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IntroductionNOTE: This message was posted in Sept 1997. This writing is taking place in the week prior to GC 37 in preparation for the delivery of our gift. That "gift" is contained on a 1.4 Meg floppy disk. Efforts are also underway to make it available electronically. The material contained on the disk has been culled from contributions made by many people. Hopefully their observations about and their interpretations of the 20 Articles of Faith (1925) will lead to a general Church wide study of the things that are "Essential" to all of us. It is further hoped that this general study of our "Essentials" will help each one of us become more aware of what the United Church of Canada stands for. In doing so, we, individually, will become more confident in formulating our own relationship with God and humanity, and will become more at ease about how we interact with people of other religions as we begin to realize that they too are children of God. PV. Aug 6-2000.
Project 2000 - our gift to the United Church of Canada.
We are all aware of the fact that in 2 years and a few months we will be entering the year 2000. This is the year that we celebrate the dawn of the new millennium. It is also the year that we attend GC 37 and that we celebrate the 75th birthday of the United Church of Canada. The idea is to present the UC of C with a suitable gift for the occasion. What sort of gift can we give the UC of C? What kind of gift would express the thinking of its members and what kind of gift would benefit the greatest number of people? A Church, like a political party or a benevolent society, is a group of people who have a common interest and strive towards a single goal. The United Church of Canada is such a group of people. This group was formed through the amalgamation of the Methodists, the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians in June of ’25. In order to give clarity to their common goal of preaching the Gospel, they spelled out their beliefs in the Basis of Union, a document of some 20 articles of faith. The United Church of Canada was a rather coherent body with up to one million members at its point of highest strength. They knew what they wanted, they petitioned governments at all levels in their effort to build a "just" society, they built churches and they ran church schools. With the onset of the cultural revolution in the 60’s this era of expansion came to and end, and the tide reversed itself. The building boom slowed down to a crawl, the membership declined, and is declining, the influence of the Church on Government waned and the number of applicants for the ministry shrunk. Even more noticeable was the fact that the agreed to beliefs slowly but surely seemed to loose their hold on the minds of the adherents and were more and more often questioned. This questioning, as you know, culminated in the formulation of a "New Creed" which for all practical purposes replaced the Apostle’s and/or Nicene Creeds. This questioning has, from an early time, led to some noteworthy changes in how things are done in the United Church. One of the biggest and earliest changes took place in +/- ’36 when the decision was made to accept women at all levels of ministry. Starting with the 60’s, the number of changes increased, and came faster and faster. This is not the place to catalogue them, but it can be noted that in general the alterations and revisions were the result of changes in the mindset of the Church’s adherents and a different outlook on the role of the Church in society. One of the greatest and most fundamental changes now taking place is the intensified search for the historical Jesus, his role in the scheme of our salvation story and his relationship with God. More and more people express their bewilderment at having to believe that Jesus in one way or the other "paid for" our sins. More and more questions are being raised about the character of a God who would make the outpouring of His Grace dependent on the death of his one and only child. The ambiguity arising out of that scenario is clearest every time ordinands are inducted and are asked whether or not they are in agreement with the articles of faith as "you find them in the Basis of Union"? Time after time the answer amounts to a: Literally? …… No! In general terms? ……. Yes! It is because of this ambiguity that the differences between groups of different beliefs are becoming more pronounced and are threatening the fabric of the United Church of Canada. We already have within the boundaries of the United Church groups such as the Community of Concern and the Alliance of covenanting churches. Given these circumstances, an attempt is about to get underway to expose and clarify the beliefs of the adherents of the United Church. For that purpose several people will undertake to scrutinize the 20 articles of faith as they are found in the Basis of Union in the light of our contemporary knowledge of psychology, sociology, history, archaeology, languages and a host of other scientific disciplines. Does this mean that only scholars can participate in this activity? Emphatically: NO! This is a grassroots effort! The intent of this exercise is to engage as many people as are willing to participate as the emphasis will be on the day to day experiences of the common person. As noted, the United Church of Canada has developed a "New Creed" once before. Can we bring about another fresh statement of our beliefs and our position vis a vis the outside world? In view of the fact that General Council 36 is strongly promoting our involvement in an effort to bring about a scenario in which "All may be one", and in view of the questions being raised about Jesus, his role in life and his relationship to our heavenly Father, it is felt that the answer is: Yes, we can, and as a matter of fact, we must! This then is a general invitation to all members of the United Church of Canada to pitch in and to participate in making the United Church of Canada’s relevancy in the next millennium your gift to your Church and the world. Anybody interested in contributing to project 2000 (our
gift to the UC of C) is urged to pick up a copy of the 20 articles of faith and
Nicene, the Apostles and the UC New Creed.
Remember, this is an invitation to a party. Won’t you join in? Shalom.
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