Seminary Program

This is where we post the essays from many of our Universal Life Church Seminary students. When students finish a ULC course, they write a comprehensive essay about their experiences with the course, what they learned, didn't learn, were inspired by, etc. Here are their essays.

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Defining Spiritualism

Spiritualism
By: Rev. Cynthia Ewing

When I started receiving the lessons for this class I felt that it was a nice change. All the other classes I was taking were all on inner work. This one focused more on the definitions and how everything fits together. It goes into the philosophy and how religions came into being. It also gives ideas on how I can help others to open themselves up to God and the Light.

I was surprised to read in the second lesson that science is a religion. I would have never even placed it in that category, but it does fit all the requirements. It provides guidance and morality; it attempts to explain the mysteries of the universe and life; and it performs miracles of healing. I spoke with a colleague at work and brought up this concept. She did not see it as a religion even after I brought up these points. My job however is not to convince, but just to plant the seed.

This course has helped give me new ways to reach people who are struggling with their faith. It offered information on how to handle questions from science minded people and reminds us that God is in everything. That size and time are not his limits but our own. I did deal with another lady at work that was having problems believing in a God. She saw too many bad things happening to the world and to the people in her life. She was trying to comfort me when she spoke of this so I just left it alone for the time being. I think it was also to let me know that there are people everywhere with these same problems. No one is alone.

In this course I learned how many of the great philosophers of all times helped to define spiritualism. Nietzsche with his statement that 'God is dead' helped lead existentialism towards further improvement. Socrates brought to the forefront the meaning of words. He showed that the meanings were not exact which leads to a misunderstanding of the concepts. Plato was another famous philosopher who thought that man's goal was to aspire to a perfect world. Finally, Aristotle solved the riddle about which came first the chicken or the egg. He believed that a thing's function represented its highest purpose so the chicken had to come first, otherwise how could the egg evolve into a chicken? It had nothing to aspire towards.

These lessons have helped me immensely. I have identified with a lot of the subject matter that was presented. The instructor spoke about how when one becomes ordained all the darkness in the world comes at your door. I have had to deal with this myself. I have helped beings cross over to the light, protected innocents from darkness and have reached out to many with my experiences. During all of this I have had help every step of the way from my guides and angels. I do hope people understand that with an ordination comes great responsibility. It is not to be taken lightly. Thank you for the experience. This was a wonderful class.


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The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive online seminary where we have classes in Christianity, Wicca, Paganism, two courses in Metaphysics and much more. I have been a proud member of the ULC for many years and the Seminary since its inception.

The Universal Life Church offers handfasting ceremonies, funeral ceremonies and free minister training.

As a long time member of ULC, Rev. Long created the seminary site to help train our ministers. We also have a huge selection of Universal Life Church  minister supplies. Since being ordained with the Universal Life Church for so many years and it's Seminary since the beginning, I've watch the huge change and growth that has continued to happen.



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