Gretta Vosper

I've been the minister at West Hill United Church in Scarborough, Ontario, since 1997. During that time, the work we have undertaken has been to create a community that provides all the benefits of religion without the doctrinal beliefs. In other words, we provide "church" that is for all sorts of people whether they are believers in a certain religious tradition or don't have any beliefs at all. Because "the way we live is more important than what we believe" which just happens to be the subtitle to my first book, With or Without God.

In 2004, having made some significant advances in this work at West Hill, I founded the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity. It created a network for Christians who had read or thought themselves outside the box of traditional beliefs. I'd been trained in very progressive understandings of theology and it seemed crazy to not share those with others. So the CCPC was born and filled a void for many years.

My first book was published in 2008 with the support of Bishop John Shelby Spong, my mentor and friend. Then, in 2012, I published Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World beyond Belief. It is really a book about how we need to be the change we want to see in the world and spending half our lives on our knees doesn't make that important work happen. It is a great book (IMHO) for congregations moving beyond traditional church structure and liturgy.

I came out as an atheist in 2013. I'd been on the radio for many years and been called an atheist by lots of people. But in 2013, I learned of the horrific murders that had occurred in Bangladesh. At the time, four bloggers had been arrested and were being threatened with execution simply for being secular humanists. It seemed that since my beliefs were exactly the same as theirs excepting that I had, for many years, used theological language to explain them, it was time to "come out of the closet", so to speak.

Since then, there has been a lot of controversy about my continuing as a minister in a Christian denomination. It seems a no-brainer to me since my denomination taught me everything I know. They just wanted me to keep using what I now think of as coded language, to talk about them. But I'm not going to do that. I think there are so many benefits provided to individuals and the communities in which they live by the kind of organizations that church have been (particularly those with liberal perspectives) that we can't afford losing that influence.

So I keep doing what I'm doing and West Hill continues to thrive despite the denomination's attempts to dismiss me. I'll keep you posted on that!

Great to be here! Ask me any questions you like and I'll try answer as promptly as possible!