Posted on 06/01/2008 7:07:22 AM PDT by Revelation 911
So I was just taking a relaxing bath, reading about a mostly ignored thirty-million gallon toxic oil spill between Brooklyn and Queens, pausing occasionally to read the advertisements for peace coffee and all-natural cigarettes, when I read an advertisement for Celebrant Foundation and Institute.
It appears to be a training sort of thing for non-denominational officiants of “life-cycle ceremonies”, personalized weddings, funerals, adoption and birth ceremonies. I guess for people who want “ceremony” without all the pesky strictures of organized religion.
I honestly don’t know anything about “celebrants”, but the thought just popped into my head that might be a fun job. And come to think of it, I’d probably be good at it. Which led to the next thought, could a practicing Mormon become an officiant? (I’m not really considering it, just being hypothetical here) (I have zero ambition, but do like to over-think everything).
I admit that I had a perhaps valid (or not) worry about my first reaction, worried that I unconsciously aspired to some kind of false priesthood. But I don’t think so, I don’t find the idea of being a minister/priest/bishop even remotely attractive. I just like celebrations, and I’m good at writing oooie gooie sentimental stuff and I have nice stage presence and I look good in a pant suit. And I bet there are a lot of chocolate fountains involved in the job.
I’m sure my mother would be distressed if I wanted to spend my time around the woo woo heathen new-agey types who would use this type of service. She’d survive. But what would I do if client’s ideas of spirituality or deity did require me to perform something that smacked of priestcraft? And how would I know where that line is? Obviously secular wedding ceremonies are performed all the time and there’s no reason why a good Mormon woman couldn’t officiate weddings. Would birth or death ceremonies be any different? If the ceremonies are about expressing the client’s spirituality (or aspirituality) and not about my spirituality at all, would being involved in this sort of profession cross some sort of ethical Mormon line?
What do you think?
1: Would it be morally valid to you
2: What is your comfort level in females performing them (Mormon or otherwise)?
ping
What’s a “Non Denom Caucus”?
If the “celebrant” is authorized by the state to perform marriages, and the couple has a license, then such marriage is legally valid.
The rest of the ceremonies the writer discusses are, I guess, valid if the people who hired the “celebrant” are happy with them.
(Was that a non-denominational post? How can you tell?)
I have zero ambition
__________________________________________
What’s she alive for then ????????????
I’m full of ambition...
After I make 60 in December, I’ll be working on 70..
My garden is good this year but it will be better next year..
I’m building and painting and repairing my property...
I have plans for my grandchildrens’ future education..
Without ambition, you may as well be dead..
God created the Heaven and the Earth because He is ambitious..
Click on my profile page for more on the guidelines to the Religion Forum.
Romans 12:
10Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
11Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
12Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer
fair enough - still getting used to the rules
Eh ??????
I would have no problem with a female performing a marriage ceremony, or officiating at a funeral.
From personal experience, I find that once "legalism" takes over, it gets in the way of the personal relationship with Jesus.
I vowed to not let men interfere with that relationship when I left a religion that believes "authorities" have the right to interfere in a covenant that is between God and you and actually "cancel" such a covenant. What arrogance!
I was speaking to her slothfulness -
I think it is bred into the women...
Not to have an excitable or individual thought of their own..
If a bubble bath is the highlight of your day..
(not that bubble baths arent great..I’m a practicing member of that belief)
But without creative plans, how do they live ????
God is progress....
The very first “marriage license” issued in Indiana was in 1914. Obviously people married in Indiana prior to 1914. People were married in 1913 and 14 with no state marriage license and remained married without such a license (we are safe to assume, if married at age 20) into the 1970s and even into the 1980s.
It is safe to assume that as late as 1970 and after, there were still very many married couples in Indiana whose marriages would today be called “common law,” “illegitimate,” “just living together,” “living in sin,” and so forth.
The difference, historically, is this. Prior to 1914, the churches were the repository of marriage records, and not the county courthouses. The churches issued marriage certificates that were recognized by anyone, and the church clerks or other officers kept the records of the marriage procedure. And I read that the most important records of marriages in those days were those found in such places as the family Bible. But that was a day when people made vows of holy matrimony and those vows actually meant something (e.g. Ecclesiastes 5:4-6).
One of our daughters married in 2006, and I did some research at our county courthouse. I pored over the applications for a marriage license, and studied the Indiana State laws regarding the license itself. I have rarely read anything more vague. I later discovered that the vagueness was deliberate on the part of the Indiana State Legislature in 1914.
I went to the courthouse and asked the clerk some questions:
(1.) What are the qualifications of a Christian minister required to officiate weddings and sign the paperwork. ANSWER: Being approved by one's church is all.
(2.) Do you mean that if I want to officiate my daughter's wedding, I need to show no proof of ordination or other documents? ANSWER: No, just be acknowledged by your church as the one to officiate the wedding?
(3.) Are there any minimal procedures for a ceremony, vows, affirmations, anything? ANSWER: No, nothing is required by the law; no ceremony is actually required at all. The state requires no couples being wed to make any vows of matrimony or promises one to another in the least.
(4.) If I sign the paperwork, how does the County or State know that the church has approved me? ANSWER: Neither the county nor the state knows who is approved by the churches, and they will never know unless their is, for some reason, brought forward a court challenge to the marriage procedure in any given marriage. The state will not check the signature or the position of the person officiating a wedding, unless their are, for example, charges of fraud brought forward.
By this point, a man in a suit walked in to the clerks office and was signing some papers. He began to pay attention to my questions and walked closer to us. He was a circuit judge, but I didn't know it at that moment. I went on with my next question to the clerk.
(5.) I stated, the license application doesn't seem to be directed at all to the couple to be wed, but, instead, to the person officiating the wedding.
At that point, the judge interrupted us and asked if he could answer my questions. He introduced himself. I was elated!
He began to explain that technically, Indiana still does not license marriages, per se, but issues (and remember this is a technicality) a TEMPORARY license of 60 days for the marriage to be officiated, and that is all. The conditions of the license are not specific to the couple to be wed, but to the one who will officiate, whether he be a minister or a public official of some kind (including a judge). And those conditions are deliberately left very vague.
Say, a marriage license is issued on June 1. That license expires by August 1. If the marriage is never officiated, the license expires by August 1. But listen! If the marriage takes place, the license STILL expires by August 1. The validity of the license ends in ANY and ALL cases in 60 days, marriage or no marriage. If you are married longer than 60 days in Indiana, you have NO marriage license!
That which is on file at the courthouse is NOT a license, but simply a “Marriage Record,” stating that a marriage had in fact taken place. The license itself did “sunset” in 60 days from its issue.
Further, explained the circuit judge, some “religious societies” are exempted altogether. One such is the Friends, or Quakers. They don't have to do anything at the courthouse at all. The Friends are specifically named as an example in the state Constitution. And so under the equal protection clause of the Indiana State Constitution, any church that keeps ITS OWN records of officiating marriages would have to be considered exempt, as well, if they so state their objection to their ministers applying for licensure.
Anyway, I thought some would be interested in these things.
That’s extremely interesting. Thank you!
I mentioned marriage in my post because that’s the only “ceremony” of those mentioned in the article that could be considered “valid” or “invalid.” There’s legally valid - does your state consider you married? - and then there’s “valid” according to one’s particular religious group.
“Birth ceremonies,” “death ceremonies,” etc. Valid? Whatever kind of “ceremony” is held, the person’s either been born, or died, or not!
No. A very low level of comfort.
The church agreed with me that we should officiate the wedding under the auspices of the church, hear the couples’ vows, make them sign written copies of their vows. The church issued its own marriage certificate to the couple.
We just got a text message with a “Thank you” from them, and telling us they are having a wonderful time. Neither had ever stayed in a hotel before. My wife and I reserved them a very nice room in a four-star hotel as our wedding gift to them — they are just like our own children.
When they can do so, they will travel to their home province and register their marriage. That is all it is in China anyway, a registration; no vows, affirmations or promises about anything.
This is a Christian couple. They wanted the church involved in their wedding. The church (and, we believe, the Lord) considers the couple husband and wife from TODAY, when they made their vows to God and to each other with the entire church body as a corporate witness. Every church member in attendance signed as a witness to their making their vows.
The vows they made today are more stringent than the vows taken by 98% of Americans who wed, unless Mormons have more stringent vows peculiar to the doctrine of the LDS. If you'd like, I can post the vows that they made.
Thanks for sharing the story. That is wonderful that they wanted the church in their wedding.
I visited the USSR in 1985. We kept seeing couples on their wedding day standing by memorials that consisted of guns, tanks, and other symbols of war. That was the tradition, register the marriage with the local Communist office, and then have wedding pictures taken by the symbols of the Great Defeat of the Fascist Hordes from the West. We all thought that was pretty sad. Church weddings weren’t allowed at that time.
“I visited the USSR in 1985. We kept seeing couples on their wedding day standing by memorials that consisted of guns, tanks, and other symbols of war. That was the tradition, register the marriage with the local Communist office, and then have wedding pictures taken by the symbols of the Great Defeat of the Fascist Hordes from the West.”
*******************************************
What you have described is exactly what very many non-Christian Chinese couples do.
That is interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
Good luck figuring it all out. Even though the thread is now changed to "Open" - it really isn't "open" either.
You can thank the LDS crowd for whining to the Mods every 5 seconds for these new crazy rules.
Huh, must be a Communist thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.