4A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY APRIL 20, 2007
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2007
MINISTERS (CONTINUED FROM 3A)
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 Mere'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.
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,
billy 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.
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
Pastor Jerry Powers, interim minister at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Lawrence, attended seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind., from 1985 to 1991.
While becoming a minister is easy through the Internet, Professor Miller said most mainline American churches required clerics to earn a seminary degree.
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.
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.
Jenna Coker, business manager for the geology department and an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, holds her necklace adorned with a St. Christopher medal, Medical Alert medal and Japanese symbol. Around her wrists, bracelets such as Buddhist prayer beads, a green Karma bracelet and the serene prayer represent various religions. "I've got all my bases covered today." Coker said.
Jenna Coker sits in front of Watson Library with the black book she uses for ceremonies. The vows are usually adapted to a couple's specifications. Coker is adamant about involving the couple as much as possible with the vows.
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 officer 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 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.
Gibbon 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 or 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