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Canada's United Church is a Laughing Stock

May 26, 2011

tindal.jpg

GOD WAS HERE

Mardi Tindal, left, the Moderator of the United Church, is not an ordained minister. But she drives an eco- friendly smart car. Obviously attendance is falling because of the lack of Christian spirit.

So what do they do? They dilute it further.

by Charles Lewis

from The National Post, May 14

(abridged by henrymakow.com)

 

The United Church of Canada, which was formed 86-years-ago with the grand vision to bring Protestants together "in one glorious national church," is undergoing one of the most precipitous slides in modern religious history.

In the midst of a breathtaking erosion in its membership, the church [is doubling its engagement] with the secular world; whether it be through advocating for the environment, fighting for the rights of homosexuals to marry or taking on the cause of the Palestinians, the church has attempted to blur the boundaries between religion and the broader society.

Supporters believe this strategy will eventually right the ship because they are following the word of God to engage in the world. [?]

To others, though, the United Church is engaged in a self-destructive act, aiming to be so many things to so many people that it will morph into just another social advocacy group disconnected from 2,000 years of Christian tradition. Critics say there is a severe lack of orthodoxy, lax demands on belief and even too much latitude for ministers who can question the existence of God and the divinity of Christ.

Connie denBok, a United Church minister in Toronto, is among those who despair that the church has become so much of the world, so focused on popular issues, that it is evolving away from the core of Christianity.

"In the 1960s and '70s we became embarrassed about Jesus. And so we distanced ourselves from Jesus, and the point is without Jesus there's no point in having a church. iTunes has better music and the NDP [the socialist party] has better policies; everything else we do now somebody else does way better. The only thing we can do is this Jesus thing," she said.

"I would say that the United Church no longer has many unifying factors."

In 1926, Congregationalists, Methodists and Presbyterians joined to create a church with 600,000 members -- which rose to a peak of 1.1 million by 1964. Today, estimates put membership at around 500,000 and falling...

"Just because people take a progressive stand doesn't mean they don't have a deep theological rational for that," said Mardi Tindal, the Moderator of the United Church. Ms. Tindal has a generous laugh and loves the fact that her church is so diverse in worship and thought.

Ms. Tindal, who is not an ordained minister, came to the job in 2009 with a passion and a mission to "help heal creation" by reducing humankind's "carbon footprint." She is proud of the fact that she drives a Smart Car because it emits less carbon dioxide. She says the United Church is fighting for "climate justice."

Indeed, Ms. Tindal just returned from a leg of her Spirit Express, a series of town hall meeting across Canada to talk about environmental issues.

That mission, she said, is both Christ- and Bible-centric because it is taking the Gospel message to protect God's creation.

"There's no question that this springs from our faith," she said.

When asked about what is the minimum a member of the United Church should believe before entering the faith, she pauses for a long while. She is reluctant to come up with a specific doctrinal answer, in the way a Catholic or even many Protestants denominations would.

She personally believes in the Trinity, the Bible and the living, resurrected, Jesus, but she is less inclined to assert a firm doctrine for others.

"I'm trying my best to answer the questioning, but these matters of faith, as you can appreciate, are difficult to pin down with prose, aren't they? They are words of poetry, words of heart and words of soul," she said.

"I'm of a faith tradition that would say we are humble in knowing we carry partial truths. Truth is always God's truth. It's always being revealed to us more fully. And as we live in this life it seems to me there are enough religious voices that would say I have all the truth and in my experience that does not open us to greater understanding."

It is that reluctance to define doctrinal belief, while at the same time putting an emphasis on social causes, that is making the United Church indistinguishable from many activist secular groups, said Kevin Flatt, a Protestant historian who has studied the United Church for years.

"The main question is, What are the characteristics a religious group needs to have in order to hold on to members and maintain its relevance in our society?" said Prof. Flatt, who teaches at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont. "There have been lots of studies that show a religious group has to have a very clear and shared identity and there are boundaries around the group that makes them distinct from the general culture. In the United Church, those lines have blurred.

"What is this organization bringing to the table that doesn't already exist from a secular perspective? There are many people concerned about the environment who have no belief in God. If you are essentially not bringing anything that's different, there's a risk you will be perceived as redundant and groups who are redundant lose members."


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Response from Wes Penre of www.illuminati-news.com to a related article
 
 "The United Church of Canada is most probably controlled by the OTO,[Ordo Templi Orientis] Crowley's old Magick Order. Please check the two pics I attached. The 'golden' one is the logo of the church of course,and the black one the logo of the OTO. Same old Sex Magick and Human Sacrifice...

Crowley1.jpg


 
 

 

 

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Oh, a little side note, by the way. I know a person who has been an A.'.A.'. member (offspring from the OTO) most of his adult life and he also knows the OTO inside out. He explained to me some years ago what the OTO logo represents: The symbol in itself is the female vagina, the bird (dove) is the male semen moving towards the Holy Grail, which is the female egg. That's Sex Magick in pure symbolism."






Scruples - the game of moral dillemas

Comments for "Canada's United Church is a Laughing Stock "

Luke said (May 30, 2011):

You could just as easily have said Canada's United Church is becoming a women's club. I am strongly reminded of my grandmother's Women's Christian Temperance Union, a gaggle of old women who know more than everyone else in their world but who become more anachronistic by the day. One could not possibly read the Bible and think that it is urging a genderless approach to life when gender differentiation is at the heart of the law. The entire Church has been led astray by the Enlightenment values, by Platonism, and this shift is at the heart of its failure. One could put together a chart showing every major denomination that starts ordaining women promptly goes into major decline, while every one that holds to the "archaic" gender rules continues to grow, like the Pentecostals and the Mormons. The Catholics are treading water right now; structurally they have not fallen, but many individual priests and bishops have.


Luke said (May 30, 2011):

You could just as easily have said Canada's United Church is becoming a women's club. I am strongly reminded of my grandmother's Women's Christian Temperance Union, a gaggle of old women who know more than everyone else in their world but who become more anachronistic by the day. One could not possibly read the Bible and think that it is urging a genderless approach to life when gender differentiation is at the heart of the law. The entire Church has been led astray by the Enlightenment values, by Platonism, and this shift is at the heart of its failure. One could put together a chart showing every major denomination that starts ordaining women promptly goes into major decline, while every one that holds to the "archaic" gender rules continues to grow, like the Pentecostals and the Mormons. The Catholics are treading water right now; structurally they have not fallen, but many individual priests and bishops have.


Vic Fletcher said (May 28, 2011):

I'm not surprised it is the National Post that is doing a story on the United Church which is attacked as a part of Kairos the broad-based church group that supports Palestinians' food drives.

It is too bad the National Post which doubles as a Mossad intelligence gathering operation doesn't report on Canadian zionist 'religious' support for phosphorous bombing of children in Palestine.


Brian said (May 27, 2011):

The United Church has replaced "Christianity" with what I call Aquarianism, a growing global point of view. I don't know about the OTO connection, but what church could be more satanic than the Roman Catholics, with their infant baptism and father confessors taking the place of our Father in heaven confessions and fraudulent vicar of Christ claims etc?

The holy Bible offers a spiritual reality much different than those who have hijacked and perverted it, i.e. Catholics, United Church, fill in the blanks as ye will. But the Book of the Law has also been hijacked and perverted IMO also. Crowley never created it he only scribed it, wrote it down. Please consider forwarding the following URL to your OTO friend, perhaps she or he will learn something they hadn't considered before.

www.baisnu.com


Dan said (May 27, 2011):

Reporter Charles Lewis put this well, and it applies to all denominations, they are all being morphed " into just another social advocacy group disconnected from 2,000 years of Christian tradition." This is true of the largest Christian denomination in the world, the Roman Catholic church. At the Diocese (upper management) level the administration the subsidiarity form of direct person to person community charity is being gradually replaced with remote NGO style initiatives. However, the Vatican strategy is careful not to alienate the faithful to the extent of driving them out of the Catholic church in the United States. The handlers of Churchianity for British Commonwealth countries are deliberately phasing out Christianity. More care is taken to keep 'em coming in American churches because all the mainstream congregations are the largest and most unquestioning supporters of political Zionism in the United States, as well as streaming billions in contribution money into the laundymat of dollars called the international disasters industry.

Mr. Lewis hit the nail on the head. The cynical plan for the future of Churchianity is to be just another NGO for sucking up donations and giving people a useless recreational activity. The process of deconstruction Christianity has been in progress for centuries. It's taking so long because there really is a genuine article of the Christian spirit. When this is kindled and spreads in a community it's a force of it's own that's beyond the control of church offices, boards, and 'shepherds'. The phenomenon was well known all along, called 'the Body of Christ' or 'the Bride of Christ'. In means simply, the Faithful, as opposed to the 'flock'.

People join local churches because those temporal organizations have buildings and organization, private schools. A good local church can be the best means for individuals or families to connect with real local community. That offers asylum from socialist government and the predator/prey mentality of secular society.

This article is astute, a firm statement of doctrines is the foundation of the strength of a community church. Any doctrine can be disputed, so the wise know it's best to stick with what works and take your stand. Theology is only relevant insofar as what behavior you get from your subjects believing this or that. Any religion can be summed up in a paragraph to cut to the bottom line. How do believers behave? What kind of society do you get from each religion? This is why things that work become "carved in stone" in the form of doctrines. that's the mental aspect of faith, the faith that says "we do this because it works - not to prove it to you.".

The truth is, only fools and the subversives of Christianity question the fundamental doctrines. My advice to people who are moved by Jesus' teachings and want to preserve them, check into the local church groups that directly help the homeless, the sick, the forgotten, and there you will find your church.


Paul said (May 27, 2011):

I went to the UC (United Church) of Canada growing up and there were many a good Christians there. I still believe there are true Christians there, but they are dropping sharply in number. The number of young people is also dropping sharply.

When a church is more interested in numbers (like the Purpose Driven Life propagates) than living out the lifestyle explicitly stated in the Bible, then there is compromise. God will not honor this.

I have debated one minister on the issues presented in the article, and the answers that minister gave to me contradicted what the Bible says (although I’m sure she would disagree). She was so long-winded and full of her own "poetry" that I just sat there in disbelief. I mean, there’s interpretation and then there just plain lack of critical thinking skills.

Like many things these days, and unfortunately it is now being taught in our seminary schools, ministers are using their own humanist logic and interpretation to twist the scripture in order to keep their church alive so that they can feel successful (maybe to keep a job and make money).

The church cannot be a compromising church; they need to put God’s doctrine first no matter what the cost. We need to take the Bible literally. The UC of Canada is compromising by putting the Canadian constitution at par or even higher in authority than the Word of God. I left the United Church long ago because of this. There is no man-made document that can be at par with the Bible. It is not possible even when looking at it through the lens of an atheist.

Tolerance in the Christian doctrine (or any faith) is a sin. Now many in the church only want the blessing and are not prepared at all to give out the blessing because we are scared that we will lose our nice car or we can't watch our weekly TV program. King David decided to count his people; look where it got him. God will not tolerate this compromise and kind of tolerance with the world much longer. In fact, I believe judgment is near since the church has such a rebelliousness in it that it is dying and unless it is healed, it will die. Ironically, I believe only persecution will heal it – unfortunately.

I feel sad that the UC church has spiraled downhill in the past 30-40 years. It was a good church with good people. Now it is mainly a place with good people. Any minister who thinks she is saving the environment without realizing the lies of global warming and Agenda 21 is a pawn for the ill-uminati (no typo in the last word), not including the numerous other compromises the UC is making in order to stay alive.

Sadly, there are too many ministers who preach a good sermon, but can't see the satanic agenda being propagated. The Apostle Paul warned in his day of these false teachers and leaders. We still have them today. As said, I am sadden to see this church dying, but if it compromises, then it needs to die, and so does any church that lives in the world and does not come out of the world to be separate in her doctrine. Why do ministers so try to please man rather than God when we are called to be separate: Revelation 18:4?


Henry Makow received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1982. He welcomes your comments at