I dont think im catching you sorry. Its like basically saying that you become sinless?
Historical sources of that era. And would you believe Paul would condone slavery as a convert Christian? Im sad to hear that
There’s a difference between being an imperfect human being who makes mistakes (which means every single human being who has ever lived, and which God doesn’t mind) and a person who never tries to be his/her best self and who takes delight in creating much suffering in the world. (And unfortunately there are many such people: the narcissists, psychopaths, sadists, and Machiavellians of the Dark Tetrad.)
A person who consciously chooses to give up on trying to be a better person would be closer to the Yeshuan idea of sin, though I’m in no way endorsing the idea of Original Sin, which I personally believe is a deeply flawed interpretation of Genesis 2-3.
I hope this is bit clearer.
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The question is answered by clicking on your avatar, @Realspiritik, to which you added a link: United Church.
In Canada, the United Church has a big problem: it can’t even get rid of an atheist woman preacher/pastor. Does this in any way get at the OP’s question? It would be great if @Vivi_O2 would return to respond.
“This is my church,” said Ms. Vosper, 60. “The United Church made me who I am.” Her entitlement?
Which historical sources? Why would I believe that? He dealt with the world he found as he found himself.
If her congregation pay her to be that, fine. Or better yet, she makes tents. I certainly wouldn’t contribute to her salary one way or the other, including to her denomination which pays from central funds I imagine. Unless hers was the best social gospel group in town and I needed to attend services for some reason. The occasional need for communion, that sort of thing. I always pay for my seat at the theatre as it were. For the overheads.
And what relevance does this have to the question of whether or not women should be permitted to be pastors?
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If you’re thinking I agree with the United Church of Canada’s stance on this, you would be wrong. I wrote a long letter to the moderator of the United Church to protest their decision around Gretta Vosper, and was told it was a “legal dispute” rather than a theological one. So there you go – more hypocritical decisions to protect the letter of the law rather than the intent of the law.
One of the main reasons I decided to stop pursuing the path toward ordination in the United Church is because there was simultaneously too little emphasis on faith (i.e. relationship with God) and too little emphasis on science (i.e. the intersection of science and faith as it pertains to our understanding of God). But at least the United Church is inclusive.
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Historical records of the empire. You can search it. Read some books about it or find some course online. I dont know how these are news to you. We learned that at high school for free.
Good. Common ground finally 
Vosper is a United Church preacher/pastor. Should she be one as a professing atheist, in your view Merv? It sounds like you’re suggesting an atheist should/can be a preacher/pastor of a Protestant church, are you?
Thankfully, Jennifer and I seem to agree: No.
Arent they all? I think every christian church is. Expect Westboro
Not for most Christians, who would not be willing to embrace the many heresies and deviations from Christian tradition required to ‘join’ it. That the United Church doesn’t treat it as a “theological issue”, sure speaks loudly about how far away from historical Christianity the United Church has become these days.
Your previous answer about possible ordination was more helpful for me to understand:
“I’m not obedient enough to church tradition”.
Neither is the United Church of Canada today when it comes to making their “house of worship” a place that welcomes, or indeed, you’re right, “allows” atheist clergy.
I don’t know who Vosper is (and don’t really care, as it isn’t relevant to the OP question). Hopefully I can help you clear up some confusion here. To a strong assertion that “Women should never be, or cannot be pastors”, all I have to do is provide one counter-example; which is enough (if successful, as in my view it is) to jettison the proposition. You seem to now want that to mean … “so all women everywhere who are or ever have been pastors must be successful in that role.” By that logic I guess we need to get rid of all male pastors too because … (populate list here with morally, spiritually, doctrinally failed, favorite-bad-boy pastors). This is nothing but incoherence on your part, Gregory. So you can find one failed female pastor somewhere. So what?
Now if you want to start a new thread on whether or not atheists should be permitted to speak / teach / preach in churches … carry on! It might even be a surprisingly interesting thread! But you haven’t demonstrated how this is relevant to the question the OP is about.
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Although it might be nice if this were true, sadly it is not. There are still many churches where individuals who don’t fit into neat little boxes aren’t welcome and certainly aren’t allowed to be ordained.
Nope. Fighting against the even greater evil of black and white thinking.
It was neither of your social gospel alternatives. Jesus’ “gig” in my Bible was love – divine and human, also known by the words “grace” and “faith.”
Hardly. I think the only trouble here is the ability of people to read all kinds of nonsense into texts which are not quite as clear like Revelation, and thus like Marcion they want to cut down the Bible to those parts which are easier to manipulate.
You misunderstand my meaning. The United Church gave precedence to the legal matters involved in the dispute with Gretta Vosper because they’re required by Canadian law to do so. A lot of United Church members expressed their vocal opposition to the fact that theological issues took second place to the legal matters in this dispute.
For many decades, until all mainstream Canadian denominations began to lose members, the United Church (founded through a union of Presbyterian and Methodist churches) was one of Canada’s largest Christian denominations. They established many strong ministries in remote parts of Canada, and have strongly supported mission work in impoverished countries around the world. Women often found leadership roles in the United Church that were denied to them by more traditional denominations.
Though you may find it hard to imagine, Gregory, many Canadians thought this was a good thing.
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Right. Because slavery is such a nuanced thing where we should make allowances for grey areas such as “I only hit her because she disobeyed me” and “he deserved to be enslaved because he refused to swear allegiance to me” and “it’s better to be living slave than a dead man who fought to protect his family and his principles” and “who needs freedom and dignity and the right to live according to God’s laws of love and forgiveness anyway”?
And your understanding of love includes the wonderful love we should all see in slavery?
Yes and your sort of simple minded rhetoric is just like that used by the self-righteous stuffed shirts who wanted to put Schindler on trial as a Nazi war criminal. But it is not like he expected any different. He was well aware of the nature of people, so many of which simply refuse to see anything which doesn’t fit into their black and white world.
It includes doing what you can to help real people rather than simply slaughtering everyone who dares to disagree with your ideology of “righteousness.” Like the Roman (or Schindler) who says, please don’t slaughter all these people, I can use them on my farm (or factory).
You’re making an unsubstantiated claim with no citations, no links.