About us
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WHO ARE WE? WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?
These are excerpts from Pastor Jim’s sermons to give you a quick overview of who we are…what we believe.
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At one time people attributed illnesses to all kinds of strange influences. Then Louis Pasteur did his research on bacteria, and a stone was rolled away. Never again could we go back to earlier ways of treating illness.
So as we think about what we think today and what people thought five hundred years ago, there are many interesting changes.
So as we think about how beliefs change over the next few Sundays we know that once a reality map has been shattered, it can never be put back together. Jesus lives in each of us. The map was changed. The map has been changed in so many ways over the last few years. We still live in a time of reality maps being shattered. I simply know that Jesus lives on this second Sunday in Easter! What do you believe? Thanks be to God for helping us open our minds even when we want to keep them closed. Thank God that Thomas had his doubts! Thanks be to God!
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2. In 584 CE, the Church Council of Macon, France debated “Are women human?” The motion was carried by 32 to 31 votes. Many thought that women had no souls and were less holy than men. Our old friend, St. Augustine, made the statement that “Any woman who acts in such a way that she cannot give birth to as many children as she is capable of, makes herself guilty of that many murders”.
Even Martin Luther declared that women should remain at home, sit still, keep house and bring up children. If a woman grows weary and at last dies from child bearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing- she is there to do it.
Slowly society has made decisions that have allowed women to become people. As a church, the United Church has led the way in re-evaluating how we understand the scriptures, helping women advance their rights and protections. In Canada it took until 1929 for women to be recognized as persons. Women have been part of United Church ministry since the early 1930s….. we give thanks for those who have stood up for women! Women who have mothered the way to a rich productive womanhood, those who mothered young women to become valuable gifts to our world, those who mother young women by being role models. And to those men who follow in the path of Jesus in supporting women in their journey and walking with them.
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3. Today, we find it morally repugnant to own another human being. Something that the Bible sanctions and raises no moral question concerning its institution, we do today.
We have inherited a moral attitude today that represents the hard and diligent work of many over a significant period of time in which we hold a diametrically opposed view from that held in the Bible. We have forged other biblically based ideas to take precedence such as all being created in the image of God. We have adopted notions of “inherent rights” to shape our understanding as to how we treat each other. This is moral progress!
Freedom is living our lives as Easter people! Not being a slave to some other person is living our lives as an Easter people. And so we need to be thankful that we have been able to change our views in the United Church and that we are standing up for people to be treated as people who are loved and free to be themselves, made in God’s image. And so we celebrate today this freedom given to us by the Holy Spirit many years ago. We can do even more important things than Jesus did if we have the courage and dedication!
Thanks be to God!
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4. The Doctrine of Discovery, instituted in 1452 by Pope Nicolas, refers to the idea that Christians enjoyed a moral and legal right – based solely on their religious identity as Christians – to invade and to seize lands and to dominate Indigenous Peoples. Non-Christians could convert and be spared, but if they persisted in their pagan ways, they could legally be exterminated and their lands possessed by Christian rulers in Europe. The Doctrine of Discovery was and formed the “legal” and “theological” framework of expropriation of lands and resources the world over. The Doctrine of Discovery was implemented with an understanding that Christian explorers and settlers were like Israel, from the book of Joshua, entering into a new promised land and that Indigenous and Non-Christian peoples could be exterminated, and or enslaved, as the Canaanites of long ago.
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The United Church of Canada's General Council Executive moved in March 2012 to repudiate the doctrine, and in October 2012 to join the World Council of Churches in denouncing it and its impact on indigenous peoples. It's worth quoting from the background to the motion that the General Council Executive sent to the denomination's 41st General Council, held in Ottawa that year, denouncing "the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamentally opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and as a violation of the inherent human rights that all individuals and peoples have received from God."
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5. The purpose of scripture was debated and how we were to value it. There were many on both sides of the issue….was it divine or was it the writings of humans? We found it very hard to keep everyone inside the big tent!
The whole issue of sexuality was debated. Was the only purpose of sex to be for pro creation?
We finally decided as a church that sex could be fun too. The idea of homosexuality was heartily debated….was it by choice or by birth. This was only in the 1980s. In 1988 at the General council there was a motion passed to allow people of all sexualities to enter the ministry.
As people entered the conference only 28 percent of the delegates were in favour of the motion. After listening to each other for hours, the Holy Spirit intervened and spoke of compassion in the hearts of many. The motion to adopt the Membership, Ministry and Human Sexuality Report was adopted by a 3 to 1 ratio of delegates.
The group from Essex Presbytery reported back to the Presbytery here in our church basement. It was a moving meeting. If you don’t remember the night we can talk about it some time.
The use of Leviticus to condemn and reject homosexuals is obviously a hypocritical selective use of the Bible against gays and lesbians. Nobody today tries to keep the laws in Leviticus. Look at Leviticus 11:1-12, where all unclean animals are forbidden as food, including rabbits, pigs, and shellfish, such as oysters, shrimp, lobsters, crabs, clams, and others that are called an "abomination." Leviticus 20:25 demands that "you are to make a distinction between the clean and unclean animal and between the unclean and clean bird; and you shall not make yourself an abomination by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean." You can eat some insects like locusts (grasshoppers), but not others. Leviticus 12:1-8 declares that a woman is unclean for 33 days after giving birth to a boy and for 66 days after giving birth to a girl and goes on to demand that certain animals must be offered as a burnt offering and a sin offering for cleansing. Nobody today who claims to be a Christian tries to keep these laws, and few people even know about them! If anyone has been led to misuse Leviticus and other parts of the Bible in order to condemn and hate and reject people, aren’t they are on the wrong path. Jesus quoted only one passage from Leviticus: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (19:18). Jesus used Leviticus to teach love. Many use Leviticus and other writings to condemn, humiliate and destroy. I know which approach seems truly Christian to me. Jesus never condemned homosexuals or even mentioned anything that could be taken as a reference to sexual orientation.
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6. Wendy Gritter, author and group leader of New Directions, says that there is a vein of Christianity in which monitoring fellow siblings in Christ for right beliefs seems to be given upmost priority. Ironically she says that it is not uncommon to encounter assumptions, rudeness and sarcasm, harsh language and outright accusation towards those deemed to be in error. She wants to erase the boundary between robust examination of ideas and positions and the interpersonal sparring and wounding of people. In her ministry within the Body of Christ, she has focused her energy on this question: How shall we live together with this difference?
One parishioner wrote: “Vosper, the United Church atheist minister, is giving us nothing new. The dichotomy between those Christian churches that believe in works-righteousness as in the letter of James have always been part of us. Those who insist on creeds and correct liturgy have always been with us, as in the gospel of Matthew and Paul. This was played out in the various schisms in the history of the Church, especially the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. So now we have excitement in the pews, not the comfortable pews that Pierre Berton wrote about in the 60’s. May this excitement and energy move us into our next United Church century”.
We must talk in love and care for Gretta Vosper if we follow Jesus and his teachings. Gretta is doing most of what Jesus commanded us to do, to love each other and support each other. Her church family is very committed to social justice. Do we allow Gretta gracious spaciousness and continue our conversations? Or do we throw her out because she does not agree with most of us in the UCC? Do we burn her at the stake like the church has done in the past to those who were different?
And so we have given you a thumbnail sketch of who we are…historically and where we are presently as “people of God on the journey”.
If you wish to read more of any of these sermons, the link is provided here in the website where you can read them all.
Pastor Jim
