I figure this is a good enough segue from my ‘theological’ blog to my ‘ridiculous finds on the internet’ blog.
The Universal Life Church “wants you to pursue your spiritual beliefs without interference from any outside agency, including government or church authority.” And offers a lot of services.
My favorite part about the site is the free ordination. That thing that most people go to seminary for? Yeah, just feel free to sign up. A few friends of mine are ordained under aliases (despite the warning on the site – this is fraud!).My friend’s dog is ordained. Pretty much anything can be ordained. And then can legally marry people. A pretty sweet deal.
Second best part? Online confession. The instructions are simple: “Write about your sins here. If you don’t want to write about your sins, you may enter an ‘X’ to signify that you have thought about your sins and wish to turn from them and seek forgiveness”.
This is followed by a couple yes or no questions:
Have you forgiven yourself for your sins?
Have you forgiven others who have harmed you?
(each with its own check-yes-or-no box)
And after completing the form, you get a lovely declaration of absolution. You are forgiven! I had no idea it was so easy! In fact, you can even answer no to the questions, and still get forgiveness.
But don’t forget the store! Now that you have been ordained, you can get all sorts of ministry necessities! For instance, your clergy card, some ‘friar-tuck’ clothing so when you walk around town everyone will know and respect your new accreditation, a tax-deduction guide (now that you are clergy, you get tax breaks!) or even a certificate of sainthood!
But most importantly, you can buy yourself a doctorate! Go ahead, and skip those bothersome Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and go right for that Doctorate in many different categories! From things as basic as Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Motivation, to the incredibly odd Doctor of the Universe and Doctor of Immortality. All it takes is a 75% on their test, and you have earned it my friend.
All in all, a great place place for any religious needs
Hello man whose name I can’t find on his homepage,
you judge by the looks, and this is something Jesus said you shouldn’t.
I’m an ordained minister with the ULC, and I bet you haven’t taken a look at our discussion forums.
There is a serious exchange of opinions going on, and the beautiful thing is that our church welcomes every religion, not only the Christian.
Martin Luther wrote that a church was to be independent from “Rome”, meaning from any religious authority. In John 15:16, everyone gets the permission to be a minister.
Church officials are a creation of man. So, 50 years ago, ULC founder Kirby Hensley left his traditional Christian church and opened his own. One that opens the doors for every religion (and not-religion), because it knows that we are ALL God’s children.
Best wishes
Norbert
Norbert
I would love to continue this discussion with you, but rather on my other blog: foolmusings.wordpress.com – whereas internetjunk is merely where I find things on the internet, foolmusings is my attempt at thinking about theology. See you there
Andrew