Online Ordination

[Adamski]

Oh, isn’t Protestantism fun?

Just thank God that you have been lead to the one, true Church.

My priest entered seminary at 6 and finished at 26 what a difference. The female bar tender in my town is ordained and her church is at the bar

 

[7_Sorrows]

My priest entered seminary at 6 and finished at 26 what a difference. The female bar tender in my town is ordained and her church is at the bar

“Who married you?” - “our bartender” - There is a good topic of conversation!

 

[Bran_Stark]

I’m sure you’re right that this is often the case.

However, I worry about those who would start a church and begin teaching whatever occurs to them, without even checking the Bible.

Don’t you find that scary?

Oh, absolutely. But what bothers me about this site is not that it claims you don’t need any theological training to be a minister. Rather, it’s the insinuation that an uneducated person with an online ordination is any more qualified for ministry than an uneducated person without an online ordination. For example, take this little gem:

Q: Once I am ordained, will I be able to host Bible studies and prayer sessions in my neighborhood?

A: Yes. Any good Christian neighborhood relies on the leadership of the most devoted Christians to help them in their times of need.

I’m pretty sure that there is no law against a person with no ordination at all leading a Bible study… It’s like selling someone a permit to walk on a public sidewalk. Sure, it’s technically correct that “you can do it with a permit,” but they neglect to mention that you can also do it without the permit.

A friend of mine informed me several years ago that he had become an ordained minister. I knew him as a practical atheist and so asked him where he had been trained and what changed his mind. It came down to the fact that he wanted to preside over his son’s wedding. That was it. He was no more a believer now than he was before, and, in fact, actually disdains Christianity altogether, something that has caused a lot of distance between us. IOW, it is a total sham.

Of course it’s a sham, but the solution isn’t to mock the shamsters. The solution is to change the laws to make it perfectly clear that civil marriage (if it should even exist) is something totally different from Holy Matrimony. Clergy, whether real or fake, should not be acting as agents of the state.

 

[SteveVH]

Of course it’s a sham, but the solution isn’t to mock the shamsters. The solution is to change the laws to make it perfectly clear that civil marriage (if it should even exist) is something totally different from Holy Matrimony. Clergy, whether real or fake, should not be acting as agents of the state.

And you believe that our secular society and law makers will legally make the distinction? Don’t hold your breath.

 

[James82]

This has been around a while. As I posted, years ago, at some point in the process, an image of an open pair of hands appears on the screen and the “applicant” is instructed to place the top of his/her head against the monitor and press “Enter” for the “ordination”.

Or something like that.

GKC

LOL! You can’t be serious? I don’t mean to come across as cruel or mocking, but if that’s true, that comes across as something taken from a comdedy script.

 

[GKC]

LOL! You can’t be serious? I don’t mean to come across as cruel or mocking, but if that’s true, that comes across as something taken from a comdedy script.

Quite so. It is of my own creation. I am quite creative, in a small, amusing way

GKC

 

[ExMethodist]

And you believe that our secular society and law makers will legally make the distinction? Don’t hold your breath.

I know secular libertarians who would go along with this s well, but it won’t happen. The only alternative is for churches to stop acting as agents of the state and not sign marriage licenses.