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There are too many lives in the balance these days. Whether wavering on the frantic edges of poverty, wrestling with the backlash of simply identifying one’s gender or sexuality, remaining in relationships that are toxic and abusive, or expressing one’s own thoughts within entrenched regimes, people around the world risk their lives because of where they are, who they are, who controls their lives and bodies, and what it is they believe.
Lives in the Balance was imagined as a conference that would bring people together to raise awareness of persecution related to beliefs while raising funds for refugees fleeing their own countries because their lives are imperiled for that same reason.
To make our concerns disturbingly clear, we are bringing together some of the most bracing voices for change in the work of protecting freedom of expression around the world. In one day.
The day will be moderated by our minister, Gretta Vosper.
THE SPEAKERS
 Gretta Vosper
Gretta Vosper has been irritating the church into the twenty-first century since founding the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity in 2004. Since that time, she’s written the best-selling With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe; Amen; and Time or Too Late: Chasing the Dream of a Progressive Christian Faith. She has also identified her progressive beliefs as atheism. In 2015, her denomination, The United Church of Canada, began a heresy trial against her, arguing that her belief system, despite being deeply entrenched in the UCC’s social gospel roots and contemporary critical scholarship, was no longer acceptable. Vosper has continued to lead her United Church community throughout her trial which is not yet complete.
 Bonya Ahmed - Writer, Blogger, Activist
She survived machete attack carried out by AQ affiliated groups which took her husband writer and founder of Secular blog site MuktoMona.
 Alishba Zarmeen - Human Rights Activist
Working to educate and protect progressive Muslims who have dared to read the Koran and find it deeply disturbing.
 Raihan Abir - Writer, Blogger, Activist
Avijit’s co-author and now a landed immigrant in Canada.
 Ensaf Haider - Human Rights Activist
Wife of imprisoned Saudi, Raif Badawi, whose sentence included ten years of prison and one thousand lashes.
 Ali Rizvi - Human Rights Activist
Working to educate and protect progressive Muslims who have dared to read the Koran and find it deeply disturbing.
 Aruna Papp - Human Right Activist
A local activist who continues to expose the spectre of honour-beating that continues against girls in our own local high schools.
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