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The Little Denomination that Could Have
By Gretta Vosper
It’s been four years since I decided to publicly identify as an atheist. After the manner of time’s calming influence upon things about which we were once so passionate, my perspective on the wisdom of the decision has altered. And as we so often do, I revisit that decision from time to time and wonder if, given the opportunity to relive those days, I would make it again.
Considering one result of my choice is the likelihood that I will lose my credentials and so, too, my vocation, it is easy to consider the choice to call myself an atheist reckless. Having been very clear and very public about my lack of belief in a divine, supernatural, interventionist god called God for many years prior, it seemed a simple act of solidarity with a group of people I did not know, but whose lives were at stake because they were atheists. I later learned that they did not identify themselves as atheists but had been so labelled as a way to incite violence and hatred against them.
I have learned that even in my progressive denomination, The United Church of Canada (UCCan), many are quick to encumber an atheist with a whole host of characteristics, none of which, in fact, reflect what the theological term means. And so, over the past years, I have seen myself represented as arrogant, angry, and spiteful, and despite consistent clarification and qualification of my beliefs and interests regarding religion, Christianity, and my denomination, I am described as someone who wants to make the whole denomination atheist (even my own congregation is not “atheist”), to destroy religion in all its iterations, and to win the world for those who would sneer at and spit on all people of faith. It’s a pretty ugly picture but it reminds me how easy it is for people to turn others into the enemy, especially those they do not know.
But before you get too quickly critical of either me or my United Church, let me explain it to you and share with you why I thought the challenge I presented fit perfectly within the mandate of my denomination and why I have given my life – so far – to it.
In the late 19th and early 20th century a softening of Christian dedication was well underway as a persistent critique of contemporary religion blossomed. Inside the church, theologians pressed themselves to grapple with new ideas about god that took them far beyond traditional theism. Outside the church, Albert Schweitzer left off his exhaustive review of treatises on Jesus with the conclusion that no matter who you were or how learned, your quest for the real, historical Jesus always ended up describing a man who looked just like you. Clergy, confronted with Darwin’s great ideas by parishioners, were asked to account for themselves and their beliefs. And popular literature began to depict and normalize the unbelieving clergyman.
Against this secularization of the church emerged a strident conservatism. Tales of miracles surfaced regularly in Protestant churches that had previously taught that the age of miracles had died with the Apostles. The popular Niagara Bible Conference launched the idea of five essential Christian beliefs. * A few years later, the Stewart brothers published a book on each of the so-called “fundamentals” and the concept went mainstream.
Liberal churches faced a growing dilemma: how to maintain their privileged position in society while attendance dwindled and increasing numbers of clergy grew uncomfortable pressing home beliefs and admonishments they questioned themselves. How could they inspire whole communities to return to their pews and re-embrace the threatened Christian narrative?
The answer settled itself in the dirt, soot, and escalating economic disparity of the newly industrialized world. As the captains of industry amassed vast fortunes, most of it built upon the sweat, labour, and lives of factory and mine-bound lower-classes, the Kingdom of God descended from heaven and took its place among the downtrodden. No more the evasive hope of an afterlife perfection, the new Kingdom of God shone out of the salvation of the world as well as the salvation of the soul. As cities grew and poverty and distress multiplied exponentially within them, the Social Gospel and its kinder, more practically accessible Kingdom, coalesced in their midst.
Here was a Kingdom of God liberal Christians could get their hearts around. Rather than belief in a heavenly afterlife, a belief fast becoming suspect, a bigger, brighter vision of the Kingdom of God could be preached as something to be made manifest on earth through acts of compassion, social justice, organizing against the elites, and raising up the downtrodden. If church goers could be convinced to have enough faith and undertake sufficient good works, they could bring the Kingdom about in the lives of the innocent victims of the industrial revolution. As the liberal church grappled with the demise of biblical inerrancy, it no longer preached a heavenly realty, popular with increasingly fewer buyers, and sold instead the vision of a world made right. Against the harsh realities of urban industrialization, this new interpretation of the old, old story promised to provide the liberal church a mandate far, far into the future.
Amidst all this upheaval, three Canadian denominations came together to proclaim this new idea of the Kingdom and its champion, the down-to-earth, historical and compassionate Jesus. The United Church of Canada was born in 1925 to bring the country to Christ and to live out the Social Gospel that was its foremost theology.
It almost didn’t happen. Clergy from each of the three amalgamating denominations were unwilling to give up beliefs they had professed at their ordinations to embrace the Articles of Faith wrestled into being over the course of the previous decade. At the last minute, a clergyman from the Congregationalist churches – dissenters, one and all – suggested that clergy only be required to be in “essential agreement” with the statements. That would allow them to embrace union but continue to preach what they’d been taught in their own denominations. Under such a condition, no one really needed to believe the entire statement; they could believe or not as long as, basically, they were in agreement with the gist of the thing.
It was a great idea with ramifications those who voted in favour of it might never have imagined. I’m one of those ramifications.
For all clergy who came into the UCCan from the founding denominations on the day of Union in 1925, essential agreement worked as the founders had intended. Subsequent to that date, however, it took on a new energy as committees across the country began interviewing candidates for ordination. Theological colleges continued to challenge long-held doctrine with emerging scholarship and churned out candidates whose doctrinal beliefs often failed to square with the Articles of Faith the three denominations had hammered out. Without an express definition of essential agreement included in the denomination’s polity, however, each committee had to interpret what the term meant for themselves in order to examine the beliefs of candidates who came before them. As a result, more progressive areas gave the candidates more leeway and ordained more progressive clergy; and more conservative areas retained more literal interpretations of the statement and ordained more conservative clergy. And as theological colleges and scholars who trained clergy continued to embrace ever more critical contemporary scholarship, that tapestry grew to include the most progressive perspectives on Christianity the world had ever seen.
The key element within this history lesson is this: with the intention and determination of an increasingly progressive clergy and laity, the United Church found itself regularly refusing the biblical imperative in favour of a compassionate one. It refused the law of the word if it compromised the law of love. When asking whether women be ordained when the Bible said they should not, the denomination voted “Yes.” Should divorced clergy be able to remain in the pulpit despite the biblical injunction against divorce? Again, “Yes.” Were women able to decide what happens to their bodies, particularly when they are carrying an unwanted pregnancy? “Yes.” “Yes,” “Yes,” “Yes.”
Over and again, the UCCan chose its own moral imperatives, grounding “essential agreement” in a compassionate and just love and preferring it to the biblical imperatives most Christian denominations follow. And while many liberal, mainline denominations headed off down the same path, the UCCan seemed more able to stay the course, deciding decades before other denominations to ordain LGBTQ leaders into the ministry, defying one of the most widely supported condemnations heard in twentieth century Christianity.
These may seem like old arguments from this vantage point, but my point is that the UCC consistently cleared the way for change in the social mores in innumerable communities – large and small – across the country long before those same issues were common in the public space. And it led the wider Christian community as struggles between biblical “truths” and human relationship continued to rage.
Because the UCCan regularly stepped out in front of its peers on issues of social, environmental, economic, sexual, and gender justice, its leaders were encouraged to preach on these issues even when the biblical texts linked to them provided little support. Rather, the prevalent desire for love lived out in acts of justice and compassion, proof of our Social Gospel pedigree, challenged the biblical text where it was found wanting and prevailed.
The UCCan established itself as the leader in progressive interpretations of Christianity, keeping pace in its seminaries with the rise of secularism throughout the twentieth century. But in contrast to its emergent theologies, the language and rituals of faith proved to have a profound hold upon UCCan clergy. Across the denomination, they refused to leave behind ecclesial language made incomprehensible to the general public and many in its own pews through “reclaiming” and “reinterpretation”. It retained a privileged but increasingly irrelevant text. And a claim originally questioned decades before the denomination had even been born, that Jesus was the answer to all life’s perplexing questions, retained a visible presence in Sunday gatherings. And so, as generations of Canadians eschewed the same doctrinal beliefs UCCan clergy had questioned and refuted themselves, the denomination abdicated its responsibility to them, unable to embrace the work for which its first decades had seemed to richly prepare it, that of realizing the full secularization of Christianity.
It was within this context that I took the label “atheist” to describe my belief that there is no supernatural god called “God” who is able to intervene in human and earthly events at whim. My error, I believe, was in not accurately assessing the strength of my denomination’s determination to reject the course it had charted itself, one accessible to those inside and outside the church but that led beyond the boundaries of traditional Christianity. My consolation is that, were I to have recognized the UCCan’s desire to return to a more traditional Christianity, my choices would have been the same for I remain convinced of the importance of non-doctrinal elements of religion for the cohesiveness of community and the wellbeing of the individuals within it. And I remain convinced, too, that those individuals who are strengthened by the gifts such communities provide them are the very ones who will change the world as The United Church of Canada I have known and loved has so powerfully done.
~ Gretta Vosper
Read the essay online here.
About the Author
The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers.
Question & Answer
Sandra from Leeds, writes:
Question:
What are your feelings about singing hymns in churches where salvation requires the portrayal of Jesus as a sacrifice who shed his blood to cleanse us from our sins? Are these ideas still meaningful to anyone?
Answer: By Cassandra Farrin
Dear Sandra,
What a tough question. Perhaps you have similar experiences to mine of these dear old hymns: As a child I used to travel into the Idaho foothills with my parents, grandparents, and the many aged members of my grandparents’ Presbyterian congregation for an Easter sunrise service where we sang hymns like “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Amazing Grace” by heart.
On a hill far away, stood an old rugged Cross
The emblem of suff'ring and shame
And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain
So I'll cherish the old rugged Cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged Cross
And exchange it some day for a crown
Many years later, while I was teaching English in Japan, I expressed an admittedly nostalgic wish to my friends there to watch the sunrise for Easter. They introduced me to the Japanese version of watching the sunrise—staying up all night, singing karaoke!—and then led me to an empty Tokyo canal as the sun rose between the skyscrapers. Huddled with my friends on the sloping concrete, I explained the double meaning of “sunrise” in the Christian tradition, taught them how to sing Amazing Grace, and we shared a beautiful moment together.
Amazing Grace!
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see
Are these hymns, by default, morally wrong simply because their content reflects an earlier era? For the individual person who feels a sense of connection and affinity for a hymn, no, I do not believe so. These hymns speak to all-too-human experiences such as failure and redemption, loss and renewal, loyalty and standing up for what is right. Indeed, many of these hymns have long histories that also make them special to us in a more personal way, such as my memories of my grandparents and friends.
Should we jettison a hymn simply because it reflects the beliefs of its era? I think that’s not fair, any more than we should stop reading books like Huckleberry Finn or Shakespeare’s plays (which are unbelievably raunchy, by the way). These classics all reflect outmoded ways of thinking, yet we still love them. Incidentally, some literary curmudgeons do argue we should no longer read these works, lest you think this is a problem confronted by religious types only!
However, it is the responsibility of each generation to create new works of art that reflect our realities and our values and, let’s be honest, our foibles. If our message is not more compelling than “Amazing Grace” and the “Old Rugged Cross,” how is anyone going to believe it is “good news” (gospel)? It’s hard work to convince people to accept new songs to love, but the effort is worth the challenge. I’ll close with a few lines from one of my favorites, a Unitarian Universalist hymn “Blue Boat Home” by Peter Mayer:
I was born upon the fathoms
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home
~ Cassandra Farrin
Read and share online here
About the Author
Cassandra Farrin is a poet, writer and editor of nonfiction books on the history of religion. She recently launched the blog Ginger & Sage on religion, culture, and the land. Her writing can be found on the Westar Institute and Ploughshares websites, along with a poetic retelling of "On the Origin of the World" forthcoming in Gender Violence, Rape Culture, and Religion (Palgrave Macmillan). A US-UK Fulbright scholar, she has more than ten years' experience with cross-cultural and interfaith engagement. Cassandra can be reached at welovetea(a)gmail.com.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Terrible Texts:
The Attitude of the Bible Toward Women – Part IV
"Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?"
And the woman said to the serpent, "we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die' "But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons (Gen: 3: 1-7, RSV).
The ancient Hebrew myth, which opens the Book of Genesis, describes the biblical understanding of many things, one of which is how evil entered the world. Since a man undoubtedly framed these legends, it is not surprising that a woman was depicted as the villain. In the man's world women have been blamed for many things from that day to this. If a man rapes a woman, it is because she tempted him. If a man abuses a woman, it is because she irritated him. If a man divorces a woman, it is because it was no longer tolerable to live with her. It is always the woman's fault.
Male putdowns are everywhere. If a woman is competent at playing the man's game in business, she is at best a hussy and at worst a bitch. If she resorts to feminine wiles to achieve her goal, she is said to be "playing the female thing for all she is worth." Nothing has changed since the Garden of Eden. Eve, says the Bible, was the reason for humanity's downfall.
In the beginning God, viewing the world, pronounced it good. Creation was finished so God could take a day off to rest from the divine labors and thus to establish the Sabbath. In that perfect world God placed Adam and his helpmeet Eve to be God's stewards. They were to live in Eden, where all their needs were supplied. There was ample water, gold and even onyx, vegetables, fruit trees, everything that human beings could want. There was no separation since God lived in a perfect relationship with Adam and Eve, which was symbolized by the fact that God walked with Adam and Eve each day in the cool of the evening.
There was but one rule in this garden. A tree stood in its midst, the fruit of which was forbidden to human beings. It was called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." It did not become an apple tree until Jerome translated the scriptures into Latin in the early years of the fifth century. Jerome's clever designation has enriched our language by designating the nervous cartilage that vibrates in the throats of some men as "Adam's apple." Apparently, the forbidden fruit was stuck permanently in the throats of some of the Sons of Adam. Adam and Eve accepted this prohibition and began their life together in the Garden of Eden.
Forbidden fruit casts a peculiar spell when it enters our fantasies. One gets the impression that in the first family this tree was the topic of conversation and mouth-watering anticipation. Nonetheless, Adam and Eve remained faithful to the divine command, until one day when the woman was circling the tree alone. As Eve stared at that fruit, the story says, a serpent walked up to her on two legs, for that was the way snakes walked in those days. "Miss Eve." said the snake, "did God really say you could not eat the fruit of this tree?" "Yes, Mr. Snake," Eve responded, "God said that if we eat the fruit of this tree, we will surely die!"
"You won't die, Miss Eve," said the snake, "God knows that if you eat of this tree, you will be as wise as God. God doesn't want his creatures to compete with the Holy One!"
"You, Eve, can be as wise as God!" That was an intriguing idea to Eve and it offered her a vision of being something more than any of her dreams or fantasies had yet been able to create, and as such was a determinative temptation. She succumbed and ate the fruit. Then she called Adam over and urged him to try it. He did. The deed was done. God's perfect creation was wrecked. Disobedience had entered the human arena through the woman, the weak link in God's creation. After they ate, the story told us their eyes were opened. They discovered they were naked. They felt ashamed. They scurried to cover their nakedness with fig leaf aprons.
Suddenly, they realized that it was nearing the time for God's evening stroll through the Garden. Before their disobedience, God was their friend whose presence they looked forward to with pleasure. After their disobedience, God was their judge, the elicitor of their guilt whom they feared. They decided that they could not endure the divine presence so, in an act of wonderful naiveté.
~ John Shelby Spong
Originally published January 21, 2004
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