Amen: What Prayer Can Mean In A World Beyond Belief with Gretta Vosper

Hosted by Neil Wilson

Admission

Free

Sunday

Apr , 2012

7:30pm

Eastern

Southminster United Church

15 Aylmer Ave at Bank Street • Ottawa

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Amen: What Prayer Can Mean In A World Beyond Belief with Gretta Vosper

I enormously admire this rising voice of new Christian possibilities and I commend her penetrating insights into the new generation of spiritually aware and spiritually open people.

John Shelby Spong

Join Gretta Vosper, founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity, bestselling author of With or Without God and pastor of West Hill United Church in Toronto, for a compelling look at the place of prayer in the modern world.

Some believe prayer connects them with God, a cosmic force, the universe or life itself, and that it can change circumstances or bring them comfort, protection and peace. Others engage in the act of prayer as a traditional ritual from which they neither demand nor expect results. For many others, however, prayer has no significance in their lives at all. Her latest book, Amen, examines these diverse positions in the light of the harsh realities of unanswered prayer, the secular critique of supernatural intervention and the need for a deep sense of ownership for the suffering in the world. With characteristic honesty, she calls the reader to submit the tradition of prayer to the test of integrity. Can we draw from it useful principles for addressing human and global needs? Or is it safe, and maybe even more effective, to get up from our knees and live out the answers we seek?

The Authors

Gretta Vosper

Gretta Vosper has been in the spotlight since founding the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity in 2004. Her first book, With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important that What We Believe, quickly became a national bestseller and attracted media attention and debate across the country. Met with both acclaim and vitriol by those inside and outside the church, With or Without God challenges the clergy’s silence on contemporary scholarship, arguing that people need to know the Bible is not the authoritative word of God for all time. With or Without God was featured in the cover article of the 2008 Maclean’s magazine Easter edition, and was listed on Amazon’s Top 25 Books that Caused a Commotion. In 2009, Gretta was named one of the Most Compelling Women in Canada by More Magazine. Since then, Gretta’s work has been featured in media across the country and internationally. She has been introduced to Bishop John Shelby Spong’s readership as a guest columnist – Spong has called her “one of the most exciting voices in 21st century Christianity.” Close to home, Gretta appears as a regular on the “Culture Wars” segment of the John Oakley Show on AM640, Toronto’s most popular Talk Radio morning program. Abroad, she has welcomed opportunities such as giving the keynote speaker address for Common Dreams, The 2010 International Conference for Religious Progressives in Melbourne, Australia. Having twice narrowly avoided heresy trials, Gretta continues to lead West Hill United – “a progressive community of faith growing out of the Christian tradition” – in Scarborough, Ontario. Non-exclusive inspirational liturgical and music resources written by Gretta and her partner, Scott Kearns, are used internationally. Her second book, Amen; What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief, published by HarperCollins Canada, has been available since the beginning of April. Gretta continues to serve on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity. She is also a Director on the Board of the Ecumenical Community of Chautauqua, an organization that works to provide affordable accommodations at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York.