Universal Life Church

Creative alternatives to the traditional wedding ceremony continue to crop up as young couples look for ways to make their commitment to each other truly unique and relevant. Not only have drive-through, sky-dive, and extreme adventure weddings challenged notions about how bride and groom should celebrate their union, but corporate giants have had a hand in the business too, especially in the United States, where brand names are ubiquitous in everyday life. Now you can get married in your favorite discount department store, home improvement store, or ice-cream parlor chain.

The trend benefits both businesses and consumers—stores get exposure for their brand, while bride and groom enjoy a setting which is meaningful and relevant. Often, bride and groom choose businesses where they have a history together—either they have met, fallen in love, or spent a great deal of time together in the store. Retail weddings are also characterized by a sort of pastiche combining corporate brands with popular culture. One couple in Santa Fe, New Mexico, held a Midsummer Night’s Dream-themed wedding in the garden department of their local Home Depot outlet, replete with a decorated arbor provided by the store stockroom itself. Meanwhile, Lisa Satayut and her fiancé, Drew Ellis, will be the first to hold their wedding ceremony inside a T.J. Maxx store when they recite their modern wedding vows in aisle 8 of the shoe department in a Mount Pleasant, Michigan location while family, friends, and shoppers watch. Yet another couple wedded in an Illinois Taco Bell last January while wedding guests and onlookers feasted on tacos and chalupas.

Another motivation for retail weddings is economic. Jillian Berman of USA Today quotes Rebecca Dolgin, executive editor of TheKnot.com, as saying, “In some cases, too, I think the economy might play into it, where people are really trying to be resourceful.” Often, large businesses host these contemporary wedding ceremonies, since it is an inexpensive form of advertising and usually the facilities are large and well-supplied. According to Berman, Stayut and Ellis will save about $150 by holding their wedding inside Home Depot, while other couples might save thousands. In addition, the furniture and décor supplied by stores are not wasted—they can be returned to the stockroom and sold after the ceremony.

The concept of a “third place”—vigorously promoted by Starbucks as a warm, friendly setting outside work and home—seems to undergird the fascination many Americans have will retail weddings. As more people integrate corporate brands into their daily routine, the most important ceremonies in those people’s lives will reflect a loyalty to those brands. In fact, the sentiment many feel for their favorite store can strike others as bizarre or misplaced. Satayut, who calls herself a “Maxxinista”, says, “The one constant in my life, no matter what, has always been T.J. Maxx”, not friends, family, a higher being or “Almighty God”, or even herself, but rather a discount department store.

Critics might call this trend tacky, irreverent, even profane (at least among those who view marriage as a spiritual or divine compact), since consumerism takes such a prominent position in such a “sacred” ceremony, but who is to judge the bride and groom who declare “I do” to an ordained reverend or minister perched underneath a Home Depot arbor while guests watch the spectacle on their pre-fabricated plywood pews? Sanctity, it could be said, is in the eye of the beholder, and as long as the ceremony reflects a profound commitment between bride and groom, why should not the rest of us feel happy for them?

The growth of retail weddings (like sponsored weddings, in which businesses fund the wedding under the condition that their products be used on the occasion) will probably not subside any time soon; it will only continue to take shape, using whatever wedding supplies and resources are available to make the ceremony both special and economically feasible. Inevitably, traditional attitudes will grow accustomed to the practice and, like everything else that becomes hum-drum given the passage of time, the fanfare will die down and we will look for an even more innovative way to tie the knot.

Source:

USA Today

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Is communication technology bad for religion, or does it simply change the way we worship? This question has been growing on the minds of parishioners and worshippers of diverse faith groups, who find it increasingly difficult to extricate new technological advances from their religious life. The answer seems to be a paradoxical yes and no—while technology has its downside in traditional religious observance, it also offers many benefits.

In a bid to lure younger acolytes, some churches have incorporated new devices into their traditional services. Online church Web sites have become ubiquitous, creating a high-profile internet presence which provides resources for members and an overview of the church’s beliefs and practices for potential converts (for example, Universal Life Church Monastery’s Web site offers information on legal wedding officiation, religious literature, and links to its ministers’ network), but another way in which priests and ministers have managed to communicate their messages is by holding online prayer sessions, and even worship services, through mobiles devices such as smart phones and iPhones. As Stuart Fox of MSNBC notes, “hundreds of new iPhone apps allow parishioners to bring Bible quotes, Torah-chanting practice and Buddhist prayer wheels wherever they go, allowing them to practice their religions in new times and spaces.” Pastors can post sermons online, Muslims can podcast the call to prayer from the muezzin in Mecca, and the Dalai Lama provides updates on his own Twitter feed.

So what motivates the misapprehensions of the few who see these rapid changes as a corrupting influence on the major religions of the world? Quoting Darleen Pryds, an associate professor of Christian spirituality and medieval history at the Franciscan School of Theology in California, Fox points out, “most people tend to disengage from the experience of communal worship, and there is a nervous, excited energy that pervades the room and takes over”; he also reports Dudley Rose, the associate dean for ministry studies at Harvard University’s Divinity School, as saying, “Even the people who think they [are great multitaskers] aren’t paying as much attention as they think they are. And how do you develop supplication when the very way you are communicating is so fragmented?” Rose goes on to say that this poses a challenge for churches trying to keep younger members who are put off by traditional paper texts.

Then there is the upside to the influence of technological communication on traditional religious observance. Despite the disconnected, nervous excitement that accompanies the use of mobile devices in religious services, Pryds admits that “[e]ven if I haven’t participated in real time with the prayer service, the series of prayers are there in my newsfeed as a reminder”. So, in a sense, technological advances actually help us keep active in our religious observances. Mobile devices also help the believer literally to take their faith with them wherever they go, whether on the train, at the grocery store, or at the beach. Paraphrasing Rose, Fox reports that “[b]y allowing the faithful to engage in religious activity regardless of where they are, these apps allow worshippers to create a religious world around them, even if they are physically in a very secular environment.” Thus, the notion that spiritual or transcendent experience should be confined to a space within four walls replete with worn hymnals, hard pews, and an altar becomes obsolete, replaced with a more interactive, omnipresent spiritual experience.

The trend of integrating religious practice into the modern-day communication infrastructure probably will not end any time soon, but rather continue to intensify, just as the printing press

made spiritual insight accessible to the average person by rendering Bibles inexpensive and common-place; the only difference is that now one can read passages from the holy book of your choice on your mobile internet telephone gadget. Of course, just like those who criticize online minister ordination or the blessing of laptops and mobile phones on Plow Sunday, technologically savvy religion will have its critics, who will label the new mode of worship as “tacky” and “irreverent”—but every innovation in style of worship seems tacky and irreverent to the conservative. So, despite its drawbacks, internet religion is proving to be a highly efficient and popular means of spreading spiritual insight and messages to the faithful, and a chief means by which religion in general will adapt and flourish in the near future.

Source:

MSNBC

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After learning that the officiant they’d selected for their wedding would be unable to make it, Los Angeles couple Abbe Thorner and Jason Wood decided that Jason Segel, writer and star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and cast member of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother, would be perfect to marry them.  Fortunately, Thorner and Wood ran into Segel at a West Hollywood bar and were able to ask him if he would perform their wedding.

“They turned out to be the nicest, most normal fun-loving couple ever,” Segal told Jay Leno. “I guess the guys who were supposed to officiate their wedding dropped out and they were watching Sarah Marshall at the time—which, I mean, most people are—so they convinced me that I would be an appropriate person to officiate their wedding, and I told them I was out of town for their actual day.”

Segel asked the couple if they’d be willing to the tie the knot on The Tonight Show, and they agreed.

With Jay Leno as a witness, Segel, who was ordained through the Universal Life Church, pronounced the coupled married before their families and the Tonight Show‘s studio audience.

Source
Tvguide.ca

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Pennsylvania is well known for its Liberty Bell—the venerable landmark which symbolizes U.S. independence from British rule and which, by its name, connotes freedom from tyranny and oppression (ironically, the British Empire outlawed slavery decades before the “Land of the Free” did), so it is a little disconcerting that over two hundred years after the founding of the bastion of freedom known as the United States, one of its original thirteen colonies should have instituted a law violating one of its foremost tenets—separation of church and state. It also challenges the teleological view that everything progresses towards an ideal state or a final resolution—at least when we get lazy.

The law in question was passed in the “Keystone State” in 1977 and explicitly bans “blasphemy”—whatever that is supposed to be. In 2007, video producer George Kalman set out to christen his new business “I Choose Hell Productions, L.L.C.” The business, which promotes the idea of enduring “hell on earth” as a worthwhile alternative to suicide, was intended to combine Kalman’s personal philosophy with a pithy turn of phrase promoting his irreverently secular, worldly, and non-theistic brand. The state of Pennsylvania, however, challenged the business’s moniker on the grounds of blasphemy, while allowing other businesses, such as Butt Beer, the Satan Management Corp., Devil Media, Hell Razor Records, Hell Mountain Farm, and Hell’s Half-Acre Lake Volunteer Fire Co.

It seems pathetic that Kalman was forced to provide an explanation to the media, as if the law is not already a clear constitutional violation. Nathan Gorenstein of Philly.com reports him as saying, “The only reason I filed the name is because in my movie the subject was always beating away depression and suicidal tendencies. The idea is that if life is hell, don’t kill yourself, because you already own your own death”. So not only is the furor over Kalman’s reference to the Christian concept of eternal damnation highly questionable, but his heart seems to be in the right place (at least if one opposes suicide).

Illustrating the trend of governments losing sight of their original, fundamental principles, Kalman’s attorney, Thomas H. Lee II, said, “I assumed that this was a statute that was left over from either the 19th or early 20th century. I was surprised to find that it dated only to 1977.” Apparently, Gorenstein suggests, Pennsylvania legislators passed House Bill 371 in response to the opening of a gun-shop called “The God Damn Gun Shop” which enraged local ministers, pastors, and other clergy members. The bill states that corporate names “shall not contain words that constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing, or profane the Lord’s name.” Now if this is not an example of religious bias, of government imposing religious principles on the public, and of the blatant violation of church-state separation, what is? It is truly a shocking and disheartening development for those who trust that religious neutrality and secular politics grows steadily stronger over time. It can really only be viewed as Christians with ruffled feathers trying to force the public to revere the principles and beliefs of the Christian religion.

Then, with the help of the ACLU, Kalman took the state to court. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson ruled in Kalman’s favor and declared the retrospective law unconstitutional over two years after Kalman took the state to court. Gorenstein reports Baylson as stating, “The court respects those for whom blasphemy is an important concept, and emphasizes that nothing in this opinion impacts their belief”, but that the law as written “impermissibly entangles [state employees] with religion by requiring them, at their own discretion, to make standardless determinations as to what constitutes blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing, or what profanes the Lord’s name, based on nothing but their own religious beliefs”. Thus far the state has not appealed Baylson’s decision; however, Pennsylvania’s senior deputy attorney and attorneys with the corporations office are giving it closer scrutiny, and it does allow the state to attempt imposing a ban on certain vulgarities (possibly violating free speech protections in turn). Meanwhile, Kalman once again enjoys the right to use his business name of choice without the government dictating it on the grounds of religious scruples.

As an interfaith, universal church that supports religious neutrality in all government operations, Universal Life Church Monastery stands by Judge Baylson’s decision. Undoubtedly, there are myriad other states with countless other First Amendment violations which keep organizations such as the ACLU, and the ULC Monastery blog, busy, so keep checking back often to read about more cases involving religion in government.

Source:

Philly.com

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While forced marriage is not an entirely invisible problem, it is largely under-reported, and while most victims of the practice are female, male victims are often treated with suspicion and disbelief. One of the chief reasons men are forced into marriage is that their family have discovered, or suspect, that they are gay or bisexual. This violation of basic human rights and freedoms serves as yet another example how the most powerful members of society seek to control the affections of the most vulnerable members in order to achieve their own aim.

The problem has gained particular attention in the Middle Eastern, Indian, Eastern European, and African communities of the United Kingdom, which introduced forced marriage protection orders in 2008. Victims’ families often subscribe to fundamentalist Muslim beliefs. According to Amelia Hill and Karen McVeigh of The Guardian, “The Albert Kennedy Trust, a charity for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual young people, recently reported a rise in the number of young gay Muslims contacting it for help.” In addition, Britain’s Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), a joint Home Office/Foreign Office agency, reported that 14% of forced marriage cases involved men, but they believe the figure could be as high as one in five. Although the majority of victims range in age from 15 to 25, one case the FMU received involved a 62 year-old whose family tried to marry him to a 35 year-old woman because they did not want to care for him any longer. Another case involved a man from Leicester whose family locked him inside his room because he was gay and went downstairs to discuss whether to kill him, abandon him in India, or marry him off. In yet another case, a young man was flown to Pakistan by his family, where they had arranged a marriage for him. When he refused, they locked him in his room, where his father came and beat him daily, breaking his legs and abusing him sexually.

One might wonder what fuels such desperate (and hypocritical) measures among families who seek to rid themselves of their brothers and sons in such a way. Reputation is a pre-eminent concern for these families, who view these young men as burdensome, deviant, or in some other way eccentric or abnormal. As Hill and McVeigh report, forced marriage “can . . . be a result of family commitments to relatives abroad or their own expectations, securing visas or an attempt to control their son’s [behavior] or protect a family’s reputation”. Of course, such examples of holy matrimony and wedding nuptials have nothing to do with love—nor even alliance-building between families—but merely serves as a means of discarding unwanted or despised family members, or of shoehorning them into traditional roles in order to save face. Ultimately, it is the opinion of other family members and members of society that prevail, not interest in the well-being, or even the life, of the family members themselves. It is an ancient social structure which has proved difficult for Britons to challenge and dismantle even on their own soil, especially given the covertness of male forced marriage.

Male victims of forced marriage are often an invisible minority. Only adding to the challenge of prejudice and entrenched social structures is the fact that men have more difficulty than women in getting help, as Jeremy Browne, Foreign Office minister for consular policy, points out. “Professionals and communities can be very intolerant towards men being forced into marriage, even if they have learnt to be sympathetic to women in the same situation,” notes FMU’s spokesperson. “It can be hard to persuade people to believe it even happens.” Despite the growing secularization of Europe, the largely religion-based problem persists in these very havens of freedom, thus it is imperative for communities to shed the preconception of men as invulnerable and take male victimization more seriously.

Although the practice of forced marriage can prove clandestine and shadowy enough to frustrate efforts at its elimination, with the FMU Britain has succeeded in setting up valuable resources for helping the women and men who become trapped in exploitative and often life-threatening circumstances. Perhaps other nations can follow suit by instituting government programs aimed at stemming the tide of forced marriages among vulnerable women and gay men.

Individuals in Britain who are being forced into a marriage can apply for a forced marriage protection order or contact their local authorities to obtain similar protection.

Source:

The Guardian

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The number of friends and family members who officiate weddings has been increasing in recent years, while the number of judges and ministers belonging to traditional hierarchical religious organizations has gradually decreased. While the growing trend of weddings performed by friends and family has its supporters, it also has its critics, revealing a persistent suspicion in some people’s minds over the validity of such weddings. The greatest caveat critics have appears to be over their legal status, as well as the seriousness with which they are performed, but this resistance ultimately reflects a fear, on the part of conventional religious denominations, of losing control over the general population.

Rumors about the “scam” of weddings performed by ministers ordained online have circulated among traditional ministers as well as legal scholars who are not privy to the official operations of churches which grant online ordinations, but who nevertheless avow that such organizations must not be in line with the legal criteria for churches set forth by the Internal Revenue Service in the United States.

One of these critics is attorney Ray Dague, who specializes in religious and matrimonial law. According to Dague, online ordination is “a scam”, which does not “‘cut the muster” with the state of New York or any other state in the United States, simply because, obviously, you can sell a certificate for a few bucks, but that doesn’t make you a clergyman”. He adds, “[y]ou’ve got to have some kind of a recognized congregation”. But Universal Life Church Monastery, which grants free online ordinations, does have a recognized congregation which meets at its Le Jardin Sanctuary in Seattle; furthermore, it becomes a dangerous practice for the government to impose rigorous restrictions on the definition of a congregation—should Wiccans be banned from performing legal weddings simply because their meetings in homes or forest groves may not meet the definition of a regularly convening church congregation in the Judeo-Christian sense? Should the congregation be enclosed in four walls, and should there be an arbitrary minimum of, say, twenty-five members present? Should it be on a weekly basis? The imposition of restrictions on the definition of a congregation then borders on discrimination and preference for one religious tradition over another—clearly forbidden under the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Visit our Web page on U.S. and international marriage laws for more information.)

Then there are priests, ministers, and pastors from traditional religious organizations who challenge the practice of weddings officiated by ministers ordained online. Many of these clergy members claim that traditionally trained clergy who belong to traditional hierarchical organizations offer something to the community that ministers ordained online cannot. Rev. James Wind, president of the Alban Institute, a research firm specializing in religion, is one of these individuals. In Wind’s view,

When we do a wedding ceremony, there’s a set of values that has been carried along for centuries in these religious communities that are resources for making this very important relationship, a bedrock relationship in our society, for making this work.

But, ironically, it is just such obsolete “resources” which many modern brides and grooms have deliberately eschewed—the “set of values” which individuals such as Wind endorse often do not meet the modern-day needs and interests of those who end up seeking friends and family to officiate their weddings. For example, most centuries-old value systems proscribe same-sex marriage and weddings, so same-sex couples would obviously find no reason to solicit the services of a priest or minister who subscribes to such value systems. Moreover, by denying marriage to such couples, traditional clergy actually impair the strength of the community, since they refuse to recognize the loving bonds and families that even they themselves admit are foundational to communities. This is precisely why churches such as ULC Monastery exist—to provide such services to the community in order to strengthen it.

So what makes weddings performed by friends and family ordained online a viable option? There is good reason to believe that weddings performed by ministers ordained online clearly illustrate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage. For Kate and Ed Kochem, their ceremony was all the more profound because Kate’s aunt served as the officiant. “It really made me feel more like part of Kate’s family”, said Ed, “[a]s opposed to someone that I don’t know, some judge or pastor that I rarely see doing the ceremony. With Kate’s aunt, it really seemed like I was becoming part of her family.” So, again, it seems ironic to insist that weddings solemnized by strangers are more “sacred” than weddings solemnized by friends and family just because those strangers have the authority to wield a gavel, and when friends and family know the bride and groom so intimately. In fact, what seems truly blasé and irreverent is the practice of hiring personnel such as county clerks to grant legal marriage licenses perfunctorily and with little interest to total strangers just because those strangers have the right set of chromosomes and genitals, regardless whether or not they love one another.

The insistence that legal wedding officiation should be restricted to conventionally trained and ordained clergy members and magistrates stems more or less from an irrational attachment to tradition and a delusion about what is best for the couple and the community as a whole. (But, then, it is questionable whether or not the community has any concern in affairs involving only two people.) Traditional marriage is the vestige of an ancient practice in which tribes and nations forged alliances by buying and selling one another’s women; it has little to do with the actual phenomenon of love between two persons, and more to do with the institutional manipulation of people’s affections for the purpose of political and religious control. So, really, we should start viewing weddings officiated by ministers ordained online less as a curse and more as a boon to the institution of marriage, which, at least in its modern sense, connotes a loving union.

Source:

National Public Radio

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