Universal Life Church

Take a look at this picture. You will notice that there is not a single serving of fruits or vegetables on the man’s plate of food. And there are not one, but two drumsticks.

Most of us are familiar with the claims that Americans are fatter and more religious than their peers in other industrialized nations. Now, a new study links higher obesity rates with more frequent church attendance. This finding flies in the face of previous studies which link religiosity with greater well-being, creating a more complex picture of the relation between health and religion.

The longitudinal study, conducted in the U.S. city of Chicago at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, tracked 2,433 women and men over the course of eighteen years in the cities of Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland, California, and Birmingham, Alabama. The study’s researchers defined frequent church attendance as going to church at least once a week. Most subjects were Christian. The results indicated that people who attended a church sermon or worship service frequently were fifty per cent more likely to become obese by middle age than people who did not attend church frequently.

It is unclear why people who attend church frequently tend to be fatter than those who do not. The study’s lead researcher, fourth-year medical student Matthew Feinstein, explained his view of the results: “We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot of these findings highlight [sic] a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention”, he said, according to Stefano Esposito of the Chicago Sun-Times. In other words, suggests Feinstein, despite the lack of clarity over how religiosity relates to health, the study still identifies a group (church-goers) that deserves greater attention with respect to healthy lifestyle habits.

Still, there are many theories about how church attendance relates to obesity. One of these theories comes from Courtney Parker, the catering manager for the twenty thousand-member Apostolic Church of God, a suburban Christian megachurch just outside Chicago. Paraphrasing Parker’s opinion, Esposito suggested that “there may be a historical connection between over-eating and going to church. In years gone by, so many things were taboo — but not eating”. Historically, “church services ran long”, Esposito quotes Parker as saying, so after church “the first thing you do is go eat, and then you go to sleep”. In other words, Parker suggests, eating was a social activity in the church, and gluttony did not carry the same weight as other “sins”, such as lust or adultery.

But do these conclusions suggest that religion is bad for one’s health? The picture is not necessarily so black-and-white.

Other research has indicated that there is a link between well-being and religious piety (not frequent church attendance, per sé). For instance, A 2010 Gallup poll has revealed that more religious people tend to show a greater degree of well-being. That poll assigned a well-being score to 550,000 people belonging to three different groups: very religious, moderately religious, and non-religious. Very religious people earned a well-being score of 68.7, while moderately religious and unaffiliated or non-religious people both earned a score of 64.2. (The difference in the two scores was deemed to be statistically significant.) The findings suggest that there is something about religious people that makes them healthier and happier, but the findings do not suggest that being religious causes people to be healthier and happier—it merely suggests that there is a correlation between religiosity and well-being.

Once again, however, the picture is made foggier by research on the well-being of global populations. Another 2010 Gallup poll listed the happiest countries in the world based on four criteria: 1) percent thriving, 2) percent struggling, 3) percent suffering, and 4) quality of overall daily experience. The United States is widely considered more religious than Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, so if religiosity increases one’s sense of well-being, the United States should be happier than Denmark. However, the researchers concluded that Denmark was the happiest country in the world (with 82% thriving, 17% struggling, and 1% suffering), while the United States was only the fourteenth happiest (with 57% thriving, 40% struggling, and 3% suffering). The quality of daily experience score was 7.9 for Denmark, and 7.3 for the United States. Given these results, it is unclear that religion always acts as a boon to one’s health and well-being.

The point is that sometimes religiosity and church attendance may be good for your well-being, and other times they may not. Perhaps in the United States, many people still rely on organized religion for economic security (especially in the Baptist and other Protestant denominations) while in many other industrialized nations, people do not need to rely on organized religion for security because the government provides it for them. At the same time, however, religion may also play a role in inhibiting healthy lifestyle habits. For now the jury is out, but hopefully future research will shed further light on the matter.

Give us your thoughts as a ULC interfaith wedding minister ordained online. Do churches nurture lifestyle habits which lead to obesity, do they encourage healthy habits, or is it a combination of the two?

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A new study suggests that religion will eventually become extinct because it is becoming less useful to people. The extinction of religion, the study shows, may already be underway in Europe and Canada, and may even be accelerating. Even in the absence of religion, however, some theological questions remain. Can non-religious spirituality still be of use to us in a world without religion?

The study was conducted by Richard Wiener, a physics professor at the University of Arizona, and Daniel Abrams and Haley Yale, of Northwestern University’s engineering and applied mathematics department. The authors applied a mathematical model using census data to determine the trends in religiosity in nine different countries. Using a concept called relative utility, the authors measured how useful it was to belong to one of the religions of the world. If a score was below 0.5, it was more advantageous to belong to a religious group; if a score was above 0.5, it was less so.

Religious usefulness was defined as how much social and economic security a religion provided; conversely, the obsolescence of religion was defined as how much social and economic security the government and other organizing systems provided in lieu of religion.

Abrams expected the number of unaffiliated people to have remained relatively stagnant over the past hundred years, but in fact it grew significantly: over that period, the relative utility score rose above 0.5, reflecting an increase in the number of unaffiliated people, a sign of an increasingly secular, post-Christian West. For example, in Switzerland’s Schwyz Canton the number of unaffiliated was nearly zero in the 1950s, but by a decade ago that number had risen to 5.5 percent. The trend is strongest in the Czech Republic, where 60% of people are non-religious, and in the Netherlands, where 40% claim to religion.

There are several possible reasons for the accelerated change, Abrams said. One is that membership in a group becomes more attractive as that group becomes larger. Another is that secular institutions now provide many of the services that religious institutions once provided. In other words, schools, jobs, health-care, and other services increasingly become the domain of secular institutions, fewer people will see the need in seeking them out through religious institutions. It is possible that because so many European governments now provide these services, more Europeans have abandoned religion as a result.

But what does this bode for spirituality, and does spirituality serve a function separate from religion?

As Abrams has suggested, atheism, agnosticism, and other forms of non-religion may be growing exponentially simply because they are larger than they were before, and hence have acquired a certain cachet or acceptability as a result of their mainstream status. Non-religion boasts a certain class prestige, being associated with academia, science, and transformative intellectual movements. If this is so, people may be drawn to non-religion largely for social or cultural reasons, and not strictly for theological or philosophical ones.

What does this say about spirituality and mysticism, though? Many people distinguish between organized religion and spirituality—they may associate religion largely with dogma, hierarchy, and bigotry, and spirituality more with openness, exploration, and inner reflection. Thus, the decline of organized religion does not necessarily imply a decline in spiritual seeking or curiosity, and, consequently, many theological questions remain unanswered. Mystics still seek insight into notions of God or a higher power, life after death and the nature of consciousness, reincarnation and transmigration of the soul, and the overall meaning of life. Organized religion is not necessary to ponder these things—in fact, as many spiritual people argue, it can actually discourage personal exploration. Indeed, highly amorphous spiritual traditions such as New Age thought seek to incorporate new scientific discoveries into their mystical cosmology.

What do you think? Is religion becoming extinct, and, if so, what does this mean for the fate of spirituality? Feel free to get ordained online as an interfaith priest or minister and join the discussion on the ULC Monastery Facebook page or social network for ministers.

Source:

International Business Times

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When there are research papers to write and final exams to study for, who has time to perform a wedding ceremony? Apparently, a substantial number of people do. Students have shown an increasingly high profile in the ranks of ULC Monastery ministers. This is due in part to the fact that the church ordains anybody online without questioning their minister training and education, since the church holds that anybody can have access to divine knowledge without a formal degree. In turn, students find this an attractive prospect for performing the wedding ceremonies of their choice, especially when more conservative elders disapprove.

A prime example of student involvement in the ULC ministry comes from the University of Arizona, where 104 students now claim membership in the online church.

One of these students is Brad Melrose, a teaching and teacher education and educational leadership graduate student. Melrose was married to his wife by a minister ordained in the ULC and decided to get ordained online himself in order to marry a friend. Eliza Molk of Daily Wildcat, the school’s student newspaper, quotes him as saying, “I made [the wedding] heartfelt and informal”, adding that the ceremony “wasn’t ritualized” and that “it was a great time”. For Melrose, it was important to play an instrumental role in marrying the people he cares about.

Danielle Kazibutowski, a second-year student majoring in family studies and human development, is another University of Arizona student who found a place in the ULC. Kazibutowski became a legally ordained minister to marry her friend, whose parents expressed disapproval over the friend’s interracial marriage. Granted, most churches now recognize interracial marriage, but for Kazibutowski her personal involvement in her friend’s struggle makes the ceremony more meaningful. She decided to become an interfaith wedding officiant after visiting the ULC social network for ministers, which allows ministers to share stories and advice on how to perform a modern wedding ceremony.

Despite the open-mindedness of these young people, many others still express apprehension about online ordination. Why should anybody be allowed to get ordained online without conventional, formal minister training and education? According to Molk, ULC Monastery presiding chaplain George Freeman has responded to this question by asking, why not? After all, the disciples of the Christian Bible did not have formal degrees, yet Christians trust in the divine provenance of their teachings, so why should a student struggling with chemistry exams be forced to heap years of training in divinity school on top of their current studies simply to marry a friend whose interracial relationship angers the friend’s parents? True, that friend could go to a traditional priest, but that priest is a stranger and does not have firsthand experience in that person’s struggle, so the personalized touch would be lost.

A lot of young people are drawn to online ordination because it allows them to marry whom they want to marry without the unnecessary baggage of tradition. Black bride, white groom? Okay. Jewish bride, Christian groom? Sure. Two brides or two grooms? Not a problem. Perhaps the growing interest in online ordination among young university students reflects a generational difference in social attitudes, with young, educated people voicing their demand for a more common-sense approach to the sacrament of marriage as a love-based union. “The most important thing about a wedding is that it is a commitment of two people destined to spend the rest of their life together”, Molk reports Freeman as saying, adding, “Why can’t your brother, sister, or favorite uncle marry you?” And why do we need traditional divinity school training to recognize such unions if everybody has a connection with their own spiritual truth?

Feel free to share your anecdotes as a ULC wedding minister. Do you find that online ordination has opened up the doors for marginalized groups and made marriage more relevant and meaningful?

Source:

Daily Wildcat

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A secular foundation which supports separation of church and state is suing Jan Brewer, governor of the U.S. state of Arizona, for proclaiming a day of prayer on the grounds that it violates the United States Constitution. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the case is the reasoning used by Brewer’s spokesman to defend the proclamation, which shows a fundamental error in logic and a faulty reliance on sentiment.

Brewer, a Republican, declared 6 May a “day of prayer” in 2010 in the hope of inspiring religious faith among Arizonans (much in the same way as the U.S. federal government’s National Day of Prayer), however the Freedom from Religion Foundation, an organization of atheists, agnostics, and other secularists based in Madison, Wisconsin, is seeking to overturn the practice and bar Brewer from issuing any further religiously inspired proclamations. The foundation filed its lawsuit Tuesday, 15 March, in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

In response to the lawsuit, Brewer spokesman Matt Benson has issued a statement defending the governor. Her actions, he explains, are perfectly appropriate since they reflect a long-lasting tradition dating back to America’s earliest days. According to the Associated Press, “Benson says [that] proclaiming a day of prayer is an American tradition dating back to George Washington’s presidency and that the governor is confident her actions are within constitutional bounds.” In other words, for Benson, proclaiming a day of prayer is good just because it is traditional, therefore it should continue.

This argument is so common in political discourse that we have confronted it more than once here on the ULC Monastery blog. What Benson presents us with is a fallacy known as appeal to tradition, in which the speaker attempts to prove a claim by invoking tradition or precedent. One problem with this approach is that a thing is not necessarily right just because it was a prevalent practice, because a practice which was prevalent may have been based on incorrect assumptions. For example, the belief that the world was flat was traditional for medieval and early Renaissance Europeans, but this does not mean the belief was correct. Another problem with this attitude is that a tradition which worked in the past does not necessarily work in the present, since the present situation may require different standards. For example, traditionally men have paid for dinner because they have earned more than women, but this tradition is less relevant today since women earn more money than they did in the past. In other words, a thing is good not because it is traditional, but because it is fair and makes sense. And even if an appeal to tradition is based on fact, it is still illogical, since a thing is not good just because it is based on something true. For example, even if there was no historical precedent for same-sex marriage, this would not mean that same-sex marriage is wrong—it would only mean that it is not traditional. Computers were not traditional when they were invented, but nobody said they were wrong just because they were new.

Let us apply this reasoning to the concept of a day of prayer. As explained above, it is fallacious to claim that something is good just because it is traditional. Obviously, a day of prayer counts as “something”. Therefore, it is fallacious for Benson to argue that a day of prayer is good just because it is traditional. Yet he provides no other reason to defend prayer days—even if they are nondenominational, they are still biased towards people who adhere to one of the major faith traditions or religions of the world. In fact there is a strong case that prayer days violate the U.S. Constitution. Supporters of prayer days will argue, “the First Amendment applies only to the federal legislature, not state legislatures”, but it has been applied to state legislatures since the ratification of the 14^th Amendment, which bars states from invoking states’ rights in order to get away with treating people as unequal, so it would be difficult for Benson (or Brewer, for that matter) to defend the promotion of religious belief over non-belief, since this suggests inequality between believers and non-believers.

Besides, the ratification of the 14^th Amendment itself blatantly defies tradition. The Congress members who helped ratify the amendment did not say white privilege was good just because it had been around since the days of George Washington; rather, they judged it by its independent merits, using ethical reasoning and a sense of fairness. Ultimately, they decided that the tradition was wrong, because it did not make sense. Likewise with prayer, meditation, and other forms of religious observance: we would not say that a day of prayer is good just because it is traditional; rather, we would judge it by its independent merits, using ethical reasoning and a sense of fairness. If all citizens of every U.S. state are to be treated equally under the 14^th Amendment, religious believers and non-believers must also be treated equally, and they are not being treated equally when a state governor promotes religious practice over non-practice, essentially opening a doorway for government sponsorship of religion over non-religion.

Even if Benson’s defense of Brewer makes little actual sense, it still pulls inexorably at the heartstrings of the gullible masses. It is this appeal to emotion that advocacy groups such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation constantly strive to outmanoeuvre. The sad thing is that while most people may believe a thing because it sounds nice, that thing may nevertheless be wrong. If the majority do in fact buy into the kind of rhetoric that people like Benson espouse, the rest of us must ramp up our efforts to nurture critical thinking. It will be the responsibility of us interfaith ministers and wedding officiants to set an example by burrowing deep beneath the pretty words, unearthing the hidden flaws, and exposing the message for the religiously-biased sophistry it really is.

Source:

The Chicago Tribune

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We’ve heard of weddings performed in Home Depot, shopping malls, nightclubs, and even aboard airplanes—there have even been vampire-themed Wiccan weddings. Now it is time to add doughnut shops to the list of favorite locations for alternative and retail weddings. In a small chain of Oregon doughnut shops run by two ULC ministers, modern couples are finding a quirky, memorable place to tie the knot—without spending six figures.

Owners Tres Shannon and Kenneth “Cat Daddy” Pogson opened their first 24-hour Portland shop in 2003 despite their friends’ warning of financial disaster; apparently they have beaten the odds, since the business, named Voodoo Doughnut after their interest in voodoo and traditional African religion, has been booming ever since. This is perhaps understandable, given that the Rose City is home to naked bicycle races and the 24-hour Church of Elvis wedding chapel. Now Voodoo can count itself among one of these tourist attractions. The success of the business derives largely from its creative concoction, which range from maple-and-bacon doughnuts to, until recently, NyQuil doughnuts (now defunct due to health department warnings).

But Voodoo’s eccentric approach in no way vitiates the meaningfulness of the occasion—indeed, many will argue that weddings should be fun and festive, a celebration of the union of two people in love. This is how Kathryn and Jeffrey Elliott viewed their modern wedding vow renewal and commitment ceremony inside Voodoo. A voodoo priest wearing a mask fashioned out of a paper bag officiated over the ceremony while spectators snapped pictures with cell-phones. The vows were offbeat and tongue-in-cheek: when the priest asked Jeffrey whether he would continue to take Kathryn as his wife “through thick and thin, voodoo and sin”, Jeffrey drolly replied, yes, “[e]specially the sin”. No friends or family were present.

There seems to be no end in sight to Voodoo’s new take on the alternative wedding ceremony, at least in the near future. In 2010, shop employees-turned-wedding ministers solemnized sixty legal wedding ceremonies and thirty commitment ceremonies inside the two Portland shops after deciding to get ordained online. For Shannon and Pogson, the weddings were a natural addition to their already quirky business, which draws a range of personalities. The shops have seen everything from a 10-woman bridesmaid coterie, drunkards, and members of the Russian Mafia (or so say the owners) to a (non-legal) wedding for a pair of cats.

What is most important at any wedding ceremony is for bride and groom to be happy, so if exchanging vows over a display case of hipster doughnuts achieves this, so be it. This whole idea of the sacrament of holy matrimony being a “solemn” occasion seems to derive from a need for approval from outside forces—extended family, society, or a stern God. But nowadays marriage is about love and, to an extent, economic interdependence and partnership, and this involves nobody else, therefore it is nobody else’s business. For the Elliotts, it was inside an independent doughnut shop filled with street urchins, students, and tourists where they felt most at home. For the next couple, it may be somewhere else entirely, like a fast-food restaurant or a tattoo parlor. Nowadays, it is weddings that are shaped to fit the needs of bride and groom, and not the reverse.

Learn more about Voodoo Doughnut and its astonishing array of goodies by visiting its Web site at http://voodoodoughnut.com/.

Source:

Brand X Daily

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Joining the ranks of nondenominational ULC celebrity ministers such as David Byrne, Kathy Griffin, and Jeff Probst is Mike Nesmith, former guitarist-singer of the 1960s pop group The Monkees. Nesmith recently decided to get ordained online in the ULC in order to perform a wedding ceremony for his friends, ‘80s Saturday Night Live cast member A. Whitney Brown and blues singer Carolyn Wonderland. The couple exchanged wedding vows on a hill in Butler Park, located in the U.S. city of Austin. Incidentally, the hilly site, surrounded by downtown towers, was named for the deceased leader of the Sir Douglas Quintet, Doug Sahm.

Many will know Nesmith as more than just a singer, guitarist, and songwriter; he is also an acclaimed actor, producer, novelist, philanthropist, and businessman. In 1981, he won a Grammy Award for his video Elephant Parts, the first such award given for Video of the Year. Now, as a minister in the ULC, the title of interfaith wedding officiant can be added to this list of professions and accomplishments for the multi-talented, Texas-born pop-rock veteran. (As an example of Nesmith’s musical versatility, he is known for singing as well as playing the electric and acoustic guitars, pedal steel guitar, piano, harmonica, synthesizer, and electric organ, and he has worked in genres ranging from pop and rock to folk and country.)

One of the most noteworthy things about Brown and Wonderland’s modern wedding ceremony is the fact that they were able to be married by a friend. Indeed, one of Nesmith’s motives for joining the ULC was to play a vital role in marrying those he admired, something which is nigh difficult to achieve without becoming a minister in an online church. If anything, this fact lends greater solemnity to the occasion than if bride and groom were united in the sacrament of holy matrimony by some strange priest just doing his rounds.

The ULC would like to congratulate Brown and Wonderland on their wedding performed by Nesmith, and we welcome Nesmith into the ULC network of ministers ordained online, wishing him all the best of luck in future wedding ceremonies.

Source:

Long Beach Press-Telegram

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Yet another attempt at injecting prayer into public schools has been challenged, this time in the U.S. city of Baltimore. Perhaps more unsettling than this is the fact that the president of the city principals’ union has defended the prayer services, lamenting the fact that public school prayers have been banned in the United States since the 1960s.

The prayers services in question have been held for two years at northeast Baltimore’s Tench Tilghman Elementary and Middle School in preparation for the standardized Maryland School Assessments. In response to requests by local parents, the school has been distributing among staff fliers which promote prayer and cite Christian Bible verses. Staff were then asked to circulate them among the school’s four hundred students. The principals’ union president, Jimmy Gittings, has defended the school’s principal, Jael Yon, who has been facilitating the flier distribution.

Some of the arguments Gittings has given are just plain deceptive, reflecting a desperate attempt to paint secularists and laicists in a bad light. Trying to turn the tables on school prayer opponents, he has criticized the 1960s Supreme Court rulings banning public school prayers as unconstitutional:

The only individuals I hold accountable for these injustices for Ms. Yon are the narrow-minded politicians from some 50 years ago, for removing prayer from our schools. Once prayer was removed from our schools, the respect for our teachers and administrators has been increasingly out of control.

It is ironic that Gittings should call the judges who ruled against public school prayer “narrow-minded”. The whole point of those rulings was to prevent the government from endorsing one particular religious perspective over all others. Clearly, then, they were showing the importance of neutrality and open-mindedness; the only thing they were narrow-minded towards was religious bigotry. It is the supporters of state-sponsored public school prayer who are promoting a single perspective—one based on the Christian faith tradition. They are not defending or promoting all religious perspectives. Such exclusivist theology hardly reflects open-mindedness.

In addition to this unfair ascription of narrow-mindedness, Gittings makes an unsupported claim associating lack of public school prayer with increased unruliness among pupils. When a person makes a claim that A causes B, they must be able to provide evidence showing how A causes B. It is not sufficient simply to say that there is a causal relationship between the two variables. Gittings suggests that student unruliness is caused by a lack of public school prayer, yet he fails to provide any reasoning or evidence to support such a fantastic claim. There could be myriad other socioeconomic factors contributing to student unruliness—it is neither necessary nor sufficient to attribute their rebelliousness to prayerlessness.

Gittings’s attempt at defending Yon turns rather desperate. Referring to Yon’s conduct, he states she “was doing what she thought was right”. That may be so, but it still does not mean that what she did was right. Good intentions do not equate with good actions. As if grasping for straws, he then dismisses the whole question surrounding the constitutionality of state-sponsored public school prayer as if it is of no consequence. According to Erica L. Green of The Baltimore Sun, he “said he was aware that it wasn’t constitutional, but he still believed in the message”. Unfortunately, belief proves nothing, no matter how passionately one stresses their attachment to it, and, unfortunately, the “message” of which Gittings speaks has conflicted with constitutional law on a regular basis for decades. Stressing “belief” in some nebulous “message”—despite the fact that courts have ruled it unconstitutional for decades now—is not a very persuasive argument, unless you’re a sucker for queasy sentiment.

This pious doublespeak is also being preached by parents. Glenda Shepperson, whose child currently attends the school, argues that prayer should be allowed if it instills a sense of calm in students: “We really want to embrace our kids, and let them know that we need to pray together and stay together to make them successful. If this is what makes our children serene and peaceful, and in a healthy environment, then so be it.” But this is misleading. Religion is not necessary in order to instill a sense of peace—it is possible to instill a sense of peace in a secular fashion. Therefore the religious element is extraneous. (Besides, even if it were necessary, whose religion would it be?) Indeed, promoting a particular religion might only create tension among students, who come from differing faith traditions and world religions. How does that help children? (Shepperson’s argument also sounds like that used to excuse the posting of the Ten Commandments on public school buildings. It instills virtue in students, supporters say—but if such virtues are universal, as they appear to be, there is obviously no need to place them within a particular religious context.)

Now that the Christian prayer services being held at Tench Tilghman have been brought to public attention, advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union will have the opportunity to challenge them in court. If the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution can be interpreted by judges to mean that the state shall not endorse any religion (as it has been for decades now), one can wager the current practice at Tilghman will be abolished, and we will be able to nurture greater equanimity in our children without unnecessarily turning it into a religious thing.

Source:

The Baltimore Sun

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What comes to mind when you think “wedding”? If you come from the West, you probably see images of women in giant, embroidered white dresses, men in sober black tuxedoes, and matching bridesmaids and groomsmen. A boy will bear the rings, a girl will toss the flower petals, and bride and groom will recite traditional wedding vows. The bride and groom will share the same religion, they will have the same skin color, and the ceremony, which will be conducted by a male priest or minister, will be held inside a Christian church. And the wedding couple must consist of a bride and groom, not a bride and bride, or a groom and groom. In deference to her new male ruler, the woman, smiling stupidly, will take her husband’s name after promising to serve and obey him.

We can even imagine the man guiding his new wife’s hand as she cuts the first slice of the wedding cake (because heaven knows women have poor fine motor skills).

This is all fine and dandy if this is what a person really wants, but it is not always what a person really wants. How can the modern wedding ceremony be accommodated? One Universal Life Church Monastery minister, Reverend Judith O’Connor, has worked hard to update the traditional wedding ceremony to make it more relevant to today’s families, and to reflect the needs of a changing society. O’Connor, a clinical hypnotherapist and certified professional coach, focuses on nondenominational, or, in her words, “all-denominational”, weddings that reflect a diversity of cultures, faiths, and world religions, of which the traditional Western wedding is but one.

Like many ULCM ministers, O’Connor officiates wedding ceremonies for people who do not quite fit into the box, as it were. Many churches refuse to recognize unions between people from different faith groups and world religions, but O’Connor happily solemnizes interfaith weddings, integrating both religions into the ceremony. Couples also have control over what style of ceremony they will have, whether religious, non-denominational, or simply spiritual. “[T]hey are in charge”, she said, explaining that her role as a minister ordained online is more that of a facilitator who realizes the desires of the wedding couple. There are virtually no boundaries as to whom she will marry—whether interracial, gay, international, or interfaith, O’Connor focuses on the love story behind each couple’s union and uses it to personalize the ceremony.

She has even performed ceremonies with pets present.

O’Connor epitomizes the open, welcoming nature of ULC ministers, for most of whom love is the chief principle underpinning the sacrament of marriage. As a legal wedding officiant in the Universal Life Church Monastery, what kind of experiences have you had performing weddings? Have you performed interfaith, interracial, or same-sex weddings? What is your most unusual experience? Feel free to join the ULCM social network for ministers and share your stories with other wedding ministers. You may also find answers to some common questions about how to perform a wedding ceremony as a minister ordained online.

Interested couples can find out more about O’Connor’s unique and personalized services by visiting her Web site at http://www.judithoconnor.com or emailing her at info@judithoconnor.com.

Source:

Hamden Patch

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We often hear religious people complain about religious oppression if same-sex marriage becomes legal in their community, but what of religious oppression when it is banned? As the U.S. state of Maryland’s General Assembly was mulling legalizing same-sex marriage, one ULC ministers confronted this question in a letter to the editor of his local newspaper, showing the irony of complaining that the legalization of gay marriage threatens the free exercise of religion, when banning it does so too. But there are additional reasons why opposition to same-sex marriage is unfounded.

In his letter to the editor of The Cumberland Times-News, entitled “All are God’s children, not to be divided into subspecies”, ULC minister Bradley Nesline responds to another letter by fellow reader Kathy Eberhart, entitled “How can a pastor refuse same-sex marriage if it is legal?” The premise of Eberhart’s letter is that religious leaders will lose their religious freedom if gay marriage is legalized in Maryland, because they will be compelled to officiate same-sex weddings even if they oppose gay marriage on religious grounds. Nesline’s point is that religious leaders already suffer oppression by being barred from officiating such weddings.

He immediately picks up on the irony of Eberhart’s argument when he asks the reader to consider who is really being oppressed. Re-directing her own questions back at her, he shows how she deliberately selects which forms of religious oppression she will challenge, as if not all forms of religious oppression are wrong in her eyes:

As a practicing ordained minister in the Universal Life Church since 1992, I was wondering about my “religious freedom”?

Being barred from practicing same sex marriages in lieu of “commitment ceremonies” at present, I have no right to act on the contrary. “Religious oppression?”

My religious views see people as “God’s Children,” not labeled subspecies. Is freedom not for all?

I ask, “What kind of world would we live in if the can of worms allowing interracial marriage had not been opened?”

And how about the “freedom” LGBT troops are fighting for?

Nesline makes an excellent point. Eberhart complains about oppression of clergy-members who oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds, yet she ignores oppression of clergy-members who support same-sex marriage and marriage equality on the very same grounds. However, if all religious oppression is wrong, as Eberhart suggests, then it is unfair to defend the religious freedom of same-sex marriage opponents, but not the religious freedom of same-sex marriage supporters, because both are forms of religious freedom, and thus both are protected in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. If people should be allowed to challenge gay weddings on religious grounds, they should also be allowed to solemnize gay weddings on religious grounds. It is only fair.

But this double standard is not the only problem with Eberhart’s argument.

First, Eberhart engages in a very common fallacy known as argumentum ad antiquitatem, or appeal to tradition, in which a practice is deemed good or right just because it is traditional. She slips up when she says, “‘[s]ince its founding, the state of Maryland has recognized marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” This argument is fallacious because it assumes that the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman is good simply because it is traditional, but a thing is not good because it is traditional; it is good because it is fair and makes sense. Institutional racism and anti-miscegenation laws were a traditional practice for decades, but we did not keep them just because they were traditional; we abandoned them because they were unfair and did not make sense. Likewise in the present day with gay marriage.

Second, Eberhart presents a false dichotomy, which states that either one or another alternative is right, but not both, when in actuality there is a third possible alternative. She argues, “[t]he proponents of the falsely titled Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act seek to destroy [the historical definition of marriage in Maryland] to legalize ‘same-sex marriage.’” The problem here is the assumption that either the traditional or the modern definition of marriage is possible, but not both, because if the modern definition is employed, it necessarily leads to the destruction of the traditional one. We know this belief is false because we know there are places, such as Massachusetts, where both definitions coexist, side-by-side. The traditional definition of marriage has not been destroyed merely by the introduction of the modern definition. It is not “either, or”.

Third, Eberhart engages in a type of slippery slope fallacy, in which a mere change of procedure is believed to instigate an adverse domino effect. She asks, “why would anyone have legal grounds to reject [same-sex marriage if it becomes legal]? How long until the ‘religious freedom’ allowance were [sic] challenged and stricken from the law?” She mounts the suspense by speculating, “[i]f the government says ‘same-sex marriage’ is right, you will lose your right to act to the contrary”, warning that “[t]his is a can of worms we do not want opened.” Oh, no! The sky is falling! If gay people are allowed to marry each other, cries Chicken Little, what is next?!  Legalizing gay marriage will force Bible-based Southern Baptist pastors to marry gay people! But the claim that the one leads to the other is a non sequitur. Allowing gay people to marry will not inevitably force religious leaders to solemnize gay weddings—because the First Amendment proscribes it. There are five states and one district in the United States where same-sex marriage is legal, and then there is Canada, and in every one of these places ministers are free to refuse same-sex weddings, thanks to their constitutional rights. Thus, Eberhart’s claim that legalizing same-sex marriage will force clerics to perform gay marriage ceremonies is completely vacuous and absurd.

Finally, Eberhart is guilty of appeal to emotion, relying on the reader’s sentiments rather than facts or reason. By using evocative words such as “destroy” and melodramatically imploring the reader, “get down on your knees in prayer” and, “[s]peak up for what you believe in—while you still have the right to do so!” (as if letting gays marry somehow limits your free speech rights), she stokes the reader’s indignation, thus distracting them from the content of her argument—which is virtually nonexistent and devoid of any actual data to support her claims. Exactly how will religious people lose their freedoms? We don’t know, because she gives us no reason or empirical evidence. Mere, empty speculation, no matter how grandiose, is sufficient to foment resistance. Fear prevails over common sense.

In summary, Nesline exposes one of the biggest flaws in Eberhart’s argument when he points out the double standard that the beliefs of gay marriage opponents should be protected, but not those of gay marriage supporters. In addition, Eberhart is guilty of appeal to tradition, a false dichotomy, a slippery slope fallacy, and appeal to emotion. To drive his point home, Nesline alluded to the core principle of the Universal Life Church—namely, that we are all children of the same universe. If this is our creed, do we not have the religious freedom to bestow equal rights on every member of our community?

Sources:

Eberhart Letter

Nesline Letter

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The New York State Assembly—the lower house of the New York State Legislature—is being presented with a bill that would change the domestic relations law so as to permit Universal Life Church ministers to solemnize weddings in New York State. The purpose of the bill is to clarify confusion over the legitimacy of marriages performed by ULC ministers and grant these ministers the same legal authority as clergy in other denominations.

The bill’s sponsors (the chief sponsor being Democratic State Assembly Member Sandra Galef) stated the justification for the changes in a memo, explaining that confusion has existed in the past over the legitimacy of weddings solemnized by ULC ministers in New York State. For example, while New York City grants ULC ministers clear and unequivocal legal authority to solemnize weddings, the law outside New York City is vague and open to interpretation depending on the local jurisdiction. The purpose of the bill, explain the sponsors, is to eliminate this ambiguity and clarify the terms for wedding officiation so that ministers ordained in the Universal Life Church will have the same legal authority to perform weddings as clergy belonging to other denominations.

In justifying the changes to New York’s domestic relations law, the bill’s sponsors also cited the legal precedence established by the laws of other U.S. states. Over half of U.S. states recognize the religious freedom of ULC ministers to solemnize weddings in their respective state weddings laws and statutes, while other states do so upon the condition that the ministers register with the appropriate state agencies. In addition, there is the fact (mentioned above) that ULC clergy have the legal right to perform the sacrament of marriage within all five boroughs of the city of New York. With respect to religious neutrality, then, if the state recognizes the Universal Life Church as a church, it must grant its ministers the same sacerdotal rights as ministers in any other church.

The changes to the domestic relations law would allow members of the ULC to join the Society for Ethical Culture in New York. The Society belongs to the Ethical Culture Movement, an ethical, cultural, and educational movement founded in 1876 by Felix Alexander and based largely on non-theistic, humanistic principles. In many ways the Society resembles churches, temples, mosques, synagogues, and other houses of worship: it is headed by leaders who function as clergy members, it holds Sunday morning meetings and educational programs for children and teenagers, and its leaders are granted the legal authority to perform weddings, baptisms, funerals, and other traditionally religious ceremonies. As members of the society, ULC ministers in New York likewise would acquire the legal right to perform these ceremonies.

Hopefully, the Assembly, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, will vote to pass the bill and grant ULC ministers equal sacerdotal rights. It is not certain, however, whether the bill applies to the original Universal Life Church in Modesto, California, or the Universal Life Church Monastery, in Seattle, which have been legally separate entities since 2006. If by chance the bill applies to the former, by inference it ought also to apply to the latter, since both are legally recognized churches in most states and fit most definitions of the word church. Indeed, it would be unfair if the bill applied to one, but not the other, given that both satisfy the same requirements for being a house of religious worship.

Many ministers in the ULC Monastery still have questions about the legitimacy of marriages that they have performed as well as the legality of online ordination. It is important to emphasize the fact that while the ULCM has met with roadblocks to legal wedding officiation in places such as Washington, DC, and some parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, weddings performed by ULCM ministers are recognized in the overwhelming majority of U.S. states. And, of course, the church is constantly fighting on behalf of its ministers to gain legal recognition in the few remaining jurisdictions where weddings performed by its ministers are not recognized. As always, we entreat our ministers to consult their local county or parish clerk, as well as the appropriate state agency, to make certain that ULCM weddings are legally recognized in their local jurisdiction.

Do you have any questions about wedding ceremonies you have performed as a minister in the Universal Life Church Monastery? It is always better to be safe than sorry. To get more answers to your questions, join the ULC Monastery ministers’ forum, our Facebook discussion forum, or our ministers’ social network and share your concerns, advice, and experiences with other ministers. You can also find answers to your questions about legal wedding officiation by visiting the ULC Monastery page on U.S. and international wedding laws.

Source:

New York State Assembly

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