Below is a letter we received showing exactly why we founded this Seminary thirty years ago — to give people in need of spiritual services alternatives to mainstream clergy who tell them NO, we will NOT help you, you are not our denomination or, you are breaking our “rules”. Too many mainstream places of worship turn people away who are desperate for spiritual guidance, counseling or just basic spiritual services such as weddings & funerals.

Dear Seminary:
When my wife and I decided to marry we looked to have a ceremony outside of a Roman Catholic Church. This was not a decision we took lightly… Despite our efforts to have a Catholic Priest perform the wedding ceremony we were forced to look elsewhere. Both my wife’s and my families have several life long family friends who also happened to be priests, one of which has known me since birth, gave me my First Communion and performed my sister’s wedding. We approached each of them. In each case we were told they could not do it. Out of a fear of repercussions from the hierarchy of the church for performing a wedding ceremony outside an actual church. A very disturbing realization. Two adults reaching out for help were turned away for no other reason than the location of a ceremony and the fear of those being asked to perform it. My wife and I went on to meet with and hire an Interfaith Minister. Despite only meeting with us a handful of times she did an amazing job with our ceremony. Many of our guests commented on how personal and filled with love the ceremony was.

We have been recommending to all our ordained ministers the Interfaith Minister Manual by Angela Plum for decades. But it is harder to get lately, so I ordered these to see if I like ’em:

1. The Interfaith Worship Manual by Rev. Stephanie Rutt. This manual includes a wide variety of interfaith worship services from Reverend Stephanie Rutt’s extensive repertoire. They span many faith traditions and cover musings on inspiring individuals as well as major holiday celebrations. Also included are guidelines for creating sacred spaces and for developing and facilitating meaningful interfaith worship experiences.

2. The Interfaith Prayer Book “…immensely popular for use both at interfaith gatherings and for personal reflection, having found its way into hospitals, motel rooms and college classrooms as well as places of worship all around the world. A selection of prayers from six religious traditions; Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Bahá’í. This Expanded Edition adds prayers from eight additional traditions; Native African, Native American, Zoroastrian, Taoist, Confucian, Shinto, Jain and Sikh.

3. The Interfaith Alternative: Embracing Spiritual Diversity  “Whatever your spiritual path, chances are that the primary tenets of your faith include universal love, acceptance, and compassion. Yet three thousand years after Moses, twenty-five hundred years after the Buddha, two thousand years after Jesus, and fifteen hundred years after Muhammad, we are still divided by our differences. Religious intolerance, discrimination, even persecution and violence make up the not-so-golden rule.

The Interfaith Alternative shows us how we can celebrate each other without fear of losing our own identity. It illuminates the path to creating a nurturing spiritual community that honors and includes all religious languages.”

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4. I am about to order this book because although it is not a minister manual, it looks to be an excellent resource, How to Be a Perfect Stranger: The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook

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We encourage all our ordained clergy to share any ceremonies they have created.

If you are not yet ordained, and have heard the Call to become ordained, we would be glad to have you in our interfaith, multi-faith community of clergy. Read the easy steps to ordination. This is not an online ordination, but distance ordination and we have been ordaining clergy of all faiths since 1987.

Rev. Dr. Leonel Hinkert, who received his Ph.D. in Religion and Ph.D. in Metaphysics degree from our online Seminary, posted the following to the Seminary’s Facebook page today. I’ve always enjoyed the study of Pythagoras. When he comes up in live classes, I like to pronounce his name the French and Greek way “Pee-tag-or-ROSS”.  That pronounciation better matches the spelling Pitagoras used below. He is one of the great founders of Greek philosophy, and one of the first to be called “doctor”, a word meaning teacher. Without him, we would not have any such thing as the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in our civilization. It is something for our alumni to think about. If you hold a PhD degree in whatever discipline, you are a Doctor aka “Teacher” of some kind of Philosophy.

Leonel Hinkert PH D

THE GOLDEN VERSES OF PITAGORAS
Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher and scientist, the legendary founder of the Pythagorean society of initiation. He was a man whose mind has been a basis of mathematics, and geometry.

Pythagoras lived on Earth about 570-500 years BC, He was known as a Greek philosopher and mathematician. He was a strict vegetarian.

Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos in the Aegean Sea. His birth was predicted by a prophet, through which God told his parents about the birth of this boy who would grow and become famous for his wisdom, beauty and great deeds.

From childhood, Pythagoras had interest and skills for philosophy and other sciences. He learns music and painting, and the sciences of medicine, biology, astronomy, mathematics, learned from famous scholars of that time.

At a matured age, Pythagoras founded His spiritual School in the city of Croton. Concerning the work in this school we know the stories told by several great students, who also they had succeeded, with the help of Pythagoras, to the Divine, the Union with the Creator.

The goal of the Brotherhood was the moral renewal of society and purification of religious ideas, and the delivery of confidential methods of spiritual development to deserving students.

The Brotherhood was a monastic community consisting of both men and women who regarded Pythagoras as an incarnation of God. The activity of this great School ended due to the savage repression of primitive people.
Pythagoras wrote works on philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and music. In particular, he already knew about the phericity of the earth, within which is the Central Fire. He also taught about the immortality of the soul and its gradual development during incarnations.

Now we know the literary translation of the ancient text “The Golden Verses of Pythagoras” which was written to be studied by the neophyte students of his school.

PREPARATION
Performs to the immortal gods the consecrated worship and keep your faith. Reverence the memory our heroes, benefactors, the spirits of the demigods.

PURIFICATION
Respect your mother and father, and also your neighbors.
Choose for yourself a truly wise friend, listen to his advice and follow his example, do not quarrel with him for petty reasons.
Remember the law of cause and effect in your life.
It is given to you the opportunity to overcome your passions. So, repress yourself with great effort of greed, laziness, sexual passions and unreasonable anger!
Whether you’re alone or with people, be afraid of doing something wrong. Save your honor!
Be always just in your words and actions; follow the dictates of reason and law.
Do not forget that the inevitable fate leads everyone to death.
Remember that earthly goods are easily given to people, and in the same way, are easily removed.

As for the misfortunes that come to people according to their fate, you must endure them patiently. But strive to relieve pain as possible. And remember that the Immortal Gods do not give people tests that are beyond their strength.

People have many possibilities to choose between them, good and bad. So you have to look carefully and choose the path worthy to oneself.
If there is a prevailing misconception among people about the truth, the wise steps aside and waits until the truth prevails again.
Listen carefully to what I say, and keep it in memory:
Do not be troubled by the acts and thoughts of others; do not induce harmful words and deeds!

Listen to the advice of others and deliberate yourself! For, only a fool acts without thinking ahead!
Do only what you do not then add in affliction and cause no pangs of conscience.

Dare not to start to work immediately if you do not know how to do, but learn first, only then will you achieve success!
You must not exhaust your body, unlike it comes to giving food, drink and exercise with measure for strengthening without knowing the excesses and laziness.

Keep, if possible, order in your life. Check out the luxury of everything! Well, it provokes envy in others.
Be afraid of being greedy!
Have fear also to squander goods like careless people do.
Do only that whereby you do not ruin yourself now or in the future! Premeditate therefore, before every step and act.

PERFECTION
Let not reach to your tired eyes the dream, before your remember your deeds three times a day. Consider them as an impartial judge, asking yourself, “What good have I done? What I fail to do that should be fulfilled? “So, check by everything you’ve done during the day. Severely Repróchate yourself for everything that was wrong! And rejoice for the good you have done and successes!

Use this instruction, reflect on it and tries to always to follow it! Well, you can approach to Perfection! And that is the guarantor of this truth. He who hath placed in us the garment of the Divine Essence and the supreme virtue!

By putting hands to the work, go first to the gods, with the earnest request so that with His help you can finish the work!
And when thou shall be in this way, you’ll know all about the Immortal Gods and also about people, about the difference between them, about him that contains them in Himself, being its Foundation, and also know that the entire universe is One and the Eternal One which there is no dead substance.

By knowing this, you will not go wrong again, because all will be revealed to you!
You will know also that people themselves provoke misfortune for themselves because of their ignorance! And you know that they freely choose their destinies!
Woe to them! In their mad blindness they do not see the desired happiness is in its own depth!

There are very few among us who can throw through their own efforts the trouble out of themselves, as most people are blind to the law of the formation of their destinies! Like wheels they descend from the mountains, carrying the burden of the damage they have done and past fights, charges that controls their destinies until death.
Instead of looking for a fight, people should, where possible, to avoid it, give up uncontested.

O almighty Zeus, just you have the power to deliver those born of afflictions, showing to them the veil of ignorance that blinds their eyes?
However, there is hope for the salvation of the people of this darkness, as each human has a Divine Root, and nature is ready to reveal to him the mysteries of existence.

If you also penetrate in these, you will realize what I am preaching to you! So, heals the soul! This will reveal the path to liberation!
And abstain from eating meat: it’s against your nature and will prevent your purification!

So if you want to get rid of earthly fetters, follow this higher understanding given to you! Let this governed your destiny!
And after completely transform the soul; you can become an Immortal God who will crush with his foot the death!