jobs, their livelihoods, their social circles, etc. Maybe she’s like that and just doesn’t want to lie about her beliefs anymore.

But there also a lot of non-cynical reasons. Maybe she really believes the church does good, even if that good is unrelated to its supernatural beliefs. Maybe she loves her church community. Maybe she feels called to be in an environment where you can talk about love openly and use that word. Where else would she be able to minister to a large group of people who gather together to express the desire to be more loving? It doesn’t really exist outside of a church community.

Just think about answers to the questions “Why do you go to church?” Ask the people in your own parish. Some of them will say “For God” or “to satisfy the Sunday obligation”, but I guarantee you will also get lots of answers like “to feel part of a community”, “to have a place on Sunday to get away from the bustle of the world”, “to learn how to be a better person”, “to shape my kids’ consciences”, etc. And all of those reasons could apply to an atheist as well!
 
carefullytread said:
That’s a failure of imagination! There are many reasons that come to mind.

Some are purely cynical: this is her job, it’s what she trained to do, she may even done education in the field that would be useless to her elsewhere. Check out, for example, the Clergy Project and Caught in the Pulpit to learn something about clergy who have lost their belief, but still need to keep their jobs, their livelihoods, their social circles, etc. Maybe she’s like that and just doesn’t want to lie about her beliefs anymore.

But there also a lot of non-cynical reasons. Maybe she really believes the church does good, even if that good is unrelated to its supernatural beliefs. Maybe she loves her church community. Maybe she feels called to be in an environment where you can talk about love openly and use that word. Where else would she be able to minister to a large group of people who gather together to express the desire to be more loving? It doesn’t really exist outside of a church community.

Just think about answers to the questions “Why do you go to church?” Ask the people in your own parish. Some of them will say “For God” or “to satisfy the Sunday obligation”, but I guarantee you will also get lots of answers like “to feel part of a community”, “to have a place on Sunday to get away from the bustle of the world”, “to learn how to be a better person”, “to shape my kids’ consciences”, etc. And all of those reasons could apply to an atheist as well!
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Social so-called “Christianity” . Been around a long time in many forms. My parents never near a church except funerals and weddings etc but sent their children, It was the 'respectable " thing to do.

Unless Jesus is at the centre ? a Hollowechoantre?e
 
DaddyGirl said:
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These issues are not necessarily “secular”.
Several theist religions have divorce or have had females performing rites.

My question is…why the heck would an atheist want to continue a vocation that promotes a god?
I’ve read a lot about this church and pastor…and keep meaning to go attend a service when I’m in toronto to see what’s what.
Will report back to everyone if I get a chance to do so.

.
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Your report would be welcome.
 
carefullytread said:
Ask the people in your own parish. Some of them will say “For God” or “to satisfy the Sunday obligation”, but I guarantee you will also get lots of answers like “to feel part of a community”, “to have a place on Sunday to get away from the bustle of the world”, “to learn how to be a better person”, “to shape my kids’ consciences”, etc. And all of those reasons could apply to an atheist as well!
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Yes, but even if members of my parish give those reasons, they don’t functionally disbelieve the parish’s core tenets. It may just be what they derive the most value from.

If an atheist runs a church that ostensibly has a belief in God as one of their core tenets, they are are at fundamental odds with the values of that church and are charged with its care. A church that doesn’t have some belief in deity hardly seems like a church and more like a social club.
 
DaddyGirl said:
The only reason I can think of is that…she hopes to enlighten the congregation?
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It still doesn’t explain her participation in Christian religious rites. Of course, being the pastor does give one a position to provide guidance and insight to the congregation, but so could being a life coach or something. 🤷
 
DaddyGirl said:
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My question is…why the heck would an atheist want to continue a vocation that promotes a god?
I’ve read a lot about this church and pastor…and keep meaning to go attend a service when I’m in toronto to see what’s what.
Will report back to everyone if I get a chance to do so.
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I’m wondering if she is more humanistic in her beliefs than atheistic. There are lots of humanistic congregations about these days - some Christian-like, some Jewish. There are atheistic congregations starting to form also, and as someone has already pointed out, many people want a sense of community in their lives. I also know many Unitarian-Universalist members are atheists.

It doesn’t really surprise me that the pastor is in this position, and it doesn’t surprise me that the hierarchy of the UCC is trying to sort it out (and last reading was that they DID ask her to leave her congregation.)

I do know clergy people who have changed their beliefs over the years, some staying in their jobs and some leaving to do other things. When one has an advanced degree (usually an MDiv) that took hard work and several years to achieve, it’s not always easy to discard it.

I wonder what the pastor will do next.
 
A small stray thought… Some of the leading Nazis went to mass. clearly seeing no conflict of interests

“Nowt so queer as folks”

Maybe it is better we have a society in which going to church no longer scores points…
 
DaddyGirl said:
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My question is…why the heck would an atheist want to continue a vocation that promotes a god?

.
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In general, some would be nefarious where sometimes the case is that godless progressives believe themselves to be ahead of the curve and take it upon themselves to convert people from within Christian organisations, including parishes. I believe this to be deceitful and immoral and can be the source of great anger and division.

In general though i would expect the great bulk of cases today would be because the pastor believes he/she can do a lot of good in the position by being face to face with people seeking help for their families and themselves.

Another reason might be familiarity in that the pastor is a little scared to leave the position they are in.

A third reason might be that the pastor is working through his/her issues and holds out the hope that doubts will be removed through subsequent answers and interaction with the faithful.
 
This organization cannot call themselves a church if they contradict themselves in their most basic purpose. The Canadian United Church, by definition, is for the worship of God. If they employ pastors who worship nobody, then they are no longer following their basic tenet. Thus the fake “church” would then be no more than a secular means to promote their government. They might as well just admit right now that their purpose is simply to bring citizens together in a pretty building to encourage them to support the government of Canada. Furthermore, they should stop this farce and call their services “pro-government rallies in pretty looking publicly maintained buildings”.

The British Anglican Church does not seem to be nearly as secular. What is it about Canada? Is it politeness and fear of a debate between the French Catholic side and the British Anglican side? Now, it seems they have no side. Not even God’s
 
Catholic_farmer said:
The British Anglican Church does not seem to be nearly as secular. What is it about Canada? Is it politeness and fear of a debate between the French Catholic side and the British Anglican side? Now, it seems they have no side. Not even God’s
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I don’t think its a “Canadian” thing. I think it has more to do with the entire existence of the United Church. The United Church of Canada formed in 1925 when the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists all decided to form one church.

The entire denomination was constructed on organizational, as opposed to doctrinal, unity. The only way these 3 different groups could get along in one denomination was to adopt a “lowest common denominator” concept of doctrine.

We see this in other “uniting churches”, such as the United Church of Christ in the US. They are quite proud of the fact that they don’t have any official teaching.
 
carefullytread said:
It’s interesting that both this (and the original article) note that her congregation was happy with her!
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Unlike Catholics, Protestants aren’t bound by territorial parishes. Anybody who didn’t like her would have simply joined a different congregation. The people in her congregation wouldn’t necessarily be people who live in the area; they would be people who heard about her somehow, and joined her congregation because they liked her.
 
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