Rev Dr Burnt Swamp

Any Suspects? If captured, we could find out what ill beliefs or motives the culprits have. Sounds like a good place for a remote camera "setup" for positive purposes...

Greetings, I realize MDTaylor addressed this long-form 9 years ago in the legal section, but the time has flown by and I hope by now some of the obstructions have been corrected after all this time. I chose the general forum because there are too many categories for all of them to be looked at frequently, and this one's the most active. My research shows that Suffolk County came up years ago in a divorce case, where some creative lawyer claimed the validity of the original marriage was void because a ULC minister had officiated at the wedding. Has anyone out there performed a recent wedding in Suffolk County, Long Island, NY?---and if so, without challenge? I simply want to assure the ceremony has full unquestioned recognition. I may have to contact directly the county or town gov'ts involved. Has any ULC minister out there had any experience in this geographical area; any suggestions, guidance, experiences, etc.? Thanks! -Rev Dr Burnt Swamp

Not to worry, brother JohnG. No big deal but I wish we could edit our OWN comments without the brief time limitation. I really appreciated that you let me know you enjoyed my youthful encounter with our founder. I'm a Northeast US member. It seems to me someone in the Cali' area near ulchq should bless us with a good archive of all periodicals [old ULC newspapers] of the 1st ~30 years, and archive all known audio/video footage of Kirby J. and ULC events. It's family run, probably on limited resources, and they won't document their history like, for example, Disney Productions. There are surely statements and articles that the church would not be able to endorse today for good legal, technical, political, philosophical and obsolescence reasons, but a disclaimer could be added. I think it's a fascinating history and the few ;=( newspapers I have left really bring out the love & enthusiasm of the membership and the charisma and ingenious charm of Kirby. They even had Woodstock-type events back in the height of popularity. Always attached was the feeling of fun and joy; never a cult, but a celebration, and understanding, of our first amendment FREEDOM. And there may be few surviving clips of Rev Bishop Hensley; one is known to exist on 60 minutes- and there should be a concerted effort to aggregate all these. Only an insider could do it. Now that I'm retiring from heavy industry, I'd do it; I'd digitize everything into a marketable package, but first they'd have to loan me everything for preservation, and this would be most practical with a local longtime inside church associate from right there in central California. I know that the bookstore and the seminary are the only outlets hq really needs and though they offer a wide diverse selection of items, some unusual, some too expensive for certain customers, these 2 authorized representatives and the best possible public face of the church in the web era. Personally, the ministry package deals are your best value, and you often find samples within, of the items you might want to order more of. -universal peace & love, burnt

-quote- "ULC Seminary is a strange site with overpriced items/courses, etc." - unquote WHOA! I started to "quote" the above and then politely disagree, when a distraction came up. When I returned to the computer, my edit time expired! Here is what I meant, Rev John G, I respectfully disagree about the seminary. I have no connection to them except I think I have their wedding guidebook. To me, things like Scientology and The Midwest Center are hard-sell, high profit, high consumer-complaint organizations. The seminary is making a living, but it's an honest one. If all organizations had the ethics of the seminary, we'd be at a much higher level. They are a textbook example of the ULC's do-it-yourself inspiration, and maybe the best one. ignore that 4:49 post!

ULC Seminary is a strange site with overpriced items/courses, etc.

Disclaimer: the following are personal views rather than anyone's "official views". We are in agreement, Moderator Dorian/Murph. The "irritating thing" is the Monastery, the "network", the Other World Headquarters...claim sole legitimacy and then unnecessarily and falsely smear the original 1959-1962 Church. According to this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AUniversal_Life_Church/ and (ditto), followed by Archive_1,2 & 3, everybody involved in these controversies has a rap sheet a mile long. The discussion wore out some of Wikipedia's editors so bad, they retired. The historical Kirby--At age 18, a friend of mine got a chance to use a long distance telephone account, when it used to be expensive. He said, "let's call the White House & ask for Nixon and tell him to get us the hell out of Vietnam and give him a piece of our minds about changing some unjust laws!" So we did. There were no answering machines or caller IDs back then. A real person answered the phone. She said he can't come to the phone right now. So I said, I got a ULC newspaper; let's call THIS number! And Kirby dropped whatever he was doing and talked to us for over an hour. He was the real deal, generous, earthy, sensible- a real American original. Man, he was as sick of organized religion as I was, and nicer than most "religious" people. He was all about freedom. He was gracious, kind and fascinating to young, interested people, in my experience. I loved him for saying the Bible will hold you back. Just that statement's worth a donation, right there. It was OK for him to smoke cigars & drink whiskey. He emphasized helping others & not harming anybody. He really was one of the coolest Americans. I told Andre this story about 7 years ago when I wrote for a letter of good standing, required in my state. And I gave hq a donation for all those years of free service. I didn't know Kirby supported Jim Jones, but that's consistent with his workin' the 1st Amendment. - before Jones hurt anyone. As retired big-time California politician Willie Brown said, "If we knew then he was mad, clearly we wouldn't have appeared with him." I'd been working so much that I didn't get a regular chance to keep up on the various ULC splits. Things degenerated since I last checked. I knew the monastery's problems but didn't know they now got their own breakaways that are even sleazier than they are. I think it is wise for hq to just have ulc.net and the seminary, 2 unfailingly ethical outlets. My (*personal only*) observations are Zimmerman may have been Kirby's right hand man for a while, but before he was fired by the star wars wack job, he was definitely unstable. A more interesting associate of KJH was the late Lewis Ashmore. In conclusion, it is very sad and disappointing to note the level of ethics in the Seattle and Florida "ULCs" and their hostility to the founding church, and their deceptiveness. But it's about right for hq to stick with who we got, especially if they can't do their own website. There is one thing regrettable to me. If you wanna call me a geezer for my interest in history, fine. That one thing is there's no known archive of all the 1960s and 1970s ULC newspapers like I used to get in the mail - Kirby's presidential campaigns (very progressive), and all the wild and fun ads & everything in there. I still have a couple, but I foolishly gave several away to try to spread the word of freedom. I said I wanted them back but I got ripped off. I think I still have one that says, "We just invented our own flag!" The diversity of thought would never bother old Kirby. I do think he'd be as disappointed as me with the low level of sleaze that some people taken his vision of freedom down to. Thank you for reading, if you got this far!

Thank you, brother! I am glad I found a real bug rather than a deficiency on my part. For that matter, I don't mind being corrected, in any case. As far as the honorifics and addressing a rev. by title, I searched a little but couldn't find it offhand; what I've read somewhere before...I think it may have been on some ULC site or forum long ago: My protocol is Rev. [name], D.D. <OR> Rev. Dr. [name], without "D.D". So I believe it would be standard to use either, but not both, "Dr." or D.D., one at a time. But not Dr. and D.D. together. Works for me. Thanks again! ps - love your little political tag line. nice to see a good one-liner I haven't heard before. "My wife dresses to kill. She cooks like it, too." "A hooker told me 'I'll do anything you want for a hundred dollars'. I said, 'Paint my house!' " -Henny Youngman (both quotes)

Thanks for enlightening me. Regarding court action by that 's been mentioned by Andre and Amy, they've referred to what it would take is between the monastery and the original owner of ulc.org, Br Zimmerman. Zimmerman's former authorized site had a lot of very strange rambling writings on it but at least he sent for creds at the real hq. So it is the "hostile takeover" involving Seattle & Tucson that seems permanently unresolved unless litigated. I suspect Zimmerman is quite elderly now, if living, and probably not in the best of health, physically or financially, and some of the old online AZ papers have references to him having various legal problems on public record. As far as hq itself (Andre, etc.) having options, it is ashame they can't take action on intent, that is, the deliberate intent by the "Christians" to deceive consumers AND do so while defaming the real hq. Anything they do unethically could wrongly smear the real hq by making it look like the Florida guys are hq, which they're not. Historically, Dan Zimmerman & Kirby seemed to have attended a lot of court actions in the formative growth of the ULC, and won many, such as the 1974 recognition that allows us to legally use our doctor titles. I hope the current President & board would get some hot lawyers along the lines of the defamatory deception issue. It's a provable fact that there's only one world headquarters, and the fake one doesn't need to copy the exact name or to electronically publish provably false claims of illegitimacy against the authorized, established ministries like this one, which provide ministry products through hq, as well as their own products. I go all the way back to the May 1969 week when both Time and Newsweek magazines featured ULC. The present day equivalent is, going viral online. The church has been attacked from the beginning, but one of the correct court rulings early on was that the 1st amendment is just as applicable for recently-established religious organizations as it is for ancient religions. Let me apologize for bringing up a repeat subject, but the permanent, easy-to-access summary on the locked topic didn't have the additions I contributed so they could all be together in the same place. That was my objective. It's outrageous, the abuses that some people insist on using the name ULC for.

SInce the topic is locked, please allow me to paste in the following quote, and then further update it. **Please scroll to the bottom for the updates so as to keep the integrity of the quotation unchanged** THIS IS A PERSONAL MESSAGE WHICH MAY NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THIS WEBSITE --QUOTE-- Posted 03 December 2011 - 10:14 AM OK, Andre just sent his permission, so here it is in it's entirety....... Sent by me- Sir, I am ordained through ULC and am writing for some clarification. When I Google ULC, I receive several options, all claiming to be THE ULC. I would like you to review the following list of sites and advise me which sites are affiliated with your organization. (NOTE- I have not included the questioned listings here in this post as they are all listed in Andre's answer.) Andre's answer- Robert, I hope this will answer your questions. The www.ulchq.com is our official site here in Modesto CA for the Universal Life Church Inc. International Headquarters. The www.ulc.net is our authorized site operated a minister of our church Pastor Kevin Andrews. It has been our authorized site for over 10 years. The site www.ulchq.org is not affiliated with our church. The Monastery owns that domain name along with about 200 other domains with similar names to other churches intended to confuse people. The site www.ulcseminary.org is one by a minister of our church Rev. Amy Long for her ministry. The site www.universalministries.com is a separate organization in Milford IL operated by Rev. Doug Hickman. He was a minister of our church and then created this organization. For a while he was sending us ministers to be ordained in both churches until he decided to separate from us. The site www.spiritualhumanism.org states it is in Pennsylvania. I am not sure who operates that site. I do know that they stated they have purchased the Progressive Universal Life Church (PULC) domain name, but they do not have the records from them. We are the ULC Headquarters here in Modesto CA. We are the original Church and our official website is www.ulchq.com. The only other ULC Headquarters authorized site is www.ulc.net and operated by Pastor Kevin Andrews in Folsom CA. The ULC Seminary is a site that is operated by a minister of our church for her ministry. It is not an official ULC Headquarters site, but a known site and we do have a good working relationship. She offers to accept and forward to us ordination requests on her site to be ordained by our church. The only ULC Headquarters item that she offers on her site is to order an original Ministers certificate from us for those that request it. All of the other items are from her. The former ulc.org site was started in 1995 by one of our ministers Brother Dan Zimmerman for his congregation called Universal Life Church/ULC Monastery, Inc. in Tucson AZ. He requested to be authorized to accept and forward to us ordination requests received on his site to be ordained by our church. We granted that authorization. In 2005 he asked one of his members to assist with operating part of the site from Seattle WA. In 2006 they had an internal management dispute that will take court legal action to resolve. So Brother Dan did the responsible thing and closed the ulc.org site on 08/01/06. At that time our authorization to them was revoked. Since then the part in Seattle has done a "hostile takeover" of the ulc.org site and changed it to be themonastery.org and are calling themselves Universal Life Church Monastery Storehouse, Inc. They are a separate organization that is NOT AFFILIATED WITH US. They imply that they are in order to confuse people into ordering from them. They have only been in existence since 09/06 and they are back dating credentials to years before they even started. Plus the ministers are receiving incorrect certificates from a church that they were not even ordained by. If we can be of further assistance please let us know. Thank you, Andre Hensley --END QUOTE-- Now I wish to add to, rather than rewrite, the above information. I have been ordained since the late 60s, at a young age, before the digital era, by the only ULC at the time - under the auspices of the original founder, the beloved Rev/Bishop/Dr Kirby J. Hensley. It is sad to see hucksterism and dishonesty cashing in on, and DELIBERATELY DECEIVING the public through modern internet media. The above message is accurate but unfortunately there's even more to add. The original, genuine, ONLY REAL world headquarters, in Modesto is ulchq.com. **NOT "ulcworldhq.com". Note the addition of the word "world" in the web address. This bogus "Christian branch" calls itself Universal Life Church World Headquarters "in Carrabelle, FL and Milwaukee, WI". The counterfeit hq is also using ulcnetwork.com and ulcministersnetwork.com. Who knows how many other fake domains are out there? The reason this in particular deserves mention is the terrible slanderous attacks made by these creepy-looking "Christians" against the scrupulously honest and ethical bookstore here, the absolutely above-board and professional seminary (please see "Who is the Original Universal Life Church" on youtube, which is helpful but not as specific as this post) and of course, the real hq itself. This is so terribly unethical to find a deceptive duplicate falsely attacking the honest outlets of the ULC that I had to say something. I remember the joy of speaking to Rev K J Hensley on the phone in the early 1970s and found him to be a true social genius, a down-to-earth, beautiful person who sincerely wanted to advance human freedom, justice & love, and while I have breath I will not let these attacks go unanswered if I am aware of them. If the "christian ULC of FL & WI" wishes to conduct business ethically, all they need to do is to stop trying to deceptively look like the actual ULC hq, rename themselves, disclaim implied connections to the ULC headquarters and to delete their scurrilous false attacks on our legitimate brothers and sisters. Also worth noting is the webpage which I seen linked by some of this site's web gurus, http://www.universal-life-church-online.com/ whose truthfulness I can vouch for. For years, we have seen the real hq and others say that the hijacking of ulc.org and the hostile Seattle takeover will need court action if it is ever to be resolved. ***Has there ever been any such action?*** This sad state of affairs is getting long in the tooth. PS What the heck does PINNED mean? Is it the same thing as 'locked'?

I tried to add Dr after Rev in my display name. The profile software won't perform this. When I try to save it, i get this: "The name can only contain these characters: a-zA-A0-9." That ain't right I don't know if anyone can fix this, but would appreciate it.

Dear Fellow Ministers, I had the good fortune to find out about the ULC before there was an internet because they were in both TIME & NEWSWEEK in May 1969. I requested my ordination by snail mail - that's all there was in the stone age - and so far, I'm still here. As I've said before, I wish somebody had the archives and the resources to put all the old ULC newspapers on a DVD for historical reference, because they showed the power, energy and charm of a slightly younger Hensley family that really drove this church into world domination. (I gave most of my 1970s newsletters away to spread the cause). Kirby J. Hensley and the INDISPENSABLE support of his wife, the late Lida G. Hensley, and their children, enhanced freedom for all. The bottom line: Kirby J. Hensley **REALLY WAS RIGHT!!!*** I already sent this message to ulchq and thought I should share it over here. Thank you to the administrators who kept me informed of these developments by email. Dear friends at headquarters, I offer my sincere condolences to the Hensleys and the church HQ over the loss of our president Lida G. Hensley. Kirby and Lida Hensley did nothing less than *expand* the first amendment rights and freedoms of us all, and influenced the entire planet as well. It would be hard for anyone to live up to the genius and hard work of the ULC's founding couple, while remaining as humble and beautiful as they were. The only way to fully honor Ms Hensley is to keep the ULC alive into the future - just like she did late in life as a widow; she rose to the occasion. Good thing she has lots of decendents, because I hope they can continue the basic vision that everyday folk are all ministers, and no particular minister is higher than the next one. We're all a part of one group - like it or not - and we're all with you today. Love, Burnt Swamp Ministry Box 197 Sheldonville, MA 02070