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When two KU journalism graduates recited their marriage vows last Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa, the presiding “minister” was Mohamed El-Hodiri, an observant Muslim and a reverend of the Universal Life Church ordained via the Internet with a quick click of a mouse.
Mohamed El-Hodiri (middle) officiates Sunday afternoon at the wedding of C.J. Jackson and Johanna Maska in Des Moines, Iowa. Johanna Maska and C.J. Jackson, both 2004 graduates, said they preferred having their good friend and former professor officiate their wedding rather than a “standard minister” presiding at a “typically religious ceremony.”
El-Hodiri, professor of economics, could marry the couple because he had joined the 20 million people the Universal Life Church has claimed to have ordained, entitling them to preside at funerals, baptisms, blessings and weddings (but not circumcisions, according to the church Web site). Seminary for El-Hodiri, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, actor Tony Danza, the late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Beatles John, Paul, George and Ringo, and millions of other instant ministers consisted of a cost-free, five-minute application process.
Founded by the late Kirby Hensley in 1959, the original mail-order ministry doesn't require tuition or attendance at a seminary, adherence to doctrine or even belief in God. Even though Kansas and most states once restricted wedding officiates to judges, ship captains, and a specific list of ministers, Hensley’s church challenged and overturned those restrictions on First Amendment grounds.
At least two other University faculty or staff have officiated at weddings, and one irreverent student became a reverend just to raise holy hell with organized religion. Mainline Lawrence ministers warn that being an effective counselor for a couple planning to marry requires training and discipline, but couples who choose instant ministers appreciate the freedom to have a close friend preside and tailor ceremonies to personal needs rather than following religious dogma.
Guardian angel, presiding
Shortly after El-Hodiri applied online, he received a congratulatory e-mail from the church entitling the divine applicant to “all privileges and courtesies normally offered to members of the clergy.”
While ordination is free, the church tells new ministers that parking permits, press passes and various credentials are available for purchase via Universal Life Church’s Internet boutique.
El-Hodiri was Maska’s Honors counselor at the University. She began going to El-Hodiri’s house every Friday to drink wine and talk about the world, she said. Topics ranged from religion to the culinary arts. Maska said the student-teacher friendship between her and El-Hodiri was like daughter-father.
El-Hodiri said that after the ceremony, “Everybody was in such a rush to go to the bars, they forgot to have me sign the certificate.” For that, he charged the couple a $1 late fee, even though the wedding itself was free of charge.
“I went into college and expected to have friendships with my professors,” Maska said, “but with Mohamed, he’s my guardian angel.”
To pay El-Hodiri for his minister services, Maska and Jackson gave him a new baseball cap that read “Rabbi Mohamed,” adding to his eclectic collection of hats with sayings such as, “I’m big in Europe,” and, “Trust me, I’m a liar.”
El-Hodiri said that after the ceremony, “Everybody was in such a rush to go to the bars, they forgot to have me sign the certificate.” For that, he charged the couple a $1 late fee, even though the wedding itself was free of charge.
Jackson said having the wedding officiated by El-Hodiri, who turned 70 the day before the ceremony, allowed the couple to tailor the ceremony to their own personalities.
“I’m sure there are some members of our family who wish we were in a church,” Jackson said, “but it’s not who we’ve been for a while.”
At the wedding, El-Hodiri, who wore a prayer shawl over his shoulders, recited a five-line verse from Proverbs 31 in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English. After the couple’s vows and marriage blessings from both the parents and the entire audience, El-Hodiri pronounced them “spouse and spouse.”
Instead of instructing the bride and groom to kiss, he simply prompted, “You guys go do your thing.”
Mail-order holy order
Kansas law once limited who could perform weddings but now doesn’t even require an officiate.
Tim Miller, professor of religious studies who specializes in alternative religions, said at one point Kansas had an official list of officiators. Nowadays, the Internet makes it easy for anybody who wants the title without the work to become ordained, he said. Other online churches offering ordination include the Love Church and the Church of the Latter-Day Dude.
Miller said Hensley founded the Universal Life Church to “break up the monopoly” of the holy order — no purchase necessary. Hensley transformed his garage into a church and chapel, holding Sunday services and ordaining aspirants in person, by mail-order application or online.
“If you’ve got the spirit, God will give you the on-the-job training,” Miller said.
Budding business
Still, some instant ministers take it seriously. Jenna Coker, business manager for the geology department and part-time Universal Life Church minister, has performed five weddings for friends and patrons since she was ordained Feb. 10, 2004. Coker said she converted good will offerings she received from ceremonies to grocery store gift certificates, which she donated to homeless people. She said she lived by the Universal Life Church’s only maxim, “Do only that which is right.” She is a former Episcopalian subdeacon.
Photo by Amanda Sellers “I left the church because it wasn’t fulfilling the need for me,” she said. “That need is filled now, every day.”
When preparing a couple for matrimony, Coker sits down with the bride and groom and asks their preferences for a ceremony. She won’t wed just anybody. If the first question she hears is, “How much do you charge?” Coker said she feels bad vibes. If the couple bickers, Coker tells them they might consider marriage counseling, which she doesn’t provide.
She once performed a wedding in her home garden, which has more than 100 varieties of perennial flowers. She said it seemed appropriate, comparing a marriage to “a piece of artwork in bloom constantly.”
Coker runs ads in The Community Mercantile’s monthly newsletter offering to officiate at weddings, commitment ceremonies and celebration of life events.
Sarah Graf, 24, a Lawrence resident, found Coker’s ad in The Merc’s newsletter and asked her to perform a celebration of life ceremony for her newborn son, Oliver Matthew Graf, born in February.
“It’s sort of a welcome-to-the-world type thing,” Graf said. She and her husband, Orion, didn’t want the event to be “churchy,” she said, but “more relaxed, sort of a family get-together.”
Coker said her wedding customers also preferred informal ceremonies. For many marriages, the bride and groom will say their vows and exchange rings, and Coker will say, “I, as an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, announce that they are husband and wife.”
Officiation optional
While states can’t dictate which clergy can perform weddings, all states, including Kansas, require marriage licenses, fees and witnesses. Under Kansas law, any ordained minister, religious authority or judge could wed a couple or the couple could declare themselves married without any officiator at all.
People ask, ‘Well, can Billy-Bob marry me and Mary-Ann?’ And we can’t answer that.
-Doug Hamilton, clerk of the Douglas County district court.
Doug Hamilton, clerk of the Douglas County district court, said Kansas law allowed a husband and wife to marry without an officiating person by mutually declaring themselves husband and wife. Hamilton also said it wasn’t a court clerk’s job to check background information on clergy who officiate.
“It hasn’t been an issue in Lawrence,” he said. “People ask, ‘Well, can Billy-Bob marry me and Mary-Ann?’ And we can’t answer that.”
One irreverent reverend who hasn’t yet performed a wedding is Dan Ryckert, an unlikely clergyman whose long brown hair and beard give him a Jesus-like look. A professed atheist, he carries a condom in his wallet right next to his certificate from Universal Ministries, proclaiming him a man of the cloth.
Any jackass with a computer can be a minister. It’s ironic how easy it is.
Dan Ryckert, Olathe senior
Ryckert, 22, an Olathe senior, said the minister’s certificate is “kind of a fun thing to whip out” in Lawrence bars.
“Any jackass with a computer can be a minister,” Ryckert said. “It’s ironic how easy it is.”
A precise practice
While becoming a minister is easy through the Internet, Professor Miller said most mainline American churches required clerics to earn a seminary degree.
Pastor Jerry Powers, interim minister at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Lawrence, attended seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind., from 1985 to 1991.
Powers, born and raised in Nebraska, used to be a chemist for Hughes Aircraft. A “second-career pastor,” he said seminary was “almost like a boot camp” for ministers.
Powers says marriage is a holy institution that needs trained ministers to counsel couples, blaming the high divorce rate on a lack of marriage counseling. Still, “an intelligent person could go online, get ordained and do it well,” Powers said.
He says marriage is a holy institution that needs trained ministers to counsel couples, blaming the high divorce rate on a lack of marriage counseling. Still, “an intelligent person could go online, get ordained and do it well,” Powers said.
Many couples aren’t looking for counseling, Powers said, but instead, they are shopping for a nice church to hold their wedding. He doesn’t want to be a “marriage mill,” so he seldom performs the ceremonies.
Powers, whose specialty is translating Greek and Hebrew biblical texts to and from English, says being an effective minister requires discipline and experience.
“Would you want to undergo neurosurgery by a person with an online certificate?” he asked.
Profession of love
Another couple who chose an officiator with an online certificate was Brooke Hesler and Kyle Ramsey, wed in August 2005 on stage at Liberty Hall in front of about 170 friends and relatives. Both are KU journalism graduates.
Hesler said the wedding was a big party with their former teacher presiding. Malcolm Gibson, general manager of the The University Daily Kansan and a faculty member in the School of Journalism, wed the couple after Universal Ministries ordained him. Hesler said when she and Ramsey were in school, Gibson “would always joke with us that we would end up getting married. I said, ‘Yeah right, and you can be the one marrying us,’ ” she recalled.
Gibson said he was honored that two former students would want him presiding at one of the most significant moments in their lives.
“Until you do it, you don’t know what a huge responsibility it is. It’s not like teaching a class or anything,” Gibson said. “I was the most nervous person there.”
Religious relevance
At one time, it was illegal for instant ministers to officiate a marriage.
Online ordination led the State of Utah to take the Universal Life Church to court in 2001. However, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that a Utah law that prohibited Internet and mail-order ordinations violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bans government from favoring one religion or barring the exercise of any religion.
If somebody who isn’t a religious authority signs the marriage certificate in Kansas, statutes still say they can be fined $100 or jailed for six months. Yet with a couple clicks of the mouse, anyone can be a minister.
“If you can ordain your pet goldfish, there’s obviously not much control on it,” Professor Miller said.
That means ministers can be a self-described “immature jackass,” like Ryckert, a respected professor, like El-Hodiri, or a sensitive woman, like Coker, who donates her ministry earnings to the homeless.
At ceremonies she officiates, Coker likes to recite Native American prayers. One of her favorites for weddings says, “Go now to your dwelling place, to enter into the days of your togetherness, and may your days be good and long upon the earth.” That’s part of the “Benediction of the Apaches,” she explained.
“You can be funky and way out there with it,” Coker said, “or you can use it like I do.”
Rev. Lewis-Jones, who was cyber-ordained by the Universal Life Church on Feb. 5, 2007, while conducting research for this article, is not available for funerals, baptisms and blessings, and expects that the only person he will marry will be his future wife.
Kansan staff writer Brian Lewis-Jones can be contacted at bljones@kansan.com.
— Edited by Kelly Lanigan
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