Taking Christ Out of Christianity - LITERALLY!

This story comes to us today from a news outlet in Canada. It is about a woman pastor who is on a mission to remove Christ from Christianity. Here is how the story begins:

"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.

There is no authoritative Big-Godism, as Rev. Gretta Vosper, West Hill's minister for the past 10 years, puts it. No petitionary prayers (“Dear God, step into the world and do good things about global warming and the poor”). No miracles-performing magic Jesus given birth by a virgin and coming back to life. No references to salvation, Christianity's teaching of the final victory over death through belief in Jesus's death as an atonement for sin and the omnipotent love of God. For that matter, no omnipotent God, or god.

Ms. Vosper has written a book, published this week – With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe – in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability and either it sheds its no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas, or it's toast.

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Comments

[PJC]

What exactly is the point of Christianity with out Christ!? I am deeply saddened by this story.

[Thomas Twitchell]

Wow, it appears that Rick Warren's Christmas Sermon on second chances is having its leavening effect.

[Lygia Bradnick]

These people are not Christians. Full stop.
This new global 'Christianity' without doctrine, a free for all no matter what you believe and even without Christ is the beginning of the end, what the ancient prophets saw happening in a distant future. It has never been easy to be a real Christian, but now it is going to be practically impossible to live as a follower of Jesus (the real one). There are so many new heresies and styles of Christianity that have left the Bible completely and the Christians who want to follow Jesus will soon be the very minority.

[merry]

"rather she would have congregations work together as communities to define God – or god – according to their own worked-out definitions of what is holy and sacred."

Very postmodern-- the belief that God and truth can be anything we want it to be.

It's not Christianity, it's "Hope-ianity" . . . only question is, hope for what? They took out all the parts that are hopeful! Nothing about this sounds solid; it sounds wishy-washy and flowery, like many religions that are trendy these days.

[Mrs. Pilgrim]

There is one question which must be posed to anyone who believes that this "godless goodness" is a supportable philosophy:

What is good, and who defines it?

The nontheistic responses are never satisfactory, because they are always completely subjective.

[Paul Latour]

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.' " (1Cor:18-19)

In other words: Gretta Vosper will not prosper.

[Matt F]

I'm becoming more and more convinced with every passing day that Christianity is leaving its traditional strongholds in the "West." It has all but left (or should I say been evicted) from Western Europe and Canada, and the prognosis doesn't look great for the U.S. either. Have a look at Philip Jenkins' book The Next Christendom, and at the Back to Jerusalem website (www.backtojerusalem.com). In a nutshell, many Chinese Christians believe that the natural historical (and future) progress of the Gospel is westward from Jerusalem, Western Europe and North America, and now into Africa, South America and especially Asia, and that it will go through the Muslim lands in the Middle East, and ultimately back to Jerusalem, and that when the Gospel makes it back to Jerusalem, that the Lord will come back at that time.
I'm suspending judgment on the eschatalogy, but you can hardly deny the fact that the historic centers of Christianity are selling their inheritance for considerably less than a bowl of porridge. This woman and her "church" are just another drop in the bucket.

[Chrystal]

She's not a Christian, she's a humanist. Why doesn't she just call herself what she is.

The fact that she has any congregation that will listen to her at all tells me volumes.

Are we really surprised in these last days of darkness? I hear so many Word of Faith and Kingdom Now theologians (and I use that word lightly) say that there will be a massive revival that spans the globe in these last days...but the Bible doesn't teach that. Scripture tells us that in these last days, it will grow worse and worse, people will not endure sound doctrine, and there will be a great apostasy.

So again, are we surprised at any of this now? Sickened, yes. Surprised, no.

[Donnie]

Seriously, is anybody really shocked? Yes, this is sickening, but hardly shocking. It's the Emergent "church" taken to its logical conclusion.

Ms. Vosper has written a book, published this week – With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe – in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability and either it sheds its no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas, or it's toast.

Like I say, Emergent dogma taken to its logical conclusion.

[Steve]

Wow! Big surprise! It's the United Church of Canada!!!

The UCC has been a bastion of heresy for years now. It's no surprise at all that this kind of antiChristic nonsense is being spewed from its pulpits. What saddens me is that the congregation is too Bible-dumb to realize that they're being duped.

[Christy]

"And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." 1 Cor 15:17-19

How on earth can you have a Christian church that doesn't believe in Christ??? The answer is, you can't.

[JoeMama]

It sounds like ms. Vosper has been reading too much Spong. Why try to devour the sheep in a denomination that still calls itself Christian, rather than jumping ship for the Unitarian Universalists? The word "wolf" comes to mind.