minister two
November 26, 2007
Image by Mon Solo via Flickr
The story so far: In an effort to gain some respectability, your correspondent has been ordained into the Universal Ministries of Milford, Illinois, USA, and the Universal Life Church of Modesto, California. They don’t seem to mind that I’m not American, and have confirmed my ministry and sent me two handy-dandy certificates. But will the Belgian authorities be as open-minded? Read on …
Articles 19 and 20 of the Belgian Constitution guarantee freedom of religion and the independence of the churches from the State. All well and good, and no more than you’d expect from any half-decent constitution.
However, there’s the small matter of bureaucracy to sort out, and if you’ve been in Belgium for any time, I don’t have to spell that out to you. Religions, you see, require legal recognition to be accepted as religions. I don’t know if it worries you, but it worries me that the laws governing religion are the province of the Justice Minister, just like jails, criminals, gangs and the like.
The upshot is that only six religions are currently recognised in Belgium: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, “Israelite”(their word, not mine), Islam and Orthodoxy.
So what shall it profit a man if he went to all the trouble of paying for his ordination certificates (I chose the fancy version, because you only get ordained once in a lifetime, or perhaps twice) his clergy ID card and badge, but they’re no use to him? Here I am, still wet behind the ears, the ink on my Masters of Divinity (only $20 via Internet: I thought the Doctorate a little showy) barely dry, and already I’m being victimised by the secular state. I feel a little like William Tyndale, who was hanged outside Antwerp in fourteen-something or thereabouts.
Freedom of religion in Belgium, it seems, really means freedom of half a dozen religions they approve of. Belgian law has a Henry Ford attitude to liberty: any colour you like, as long as it’s black. I signed up for ordination as an Evangelical Confrontationalist, because it has a ring to it, and hopefully wouldn’t tread on the toes of any established denomination. I suppose, technically, that makes me a protestant, but it doesn’t make me a Protestant. Those boring old Christians have that category locked up.
I could, to keep myself straight with the Powers That Be, set up as an asbl — a non-profit organisation of “social utility” that sounds like something Stalin thought up. Needless to say, there’s a ream of paperwork to be filled in and fees to pay. I’m not terribly keen on the non-profit aspects, either, to be frank. I had intended to just declare myself, with a jaunty “Come with me and I will make you fishers of Belges” and then go about saving souls while maintaining a little business on the side — just to keep body and soul together, you understand, like the Knights of Saint John of Malta, or the Templars, say.
I’ll leave the mortification of the flesh to the more extreme adherents of monastic Christianity, thanks all the same. I’m willing to believe God sees the fall of the smallest sparrow, but where is he when the time comes round to pay the cable company, the Internet company, the phone bill and the electric? The lilies of the field toil not, neither do they spin, okay, but then they also haven’t had the builders in, have they?
So I’m afraid I’m going to have to go it alone. I’ll simply set myself up as a minister, render bugger-all unto Caesar, and hope for the best. I’m ordering a pack of marriage certificates, Renewal of Vows certificates, Affirmation of Love Certificates and even Handfasting certificates. That’s a sort of pagan wedding, I’m told, which sound as a bit scary, frankly, but could be a profitable line in these Godless times. I’d like you all to form an orderly line.
I’ve also ordered a gross of Absolution of Sin Certificates, which sounds as close to a Get Out of Jail Free card as you’ll find, and I’m planning to hand them out to the coppers who come to feel my dog-collar. I feel sure they could use them. If that doesn’t work, the next time you hear from me I’ll be in prison for my beliefs. Look up the number of Amnesty International now, and have it ready when the time comes.
