United Church Pastor is Keynote Speaker at Atheist and Agnostic Convention

Staff Writer

The United Church of Canada (UCC) is the spiritual sibling of the wretched PCUSA and ELCA, functioning less like churches and more like temporary pens to house hordes of goats and false converts. Pro-LGBTQ, Pro-choice, and pro-every theological perversion you can think of, they’re populated almost entirely of senior citizens and the occasional blue-haired queer 20-year-old, and their membership reflects this. Between 2011 and 2021, the denomination lost nearly 40% of its members, a trend that reveals no sign of slowing down.

With 2,711 congregations, they’re also the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada, showing what sort of sick shape our neighbors to the north are in. (The second biggest, the Anglican Church of Canada, are hardly any different.)

This is why it should surprise no one that West Hill United Church Pastor Gretta Vosper is headlining a conference for atheists and skeptics.

Vosper is notorious within the UCC for being a vocal and outspoken atheist who is still allowed to remain an ordained minister. Six years ago, there was a half-heated attempt to defrock her via an ecclesiastical court. However, Vosper had too much denominational support, and devils and cowards populated the institutional leadership. Instead, she and the UCC settled.

They would allow her to continue preaching and retain her congregation and building, with the then-Moderator saying she could keep her job so long that she continues to offer her leadership “in accordance with our shared and agreed upon statements of faith.”

Upon hearing the news that the UCC was going to let her be, Vosper’s lawyer was ebullient, saying in a statement:

“Both parties took a long look at the cost-benefit of running a heresy trial and whether it was good for anyone (and) the results speak for themselves. They recognized there’s a place for Gretta and that there is no reason to separate the minister and the congregation.”

Vosper will be joined at the convention by the who’s who of pagans and atheists, including Dan Barker of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Seth Andrews of the Thinking Atheist, Hemant Mehta of “The Friendly Atheist” and Matt Dillahunty.