The story of the church that ordains you with a few clicks online

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Many of us have been to a wedding where the person performing the ceremony was ordained online. In fact, some of us were ordained online ourselves. The Knot hosts wedding websites for couples and surveyed people who got married in the last year. More than half reported skipping the pastor or justice of the peace, opting to have a friend or family member officiate instead. The Universal Life Church has become synonymous with the one-click ordination that makes so many of these ceremonies possible. Deena Prichep has the story.

DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: When Sarah Hartung (ph) was asked to officiate a dear friend's wedding in Portland, Ore., it made sense.

SARAH HARTUNG: In a time where people are less and less and less connected to religious communities - that we would want our friends to be officiating our weddings. Like, our relationships feel like our anchors.

PRICHEP: Unfortunately, just having an anchoring relationship doesn't qualify you to perform a legally binding wedding - but the internet does.

HARTUNG: I'm clicking on become an officiant.

PRICHEP: Hartung enters her name and email, picks a password, and that's it.

HARTUNG: All right. It says, you are ordained.

PRICHEP: Hartung is now a minister of the Universal Life Church.

DUSTY HOESLY: They've ordained, you know, at minimum, 20 million people.

PRICHEP: Dusty Hoesly teaches religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and studies the Universal Life Church. There are now several online ordination sites. But Hoesly says none report numbers anywhere close to the Universal Life Church. And this all started just over 60 years ago.

HOESLY: The Universal Life Church was founded by Kirby Hensley, and he was an itinerant minister. He was illiterate as well. He had a very folksy style.

PRICHEP: Hensley called himself a Christian and preached from the Bible. But Hoesly says he would often shock congregations, sometimes to make a theological point, sometimes just to get people's attention.

HOESLY: He would say things, you know, Jesus Christ was the devil, you know? - and then tell people why they're worshipping Jesus in the wrong way.

PRICHEP: Unsurprisingly, Hensley kept getting kicked out of churches, so he founded his own religion. From the beginning, the Universal Life Church didn't really promote a particular theology. Their only official belief was basically do the right thing, and they wanted to disrupt what it meant to be clergy. Kirby Hensley took out ads and magazines for anyone to get ordained and put out an album to spread the word.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

KIRBY HENSLEY: You don't have to give up your church organization. You don't have to answer one question.

PRICHEP: This is from a Universal Life Church recording called "Holy Smoke Here Comes Hensley!"

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HENSLEY: And all you have to do is just give me your name and an address so I can make it legal.

PRICHEP: Hensley's actual physical congregation in Modesto, Calif., never really got that big, but the ordinations took off. And with the internet, it only got easier. Sojourner Judson is a wedding planner in New York who's seen the rise in internet-ordained officiants.

SOJOURNER JUDSON: When we first started, like, it would be 2010, we would call county clerks' offices, and they would be like, what? They want to do what?

PRICHEP: There have been some court cases holding that the Universal Life church doesn't meet the definition of a religious institution when it comes to marriage law. And legal scholars say, in a few states, getting married this way could be challenged. But generally, they say, it's pretty accepted. Sojourner Judson says now about half of her couples have a friend or family member officiate.

JUDSON: So it's just so common at this point.

PRICHEP: Conan O'Brien has officiated, Joan Rivers. And the wedding of Jim Obergefell and John Arthur, which went up to the Supreme Court in the case that legalized same-sex marriage, was performed by an aunt who got ordained through the Universal Life Church. The Cincinnati Inquirer recorded the ceremony.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED OFFICIANT: I now pronounce you husband and husband, forever intertwined partners. May love and goodwill be with you forever. Let us all rejoice.

PRICHEP: Both wedding planners and religion scholars say this is not just a loophole or passing trend. It's become a real part of how Americans get married, in ceremonies that are as diverse as this country - spiritual, secular and their own kind of sacred.

For NPR News, I'm Deena Prichep.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC TUCKER SONG, "FWM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.