To most non-United Church of Canada members who have followed the peculiar case of the semi-famous Rev. Gretta Vosper, it’s a no-brainer.

Why on earth, outsiders ask, would a Christian church allow someone who has long been an outspoken atheist to remain in the clergy?

However, for many in the United Church, which is barely holding its status as the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the case of Vosper is something best not to discuss. After all, Vosper has until recently remained largely unchallenged because most United Church leaders wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, or be criticized as intolerant.

Sometimes United Church people seem so Canadian that way, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Given the openness of the United Church — to which more than 2.5 million Canadians still claim affiliation — it’s of note that a bit of pushback has finally arrived.

The church’s Toronto presbytery politely began asking in May whether Vosper is doing her religious duties. She leads a small congregation in Toronto, from where she often denounces her leaders (including national Moderator Rev. Gary Paterson, of Vancouver).

Even though Vosper has been proudly declaring for 14 years, on all media platforms, she is atheist, it looks as if her dubious employment will drag on, at least in the short term. The review of Vosper has bogged down in a bureaucratic “appeal.”

That shouldn’t stop the rest of us from musing on the strange case of Vosper.

She is the author of two best-selling books on atheism’s superiority, and a frequent go-to source for journalists at secular media outlets when they feel they need to find a new angle on Christianity.

Vosper’s website describes her as “minister/author/atheist.” Her first book was With or Without God. It is not a put-down to suggest if Vosper was not writing and speaking about her atheism from an ostensibly Christian pulpit she would be widely ignored.

Despite calling herself “progressive,” she is not a radical thinker. Her views are commonplace among Canada’s many atheists and in the venerable Unitarian Universalist denomination, in which members are roughly divided between atheism and theism. Vosper would also be at home in the new secular humanist Sunday Assemblies, which seem like a great idea for atheists.

What’s most notable about Vosper is not her character or ideas, but what her continuing employment says about what’s become of the once-influential Protestant denomination, which in the 1950s was frequently considered “the conscience of the nation.”

Notre Dame University historian Mark Noll said the United Church has declined in part because it embraced secularism, pluralism and multiculturalism. Ontario scholar Nancy Christie adds it faltered because it promoted personal freedom above public morality.

One of the things the Vosper case strongly suggests is the United Church has become so freedom-fixated and inclusive — often boasting “We Welcome Everyone” — that it has lost its boundaries.

For what it’s worth, many people maintain too many Canadians act like United Church members: They, too, have also lost a sense of identity.

A surprising one in four Canadians recently reported to Angus Reid Institute pollsters the country doesn’t have a “unique culture;” which suggests they believe Canada is some sort of blank slate, lacking distinctive traits.