Minister asks to be defrocked over review of atheist colleague

A retired United Church minister has asked to be formally defrocked as a protest against the potential firing of a colleague for her atheist beliefs.

In a scorching open letter, Rev. Beverley Burlock asserts the church has lost its way and its treatment of Toronto minister Gretta Vosper shameful.

Vosper is due to face an ecclesiastical court hearing – date to be determined – that could see her axed after a subcommittee denounced her views as extreme.

“Never, ever was I subjected in any of my pre-ordination interviews over the several years to such an intensive and excessive interrogation as Gretta faced before the subcommittee, which basically amounted to a heresy trial,” Burlock, of Port Mouton, N.S., says in her letter. “Gretta is being treated the same as the ‘religious authorities’ of his day treated Jesus, who called them out on putting law over compassion.”