Ordination

Some people are under the very mistaken impression that minister ordination is a magical, mystical event personally sanctioned by the trumpets of archangels, attended by dozens of ghostly spirits of saints and perhaps even the Lady of the Lake. Like so many areas of religion this confusion is actively encouraged by some of the power brokers controlling many major churches and denominations.

While ordination can and should have spiritual impact on the person becoming a minister, that is deeply internal process that is more likely than not to be squashed by the institutional bureaucracy of modern religious organizations. The facts of the matter are being ordained more often has more to do with meeting the statutory needs of the state and feeding the egos of the clerical hierarchy then spiritual fulfillment of the newly minted minister.

Spiritually speaking, the less involved paper pushing government employees and power graving preachers are, the more likely your ordination will achieve real religious significance. As the great orator Senator Robert Ingersoll once said, “Less is more.” So the goal, generally speaking would be minimally intrusive third parties dictating to you what your religious experience must be.

They say “There are a million stories in the naked city” and perhaps each of our unique stories means we can only be served by a unique viewpoint on religion and our personal place in the cosmos. When it comes to true religious belief cookie cutter approaches work only for the minority of folk who really cannot be bother, for whatever reason, to think things through for them selves.

If you asked a thousand different people to describe their religious beliefs in their own words (and not the rote memorized dogma endless drilled into peoples minds) you will find a thousand unique outlooks. While not every one of those viewpoints is correct or even logically consistent, each person has the inalienable right to hold whatever opinion of gods and cosmos that they desire.

Each of us has a right to make a personal spiritual connection to the cosmos. That was intent of the framers of the Constitution of The United States, and also of the founders of the Church of Spiritual Humanism. Spiritual Humanism was founded upon the principle that religion must be based on scientific fact, and that any person can feel the calling to become an ordained clergy person.