One afternoon this September, Mike Bohl '11 went out on a bike ride, got a call from his old roommate and came home an ordained minister.
His roommate ordained him online through the Universal Life Church. The church's site, www.themonastery.org allows individuals to become ministers with the click of a button - really. Applicants need only fill out basic information like name and address, and then hit "ordain me."
Bohl is not alone on campus. Several Brown students can now officially add "ordained minister" to their credentials.
Ministers ordained through the Modesto, Calif.-based Universal Life Church can legally perform marriages, baptisms and preside over funerals. They are not required to comply with any formal doctrine, and, according to the e-mail the church sends out to its newly ordained ministers, "Ordination is for life, without price and without question of your specific beliefs." The only stipulation is that ministers must "always do the right thing." The e-mail continues, "It is your responsibility to peacefully and sincerely determine the right course of action, and to avoid infringing on the rights of others."
Sid Curry-Broadbent '11, Bohl's former roommate, ordained himself online last spring and has ordained "a bunch of people" since then. He was researching cults and obscure religions online when he came across the Universal Life Church.
"It's a little bit absurd," he said.
Like Curry-Broadbent, Ben Bonyhadi '11 also discovered the church while doing some recreational research on religion during his senior year of high school. Within a week of his ordination, he said, two dozen students in his history class had joined him and become ministers.
Aside from bragging rights and the ability to administer sacraments, there are other upsides to being a minister that are far less serious. Bonyhadi, for instance, has his mail addressed to the "Rev. Ben Bonyhadi." Bohl's current roommate taped a photocopy of Bohl's certificate and added "The Reverend" to the "Michael Bohl" sign on his door.
But despite being fodder for those "fun fact" icebreaker questions, being a minister is, for these students, more meaningful.
"It's kind of a slap in the face to people who take things too seriously," said Curry-Broadbent, who called his ordination an act of ideological rebellion. Raised as a Mormon in Utah, Curry-Broadbent said he attended a public high school that was heavily Mormon and - though he himself no longer identifies as Mormon - much of his family still follows the faith.
"It's pretty awful and sacrilegious," Curry-Broadbent said. "But that's what makes it fun."
Nate Johnson '10, a leader in the Brown Christian Fellowship, said online ordination points not to a religious dispute, but to underlying cultural anxiety over whether marriage falls under the purview of church or state.
"I don't really see it as sacrilegious," he said. "I support the idea that it's very easy to become (a minister), even if it's going to be abused by some people."
He added that imposing specific, strict criteria for becoming a minister is equally problematic for him.
"It's very complicated to say what a religion is. It's very complicated to say what a leader of a religion is," he said.
But University Chaplain Janet Cooper-Nelson said instant ordination has it drawbacks. She noted that most religious leaders undergo extensive education and preparation in order to perform religious rites and ceremonies.
Individuals who become ordained online, she said, "have gone through a very different process."
"I'm not sure what the word 'ordained' means if you just punch a button. I don't know why you even bother," she said, adding that in every state in the country, a non-ordained individual can perform a marriage with legal permission.
Nonetheless, Cooper-Nelson acknowledged that the legitimacy and worth of a minister who has been ordained online depend on "what you think is occurring when someone's life is blessed, at the end of life, when they are partnering with someone for life, when a child is born," she said.
The legality of ULC ministers has been disputed. Two federal court cases as well as nine cases in five different states have attempted to challenge the church and its ministers. In Universal Life Church v. The United States of America and Universal Life Church v. the State of Utah, the rights of the church were upheld and the ability of ULC-ordained ministers to perform marriages was affirmed.
Bohl, who was raised Jewish but now calls himself a "die-hard atheist," said that becoming a minister was "a way to rebel against organized religion."
For Bonyhadi, who was raised by "liberal-hippie-Berkeley-Jewish parents," becoming a minister was not so much rebellious but reflective of his growing disenchantment with institutionalized religion, in particular its treatment of marriage.
"I'm not sure I appreciate marriage in its current establishment," he said, adding that he has not yet performed a marriage but has promised one of his friends that he would someday perform her ceremony.
"I think it's fun that we're getting to a time period where anyone can perform marriage," Curry-Broadbent said.
In an age in which both religious groups and legal bodies are struggling to define what marriage means, all three said the concept of friends and family performing marriages appealed to them.
Bonyhadi said certain groups may feel "marginalized" by mainstream religious institutions and so are drawn to alternative religious sects like the ULC, whose ministers do not represent a single set of religious ideologies or practices.
"It's nice to have the opportunity to say, 'Look, I can do something for my friends that not everybody can do,' " he said, adding that the religion is "so open and so tolerant" that a ULC service can take nearly any form, depending on the convictions of the minister and the wishes of the clients.
Cooper-Nelson said issues of exclusion and marginalization are "important ideas" that religious leaders do "attempt, in our work, to respond to."
For Curry-Broadbent, his ordination has also provided him with a more personal sense of spiritual identity.
"I think it can be kind of internally empowering," he said. "In a sense it could be spiritually empowering."
And though none of these students has performed a marriage or a baptism, Bonyhadi said they are challenging perceptions about religion and forcing others to confront how they define religiosity.
"It keeps people on their toes ... about what a religious leader looks like, what a religious leader acts like," he said.
